With the Nathan Jones debacle (which ultimately will probably cost us our PL status) still fresh in the memory I was wondering if we have ever had a worse manager. His win percentage is not the worst boosted by cup wins and there were the victories against Citeh and an ultra rare win at Goodison Park. Here is the poll of shame...
I am just slightly on the too young side to remember Branfoot, but I can’t see how he could possibly outflank Jones or Pellegrino here as he didn’t get us relegated over a prolonged period as manager, whilst those two would have. Even if his football was ****.
There are 38 games in a season. The 8 or 9 games NJ had, whilst horrific as they were, hasnt IMO cost us our PL status. Our decline started under Gao with RH in charge and got progressively worse. But Ralph, for a year (or 18 months) was a major issue. Now lots of blame apportioned to the new owners. Im not happy to be in the Championship, but will provide my support as always. As for worse manager, they are all pretty much a muchness. They can all f*ck off.
Jones is undoubtedly the reason we will go down. We were 1-0 up against a side who are abysmal away from home and down to 10 men for an hour and lost. We previously lost at home to a team who were bottom of the league, had scored 1 goal away from home all season. We enabled our relegation rivals to escape the bottom of the table. 4 points from them games and the situation looks very different. 4 points I reckon both Ralph and Selles would have got. The man was a complete chancer, it was obvious to everyone with an understanding of managing a high performance operation, he had absolutely no business being at our club from day 1.
Jones was the full package. Well out of his depth, awful manager with an awful style of football and also constantly spouted bollocks making him and us as a result look ridiculous. Just no redeeming features.
Well, I cant agree with this. NJ was present for under 25% of our season. How about saying if Ralph had got 4 more points from other games. Or Had we won last night. Seems crazy to say Jones is undoubtedly the reason we go down - I thought Os had hacked your account for a a second there (only jokes Os).
So many similarities between Jan Poorvliet and Nathan Jones. Jan was a Dutch carpenter who talked his way into the job in 2008 (sound familiar? No not the carpenter bit - the talked his way into the job bit) Jan started the season badly and it carried on with a 25% win rate until Mark Wotte took over with little change and then Harry Redknap and Clive Woodward (yes that rugby Sir) had 11 games to save Saints and the rest is history. Horrible times I will never forget. That said being a season ticket holder in the Championship and League 1 days was a doddle we hardly lost a match and of course signed a striker at the right time in Sir Rickie.
Ralph got 12 points from 14 games, which absolutely wasn't great. Jones got 3 points from 8 games, which was shocking. But it is the relative difficulty of the fixtures that matters most. When Jones was hired it was duly noted almost unanimously we had an easy run of games. Jones faced one club from the top of the table, Liverpool (who weren't exactly in great form but we'll ignore that.) All bar 1 of his games were against mid table and below. Ralph faced Chelsea, Man United, Tottenham, Arsenal and Newcastle. I think we canned Ralph because of poor form in September and early October where we lost to clubs the board considered on our level (Villa, Wolves, Everton and Palace) But worth remembering that Lavia, our only decent CDM was injured in that time. Also to add that Che Adams missed at least one absolute sitter in each of those games. Ralph obviously wasn't doing well, but it should be clear to everyone that Jones was terrible.
We play those same easier games NJ had again, so not sure this stacks up. For the record, I never wanted NJ, couldn't believe it was true until it was, and he was utterly hopeless, and if I vote in this thread, it'd be for him. But if (and I haven't accepted it as certain yet) we go down, it will be due to Ralph, Selles, NJ, Owners etc. I just can't accept Jones is undoubtedly the reason we go down, as it isn't true or as simple as that.
Fair enough I guess it is a difference of opinion. I just feel that with the other 2 in charge we get more points from those 8 games, specifically 2 of them... Which would be enough to stay up. If we win those 2 games, Forest are in the bottom 3 right now and Wolves just above, whilst we would be above Palace, best placed of all sides in the relegation battle. In my mind the only logical conclusion from that set of facts is that he is the reason we go down.
Jones was horrendous, but only manged us for nine premiership games - that really should not make or break our season. I just had to go for Branfoot. He took over an exciting team (albeit on a downward trajectory). He sold Alan Shearer for a record British fee (£3.6mm - how things have changed) and pissed up on the wall on David Speedie, Perry Groves and another striker I can't remember doing **** all. Then he thought it would be a really good idea to put workers in midfield like Terry Hurlock and not play the most skillfull player in a generation. That some player scored 25 premier league goals and a large number of assists under his first full season under Alan Ball. But Branfoot in his football wisdom dopped him or sat in on the bench until fan pressure and two worldies at Newcastle forced Branfoot to eat humble pie. Just for that - he was so much worse
I really enjoyed league one. Went to a lot of away games where I met genuine home fans who supported their teams through thick and thin, mainly thin but they didn’t care. The final against Carlisle was a great day
I went for Pellegrino simply because of the football when we would spend several minutes playing in squares and then lump a long diagonal cross from deep to Shane Long alone in the box, it was soooo depressing and soul destroying. I'm surprised that Steve Wigley hasn't got any votes, I think his win percentage was the lowest of the lot at 17% and he was like a rabbit in the headlights. Both would've taken us down had they not got sacked first.