Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
The question is (and has always been), can we attract a better manager than Nathan Jones? I would say that we probably can’t. Even more so when we’ve started building a team he wants. It would have been a bad decision to sack him before but it would be a disaster to lose him now
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
The question is (and has always been), can we attract a better manager than Nathan Jones? I would say that we probably can’t. Even more so when we’ve started building a team he wants. It would have been a bad decision to sack him before but it would be a disaster to lose him now
Mate calm yourself. We’ve managed 4 acceptable performances. And personally I wasn’t impressed by the Cambridge one. The overall picture is still that we’ve had a really poor season, are miles off the plays off in current and projected points, and in league position, and have a squad heavily populated by Jones-recruited duds.
He is on no more than a 5/10 for this season so far (I would rate lower) , let’s hope he’s about to elevate that drastically and take us flying up the table with this new approach (enforced on him?) - but let’s not pretend he’s the proclaimed second coming.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
If we go up this season I'm going to bump the Crawley home post match thread. That'll embarrass a few.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
If we go up this season I'm going to bump the Crawley home post match thread. That'll embarrass a few.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
If we go up this season I'm going to bump the Crawley home post match thread. That'll embarrass a few.
Not if I do it first! **** I am sure you will. Please do not think our view will be from the same angle.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
But then to be fair mate, you could argue was NJ unlucky to lose LJ and he has also never really had a fit Miles Leaburn where other managers in the past have, who we have been comparing NJ to. That coupled in with our player of the season so far in Ramsay, being out for a large chunk of the season, who is absolutely paramount to the way Jones likes to set up a team (strong full backs)? Just before that, he also lost Josh Edward’s to bad injury.
I am not defending the way he has come out shooting from the hip at the fans. That being said, I hope we can put it behind us now anyway because we finally seem to have regained an identity and we look a very tough nut to crack!
It will be very interesting to see how far we have come in recent weeks when we take on PNE.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
But then to be fair mate, you could argue was NJ unlucky to lose LJ and he has also never really had a fit Miles Leaburn where other managers in the past have, who we have been comparing NJ to. That coupled in with our player of the season so far in Ramsay, being out for a large chunk of the season, who is absolutely paramount to the way Jones likes to set up a team (strong full backs)? Just before that, he also lost Josh Edward’s to bad injury.
I am not defending the way he has come out shooting from the hip at the fans. That being said, I hope we can put it behind us now anyway because we finally seem to have regained an identity and we look a very tough nut to crack!
It will be very interesting to see how far we have come in recent weeks when we take on PNE.
I'm not sold on Jones. I think he got the summer transfer window wrong and massively gambled on a formation that left us without any wingers. Tactically he got the Birmingham game spot on but then preceeded on playing that same formation even when the games didn't suit it Exeter away being a prime example. We're on a nice little run now but at the end of the day all that matters is where we finish on May 3rd and as far as I'm concerned with our budget and the standard of the league this year if we're not in the top six he has failed.
Do I want him replaced? I wouldn't be sad to see him go but on the flip side it would be nice to go through a whole season with the same manager.
A few weeks ago I reached a point where I couldn't see how things would improve but they have improved. When things are improving, it seems to make sense to go with it and see where it takes you. I do look behind results and that is in terms of were we lucky or unlucky etc... I think overall our performances have been good enough to justify the results which is important in terms of sustainability. I was thinking Luton sacking their manager might be an opportunity, but now I see it as a potential problem. If Jones were to leave, I might put that down to him lacking confidence he has turned the corner though. He has said multiple times he is a builder, well if he is building something he needs to follow it through.
Anything other than promotion is a failure for Charlton in League One, but throughout our terrible run I've been of the opinion that if we could see clear building blocks and an attempt to play in a certain way, it would be a lot easier to accept a disappointing league position. There have been signs of that over the last 4 games and if we maintain this style of play for the rest of the season I think most people would be confident of our chances next year. I do think we've left ourselves a bit too much to do this season though.
Absolute nonsense, we have no god given right to success just like any other team in the world.
Wrexham, Birmingham, Bolton, Reading, Huddersfield could all equally say they are as big if not bigger than us as a club. Ultimately you finish where you belong.
Not sure how you could possibly take that from what I said. We don’t deserve promotion unless we earn it, but with our budget and the losses we make, staying in this league is a failure.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
Take Kermorgant and Wiggins out of Powell’s team and we wouldn’t have done as well. Same for Bowyer with Taylor and Cullen.
Unless you have Birmingham’s budget, your best players at this level will never have a replacement of similar quality ready to step in.
Last season he made us competitive again. He’s improved us defensively this season, and recently moved away from hoofball. It’s progress even if it’s not as quick as it could have been.
The next test for Jones and the ownership/SLT is how the squad comes out this window. If we add pace as alternatives to TC and Small, and sign an attacking midfielder we’ll be on the right track. All while continuing this improved style of play and results. Without those signings I don’t think it’s possible, we’re currently too reliant on TC and Small giving the pace we need out wide.
A few weeks ago I reached a point where I couldn't see how things would improve but they have improved. When things are improving, it seems to make sense to go with it and see where it takes you. I do look behind results and that is in terms of were we lucky or unlucky etc... I think overall our performances have been good enough to justify the results which is important in terms of sustainability. I was thinking Luton sacking their manager might be an opportunity, but now I see it as a potential problem. If Jones were to leave, I might put that down to him lacking confidence he has turned the corner though. He has said multiple times he is a builder, well if he is building something he needs to follow it through.
I'm not sure I want to see a builder follow through.
I think Jones did get it wrong over summer and whilst the focus on defensive solidity and energy/fitness was a good idea he went slightly too far in that direction at the expense of actual football skill.
On the other hand whether by accident or design (his own or another's) he seems to have course corrected and I think that we need to see if he can use this new opportunity to keep evolving in the current direction.
Certainly I don't think that there's many managers out there who would have gotten better performances over the past month or so. But of course it's the months leading up to that point that could still be our main problem.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
The question is (and has always been), can we attract a better manager than Nathan Jones? I would say that we probably can’t. Even more so when we’ve started building a team he wants. It would have been a bad decision to sack him before but it would be a disaster to lose him now
Mate calm yourself. We’ve managed 4 acceptable performances. And personally I wasn’t impressed by the Cambridge one. The overall picture is still that we’ve had a really poor season, are miles off the plays off in current and projected points, and in league position, and have a squad heavily populated by Jones-recruited duds.
He is on no more than a 5/10 for this season so far (I would rate lower) , let’s hope he’s about to elevate that drastically and take us flying up the table with this new approach (enforced on him?) - but let’s not pretend he’s the proclaimed second coming.
We’re 11th in league one.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think it would be a disaster if we lost him now. The squad is so very tailored to his way of playing and there's almost no-one else who sets up like he does. If he leaves tomorrow we need to get someone else in and we've already lost more than a week of the transfer window as it is. What do we do? Des Buckingham is unemployed but he often plays with wingers and we've barely got two of those so we'd have to rush out to get some in January while also completely overhauling the squad yet again to push out the big violent runners and bring in more technical players in a window that almost never represents value. Or we get someone in who plays more like Jones despite the fact it wasn't setting the league alight when Jones did it. Losing your manager mid-transfer window when he has a very particular and unusual set of demands for the players he wants is not a good thing. We sacked Appleton in this window last year and that's why we're now watching Jones trying to play with Gillesphey and REG in his squad because Scott and Apples decided we needed ball-playing centre halves. We'd have to decide if we're happy to completely write off this season and start planning the total rebuild in the summer with limited funds or we'd have to accept that for the foreseeable future we're playing aggressive, wingerless percentages football without the manager who has made a career of doing just that his way. I would not be excited about either of those concepts.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
The question is (and has always been), can we attract a better manager than Nathan Jones? I would say that we probably can’t. Even more so when we’ve started building a team he wants. It would have been a bad decision to sack him before but it would be a disaster to lose him now
Mate calm yourself. We’ve managed 4 acceptable performances. And personally I wasn’t impressed by the Cambridge one. The overall picture is still that we’ve had a really poor season, are miles off the plays off in current and projected points, and in league position, and have a squad heavily populated by Jones-recruited duds.
He is on no more than a 5/10 for this season so far (I would rate lower) , let’s hope he’s about to elevate that drastically and take us flying up the table with this new approach (enforced on him?) - but let’s not pretend he’s the proclaimed second coming.
We’re 11th in league one.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think it would be a disaster if we lost him now. The squad is so very tailored to his way of playing and there's almost no-one else who sets up like he does. If he leaves tomorrow we need to get someone else in and we've already lost more than a week of the transfer window as it is. What do we do? Des Buckingham is unemployed but he often plays with wingers and we've barely got two of those so we'd have to rush out to get some in January while also completely overhauling the squad yet again to push out the big violent runners and bring in more technical players in a window that almost never represents value. Or we get someone in who plays more like Jones despite the fact it wasn't setting the league alight when Jones did it. Losing your manager mid-transfer window when he has a very particular and unusual set of demands for the players he wants is not a good thing. We sacked Appleton in this window last year and that's why we're now watching Jones trying to play with Gillesphey and REG in his squad because Scott and Apples decided we needed ball-playing centre halves. We'd have to decide if we're happy to completely write off this season and start planning the total rebuild in the summer with limited funds or we'd have to accept that for the foreseeable future we're playing aggressive, wingerless percentages football without the manager who has made a career of doing just that his way. I would not be excited about either of those concepts.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
The question is (and has always been), can we attract a better manager than Nathan Jones? I would say that we probably can’t. Even more so when we’ve started building a team he wants. It would have been a bad decision to sack him before but it would be a disaster to lose him now
Mate calm yourself. We’ve managed 4 acceptable performances. And personally I wasn’t impressed by the Cambridge one. The overall picture is still that we’ve had a really poor season, are miles off the plays off in current and projected points, and in league position, and have a squad heavily populated by Jones-recruited duds.
He is on no more than a 5/10 for this season so far (I would rate lower) , let’s hope he’s about to elevate that drastically and take us flying up the table with this new approach (enforced on him?) - but let’s not pretend he’s the proclaimed second coming.
We’re 11th in league one.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think it would be a disaster if we lost him now. The squad is so very tailored to his way of playing and there's almost no-one else who sets up like he does. If he leaves tomorrow we need to get someone else in and we've already lost more than a week of the transfer window as it is. What do we do? Des Buckingham is unemployed but he often plays with wingers and we've barely got two of those so we'd have to rush out to get some in January while also completely overhauling the squad yet again to push out the big violent runners and bring in more technical players in a window that almost never represents value. Or we get someone in who plays more like Jones despite the fact it wasn't setting the league alight when Jones did it. Losing your manager mid-transfer window when he has a very particular and unusual set of demands for the players he wants is not a good thing. We sacked Appleton in this window last year and that's why we're now watching Jones trying to play with Gillesphey and REG in his squad because Scott and Apples decided we needed ball-playing centre halves. We'd have to decide if we're happy to completely write off this season and start planning the total rebuild in the summer with limited funds or we'd have to accept that for the foreseeable future we're playing aggressive, wingerless percentages football without the manager who has made a career of doing just that his way. I would not be excited about either of those concepts.
Disaster is well OTT.
I’d say guaranteeing another season in league 1 (tbf that’s likely anyway but this would properly rule out promotion) and more significantly making a lot of the work and progress made so far worthless and going back to square one (yet again!) is pretty disastrous
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
The question is (and has always been), can we attract a better manager than Nathan Jones? I would say that we probably can’t. Even more so when we’ve started building a team he wants. It would have been a bad decision to sack him before but it would be a disaster to lose him now
Mate calm yourself. We’ve managed 4 acceptable performances. And personally I wasn’t impressed by the Cambridge one. The overall picture is still that we’ve had a really poor season, are miles off the plays off in current and projected points, and in league position, and have a squad heavily populated by Jones-recruited duds.
He is on no more than a 5/10 for this season so far (I would rate lower) , let’s hope he’s about to elevate that drastically and take us flying up the table with this new approach (enforced on him?) - but let’s not pretend he’s the proclaimed second coming.
We’re 11th in league one.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think it would be a disaster if we lost him now. The squad is so very tailored to his way of playing and there's almost no-one else who sets up like he does. If he leaves tomorrow we need to get someone else in and we've already lost more than a week of the transfer window as it is. What do we do? Des Buckingham is unemployed but he often plays with wingers and we've barely got two of those so we'd have to rush out to get some in January while also completely overhauling the squad yet again to push out the big violent runners and bring in more technical players in a window that almost never represents value. Or we get someone in who plays more like Jones despite the fact it wasn't setting the league alight when Jones did it. Losing your manager mid-transfer window when he has a very particular and unusual set of demands for the players he wants is not a good thing. We sacked Appleton in this window last year and that's why we're now watching Jones trying to play with Gillesphey and REG in his squad because Scott and Apples decided we needed ball-playing centre halves. We'd have to decide if we're happy to completely write off this season and start planning the total rebuild in the summer with limited funds or we'd have to accept that for the foreseeable future we're playing aggressive, wingerless percentages football without the manager who has made a career of doing just that his way. I would not be excited about either of those concepts.
Disaster is well OTT.
I’d say guaranteeing another season in league 1 (tbf that’s likely anyway but this would properly rule out promotion) and more significantly making a lot of the work and progress made so far worthless and going back to square one (yet again!) is pretty disastrous
Not really, because you need to consider the likelihood of us going up anyway. We've got a slim chance of going up but it's unlikely*. Losing Jones is therefore unlikely to impact our status next season. You can't really say that a personnel change that is more likely than not to have no impact on final results is a disaster. BTW, losing Jones does not actually guarantee anything other than that Jones will be elsewhere.
*You can currently get 33/1 on us getting promoted. Compare this with genuine promotion contenders, Birmingham 1/33.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
The question is (and has always been), can we attract a better manager than Nathan Jones? I would say that we probably can’t. Even more so when we’ve started building a team he wants. It would have been a bad decision to sack him before but it would be a disaster to lose him now
Mate calm yourself. We’ve managed 4 acceptable performances. And personally I wasn’t impressed by the Cambridge one. The overall picture is still that we’ve had a really poor season, are miles off the plays off in current and projected points, and in league position, and have a squad heavily populated by Jones-recruited duds.
He is on no more than a 5/10 for this season so far (I would rate lower) , let’s hope he’s about to elevate that drastically and take us flying up the table with this new approach (enforced on him?) - but let’s not pretend he’s the proclaimed second coming.
We’re 11th in league one.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think it would be a disaster if we lost him now. The squad is so very tailored to his way of playing and there's almost no-one else who sets up like he does. If he leaves tomorrow we need to get someone else in and we've already lost more than a week of the transfer window as it is. What do we do? Des Buckingham is unemployed but he often plays with wingers and we've barely got two of those so we'd have to rush out to get some in January while also completely overhauling the squad yet again to push out the big violent runners and bring in more technical players in a window that almost never represents value. Or we get someone in who plays more like Jones despite the fact it wasn't setting the league alight when Jones did it. Losing your manager mid-transfer window when he has a very particular and unusual set of demands for the players he wants is not a good thing. We sacked Appleton in this window last year and that's why we're now watching Jones trying to play with Gillesphey and REG in his squad because Scott and Apples decided we needed ball-playing centre halves. We'd have to decide if we're happy to completely write off this season and start planning the total rebuild in the summer with limited funds or we'd have to accept that for the foreseeable future we're playing aggressive, wingerless percentages football without the manager who has made a career of doing just that his way. I would not be excited about either of those concepts.
Disaster is well OTT.
I’d say guaranteeing another season in league 1 (tbf that’s likely anyway but this would properly rule out promotion) and more significantly making a lot of the work and progress made so far worthless and going back to square one (yet again!) is pretty disastrous
Not really, because you need to consider the likelihood of us going up anyway. We've got a slim chance of going up but it's unlikely*. Losing Jones is therefore unlikely to impact our status next season. You can't really say that a personnel change that is more likely than not to have no impact on final results is a disaster. BTW, losing Jones does not actually guarantee anything other than that Jones will be elsewhere.
*You can currently get 33/1 on us getting promoted. Compare this with genuine promotion contenders, Birmingham 1/33.
No, most likely we won’t go up regardless of Jones staying/leaving. But if we don’t go up then we need to use this season to make sure we do go up next year, and not have it as another wasted year
We have a squad of players that have mostly been recruited for Jones and clearly give their all for him. Let’s say we are halfway to a being a good Jones team, the right signings in the summer might take us there. We’d probably be further away with a new manager who might want different players or play a different style, so we’d again probably end up needing more time. Losing Jones would put us back to square one
I personally think 'winger'* is an outdated word as Salah, Gordon and the under rated Murphy all go wide to receive the ball, sometimes right by the byline but they are all so much more than that. Salah is the king finisher so won't do the same amount of defensive work as Gordon and both of them are inverse forwards playing on their 'wrong' Side with great success and central, as their movement is not one dimensional.
Murphy is more of an orthodox wide man playing on his favoured right footed side and when both Murphy and Gordon are playing for Newcastle and the two young attacking full backs in Livramento and Hall they have so much width that Newcastle put in more crosses than most sides. Barnes who is more of an orthodox 'winger' is used as a sub after Gordon has normally ran himself into the ground with his attacking, defending and movement in forward positions.
Why it's taken 20 odd games for Nathan Jones to see the errors of his ways is unclear but if he now realises you have to use width with forwards, with the ability to get wide as well as central ( think L.Taylor before he was persona non grata) and attacking full backs when possible in a game then better late than never as well as trying to play more football rather than hoof ball and hope.
Best now to see it to the end of season for an inquest but most managers whether kids football, park football of any where in the football Pyramid, don't want to lose a prolific goal scorer; NJ saw it differently and Alfie May was unsettled on the field last season with the positions he was asked to play. This was well before the talk of his family cropped up.
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
The question is (and has always been), can we attract a better manager than Nathan Jones? I would say that we probably can’t. Even more so when we’ve started building a team he wants. It would have been a bad decision to sack him before but it would be a disaster to lose him now
Mate calm yourself. We’ve managed 4 acceptable performances. And personally I wasn’t impressed by the Cambridge one. The overall picture is still that we’ve had a really poor season, are miles off the plays off in current and projected points, and in league position, and have a squad heavily populated by Jones-recruited duds.
He is on no more than a 5/10 for this season so far (I would rate lower) , let’s hope he’s about to elevate that drastically and take us flying up the table with this new approach (enforced on him?) - but let’s not pretend he’s the proclaimed second coming.
We’re 11th in league one.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think it would be a disaster if we lost him now. The squad is so very tailored to his way of playing and there's almost no-one else who sets up like he does. If he leaves tomorrow we need to get someone else in and we've already lost more than a week of the transfer window as it is. What do we do? Des Buckingham is unemployed but he often plays with wingers and we've barely got two of those so we'd have to rush out to get some in January while also completely overhauling the squad yet again to push out the big violent runners and bring in more technical players in a window that almost never represents value. Or we get someone in who plays more like Jones despite the fact it wasn't setting the league alight when Jones did it. Losing your manager mid-transfer window when he has a very particular and unusual set of demands for the players he wants is not a good thing. We sacked Appleton in this window last year and that's why we're now watching Jones trying to play with Gillesphey and REG in his squad because Scott and Apples decided we needed ball-playing centre halves. We'd have to decide if we're happy to completely write off this season and start planning the total rebuild in the summer with limited funds or we'd have to accept that for the foreseeable future we're playing aggressive, wingerless percentages football without the manager who has made a career of doing just that his way. I would not be excited about either of those concepts.
Disaster is well OTT.
I’d say guaranteeing another season in league 1 (tbf that’s likely anyway but this would properly rule out promotion) and more significantly making a lot of the work and progress made so far worthless and going back to square one (yet again!) is pretty disastrous
Not really, because you need to consider the likelihood of us going up anyway. We've got a slim chance of going up but it's unlikely*. Losing Jones is therefore unlikely to impact our status next season. You can't really say that a personnel change that is more likely than not to have no impact on final results is a disaster. BTW, losing Jones does not actually guarantee anything other than that Jones will be elsewhere.
*You can currently get 33/1 on us getting promoted. Compare this with genuine promotion contenders, Birmingham 1/33.
If we got rid of Jones (or lost him) the clichéd/classic "three windows" would have to be reset yet again, unless the new manager literally played the same way (which hardly any do.)
It wouldn't affect our chances much necessarily this season but it absolutely would affect us over the long term and probably not for the better unless we had a SCP style "perfect storm" and everything fell perfectly into place (which under the SMT seems... improbable.)
Tricky one, a few weeks ago I'd have loved Luton to come in for him, now, I'm not sure.
Is Jones fortunate that Lloyd Jones and Miles have shown form, and any manager would be getting these results, or, has he changed us tactically.
I think it's somewhere in between, I think he's massively benefited from having our good players available, just like a lot of old Charlton managers would have been.
I am still very confident a different manager wouldn't have overseen so many disappointing performances we witnessed in the last 2-3 months, but it's hard to deny the last 5 or so games have been very decent performances to watch.
The question is (and has always been), can we attract a better manager than Nathan Jones? I would say that we probably can’t. Even more so when we’ve started building a team he wants. It would have been a bad decision to sack him before but it would be a disaster to lose him now
I tend to agree but the truth is even an unknown, untested manager can have great success. For me I’d stick with NJ because I think he’s got a plan and even if I don’t always see it. We’re not an attractive proposition for anyone with a better record.
I do find unfair that people blame Jones (quite rightly) for the team playing hoofball - but since we've adjusted tactically for the better, the same people are insinuating that he was forced to change by the SMT or some other tactical guru at the club.
I do find unfair that people blame Jones (quite rightly) for the team playing hoofball - but since we've adjusted tactically for the better, the same people are insinuating that he was forced to change by the SMT or some other tactical guru at the club.
Jones actually said at the time he didn’t want the players to go long as much and that wasn’t his instructions. He wanted them to be braver and try and play more. Lloyd Jones also said this was the case and that the manager wants them to play more
I think there must have been some kind of adjustment to the plan, but I do think some of it was just our players panicking on the ball and going long. Before the Northampton game Docherty was saying that Jones had really been trying to “free them” or something like that, it seems to have worked and we are a lot more relaxed on the ball
I do find unfair that people blame Jones (quite rightly) for the team playing hoofball - but since we've adjusted tactically for the better, the same people are insinuating that he was forced to change by the SMT or some other tactical guru at the club.
Jones actually said at the time he didn’t want the players to go long as much and that wasn’t his instructions. He wanted them to be braver and try and play more. Lloyd Jones also said this was the case and that the manager wants them to play more
I think there must have been some kind of adjustment to the plan, but I do think some of it was just our players panicking on the ball and going long. Before the Northampton game Docherty was saying that Jones had really been trying to “free them” or something like that, it seems to have worked and we are a lot more relaxed on the ball
Exactly. It's no coincidence our overall play improved as key players returned to the team. While this doesn't excuse the earlier poor performances, the players must shoulder more responsibility.
With pace and width alongside a target man who can also run in behind, we can now stretch the pitch by going long. If teams press, we play over the top; if they don't, we play through them—unlike the aimless hit and hope balls to Ahadme.
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https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/sport/football/blackpool-fc/ex-blackpool-wolves-and-derby-county-defender-set-to-leave-job-less-than-12-months-on-from-premier-league-adventure-4935333
That'll embarrass a few.
I am not defending the way he has come out shooting from the hip at the fans. That being said, I hope we can put it behind us now anyway because we finally seem to have regained an identity and we look a very tough nut to crack!
Do I want him replaced? I wouldn't be sad to see him go but on the flip side it would be nice to go through a whole season with the same manager.
We have made a number of mediocre signings and it's worrying how poor we were when Lloyd Jones was injured.
NJ's target at the very least has to be playoffs. I don't see how he can be satisfied with anything less.
Just glad the hoofball isn't quite so prevalent.
Unless you have Birmingham’s budget, your best players at this level will never have a replacement of similar quality ready to step in.
Last season he made us competitive again. He’s improved us defensively this season, and recently moved away from hoofball. It’s progress even if it’s not as quick as it could have been.
The next test for Jones and the ownership/SLT is how the squad comes out this window. If we add pace as alternatives to TC and Small, and sign an attacking midfielder we’ll be on the right track. All while continuing this improved style of play and results. Without those signings I don’t think it’s possible, we’re currently too reliant on TC and Small giving the pace we need out wide.
On the other hand whether by accident or design (his own or another's) he seems to have course corrected and I think that we need to see if he can use this new opportunity to keep evolving in the current direction.
Certainly I don't think that there's many managers out there who would have gotten better performances over the past month or so. But of course it's the months leading up to that point that could still be our main problem.
Disaster is well OTT.
*You can currently get 33/1 on us getting promoted. Compare this with genuine promotion contenders, Birmingham 1/33.
We have a squad of players that have mostly been recruited for Jones and clearly give their all for him. Let’s say we are halfway to a being a good Jones team, the right signings in the summer might take us there. We’d probably be further away with a new manager who might want different players or play a different style, so we’d again probably end up needing more time. Losing Jones would put us back to square one
Murphy is more of an orthodox wide man playing on his favoured right footed side and when both Murphy and Gordon are playing for Newcastle and the two young attacking full backs in Livramento and Hall they have so much width that Newcastle put in more crosses than most sides.
Barnes who is more of an orthodox 'winger' is used as a sub after Gordon has normally ran himself into the ground with his attacking, defending and movement in forward positions.
Why it's taken 20 odd games for Nathan Jones to see the errors of his ways is unclear but if he now realises you have to use width with forwards, with the ability to get wide as well as central ( think L.Taylor before he was persona non grata) and attacking full backs when possible in a game then better late than never as well as trying to play more football rather than hoof ball and hope.
Best now to see it to the end of season for an inquest but most managers whether kids football, park football of any where in the football Pyramid, don't want to lose a prolific goal scorer; NJ saw it differently and Alfie May was unsettled on the field last season with the positions he was asked to play. This was well before the talk of his family cropped up.
*Wide forward is my word of choice.
It wouldn't affect our chances much necessarily this season but it absolutely would affect us over the long term and probably not for the better unless we had a SCP style "perfect storm" and everything fell perfectly into place (which under the SMT seems... improbable.)
I think there must have been some kind of adjustment to the plan, but I do think some of it was just our players panicking on the ball and going long. Before the Northampton game Docherty was saying that Jones had really been trying to “free them” or something like that, it seems to have worked and we are a lot more relaxed on the ball
Exactly. It's no coincidence our overall play improved as key players returned to the team. While this doesn't excuse the earlier poor performances, the players must shoulder more responsibility.
With pace and width alongside a target man who can also run in behind, we can now stretch the pitch by going long. If teams press, we play over the top; if they don't, we play through them—unlike the aimless hit and hope balls to Ahadme.