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Post by Gas Go Marching In on Dec 18, 2018 18:18:47 GMT
Garbage, had we not sold the snake we could have made the play offs the first season back - we were as competitive as any other team in the top ten & it only went downhill when he had to replace his best players. This is true. If taylor stayed we might have made the playoffs - but doubt very much we would've gone up. Losing Taylor, Bodin and Harrison was a big blow but as we have seen DC didn't even come close to replacing any of them - Nichols, Mensah and Payne. Trollope also couldn't replace Lambert and within a year or so he lost his job. Gerry Francis, if my memory serves me right - lost Penrice a season before we went up (to QPR) but incredibly still led us to the title. That's why he stood out for me plus the adversity of being at Twerton (and the very low crowds) with very little cash at his disposal. Yeah he could, he replaced Lambert with Hoskins on a free. Ended up leaving us for £500k end of that season.
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Post by warehamgas on Dec 18, 2018 18:24:17 GMT
I feel DC was great for the Club and his knowledge of the Conference when we were relegated really helped. Getting two promotions on the bounce was great but it may of just worked against him. If he had had a couple of seasons in EFL 2 it may just have given him that little bit of extra experience needed before being thrust into a much more competitive environment in EFL 1. Some of his players who were comfortable in League 2 were found wanting at the higher level. In addition to this some players were coming to the end of their careers. I felt he handled the latter badly when he told some players they were no longer needed although most stayed with the club until their contracts expired at the end of that season. I felt his handling of three stalwarts in particular- McChrystal, Easter and Mildenhall was disappointing. The challenge he had then was to effectively rebuild a team after also losing some of his better players through transfers (which is part of the norm for lower league clubs anyway) and to compete at a level where he had had little experience and he was found wanting. The permanent players he brought in with the exception of Sercombe IMO have been fairly mediocre and as result he was always struggling with the players he had, to come up with a winning formulae. He had the 'bounce effect' with promotion in his first season in League 1 but he was quickly found out tactically by Managers more astute than him - the final nail for me was losing his talisman Bodin in January who could change the course of a match with a bit of brilliance - we no longer have that, where Bodin could change the fine lines from potentially losing a match to gaining a draw, or from drawing a match to gaining a narrow win, with his special goals - a vital ingredient and points lost. The results since then point to this, particularly the last 20 games or so of last season and of course this season. A great Manager? - not for me, great for the club at the time - most definitely. Was he let down - there's an argument both ways on that one - certainly the irritation of the Training Ground not coming to fruition certainly made his frustrations come to the fore which on the face of it didn't help his relationship with the owners - so probably best that he should move on, gain from the experience and ultimately and hopefully become a better Manager for it. Good post. I would have liked him to stay but it’s a results business so he went. Good/ great/ excellent/ inspirational, we will all decide what we think about DC individually. One thing I do know is we’d have been bu****** in 14/15 if we hadn’t gone up. And for that he has earned my gratitude. He was a “great” manager for us because of what he did, for us. Is he a great manager? I reckon in years to come once he has learnt to recruit better and use the goodwill of other clubs when they loan players to him better he will become a better manager. UTG!
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Post by Icegas on Dec 18, 2018 21:23:17 GMT
How good was he..? Two promotions,and saved our club when we were on life support in football terms by his love for this club. Simply the best and most important manager in the history of our club. Spot on. Absolutely spot on. And he connected with us in a way that probably only Gerry and Ollie did before him. I hope that he gets the send off he deserves on Saturday and his name is sung from the rafters. After that, we have to move on as it will do the club no good to be torn apart, but the man deserves one hell of a tribute first. I'd put him higher than both Gerry and Ollie.As a manager Ian gave us some great times but didnt do anything.Gerry first spell is that of legend at our club but for pure importance to our club no one comes close to DC imho.
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Post by Topper Gas on Dec 18, 2018 22:26:37 GMT
Spot on. Absolutely spot on. And he connected with us in a way that probably only Gerry and Ollie did before him. I hope that he gets the send off he deserves on Saturday and his name is sung from the rafters. After that, we have to move on as it will do the club no good to be torn apart, but the man deserves one hell of a tribute first. I'd put him higher than both Gerry and Ollie.As a manager Ian gave us some great times but didnt do anything.Gerry first spell is that of legend at our club but for pure importance to our club no one comes close to DC imho. True if DC hadn't dragged us out of the Conference then like Wrexham and Orient etc we could still be a non league club, or worse joined the likes of Stockport, Hereford or Torquay lower down the footballing pyramid. If we'd missed out on promotion under GF we'd have still remained a league club. DC gave us back a football league club for that we should be forever grateful.
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Post by alant1 on Dec 18, 2018 22:56:21 GMT
Spot on. Absolutely spot on. And he connected with us in a way that probably only Gerry and Ollie did before him. I hope that he gets the send off he deserves on Saturday and his name is sung from the rafters. After that, we have to move on as it will do the club no good to be torn apart, but the man deserves one hell of a tribute first. I'd put him higher than both Gerry and Ollie.As a manager Ian gave us some great times but didnt do anything.Gerry first spell is that of legend at our club but for pure importance to our club no one comes close to DC imho. I am a huge DC fan and very upset with his departure. However I can’t see how you can compare him with GF. Gerry managed us at a non league ground not owned by us and training at a chocolate factory. With hardly any spending budget we won the old 3rd division as champions. First ever visit to Wembley and we maintained in the top half of the old division 2 until he left to his love of qpr. I’m sure most will agree we would love to be in this position now. I dread to think what his budget must of been as he loaned the club the money to bring back Holloway. Best of luck DC but sorry not in Gerry’s league in my opinion.
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Post by Icegas on Dec 19, 2018 0:43:42 GMT
I'd put him higher than both Gerry and Ollie.As a manager Ian gave us some great times but didnt do anything.Gerry first spell is that of legend at our club but for pure importance to our club no one comes close to DC imho. I am a huge DC fan and very upset with his departure. However I can’t see how you can compare him with GF. Gerry managed us at a non league ground not owned by us and training at a chocolate factory. With hardly any spending budget we won the old 3rd division as champions. First ever visit to Wembley and we maintained in the top half of the old division 2 until he left to his love of qpr. I’m sure most will agree we would love to be in this position now. I dread to think what his budget must of been as he loaned the club the money to bring back Holloway. Best of luck DC but sorry not in Gerry’s league in my opinion. Each to there own with there opinons as I love Gerry as well, but we are talking about a 25 year gap or so between there spells and football has changed so much. The conference today is proberly of a better quality and standard then Div 3 was in 1990 due to the premiership and its overseas players.Gerry may have given us a title and championship level football, but DC saved our club and what he did ment so much more. Wembley vs Grimsby was not enjoyable, it was just about winning and getting back in the football league.Never was I more nervous,nor sang as much as that day.I couldnt speak for a week after.That day was the most important in our history and we have DC to thank for that. In my eyes DC should be talked about along the same lines as Bradford and Biggs when you to about the most important people ever for BRFC.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2018 1:06:20 GMT
I hate football stats, pointless to me.
People compare managers' win percentages when they've managed different players, played against different teams, had different budgets, the list goes on and on.
Since when are stats comparable when you have that many variables?
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Post by mehewmagic on Dec 19, 2018 13:43:16 GMT
Seems a bit churlish to be doing this now though, don't you think?
Football was also very different in GF's days. In fact, what are the chances now of having an intelligent former England captain come to a struggling Lge 1 club without a ground and awful training facilities? Had avoided relegation on the final day of the season before. Chances are zero.
To be fair, we could have probably got Sol Campbell if he hadn't just been got. I wrote intelligent...
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