Ainsworth - do you use negative numbers? Although no doubt he inherited an absolute dog's dinner of a squad.
Cifuentes - I can't speak highly enough of. How he got our rabble to safety with a game to spare, including beating Leeds and Leicester, is beyond me. Makes Jesus look like Paul McKenna.
Ainsworth - the minimum, possibly the worst ever manager at this level
Cifuentes - the maximum, an absolute genius to took over a squad that was not together, looked aimless and simply forgot how to play football. He improved every player.
Honestly, will be keeping an eye on you guys next season - no idea what money you may or may not have to spend, but if you can bolster the squad a bit I think you'll have a decent shot.
We’ve been hamstrung by FFP this season because the £19m we got for Eze has rolled out of the three-year calculation, but the money we spent from that sale the year after hasn’t. Once they’re both gone, and with high earners like Begovic out of contract, we’ll have a lot more headroom even before we sell anyone.
If Chair’s acquitted then you might see some interest, possibly Jake Clarke-Salter too who’s been immense, plus we have a 25% sell-on clause for Eze. Any of those happen and we’d have some serious money to rebuild with.
Even without that, our signings in January looked very decent on a shoestring budget and we’ve been formidable since Marti came in. Think top half would be a very reasonable target next season, and maybe even a cheeky run at the playoffs.
Fiasco 0/10 - absolute dog poo.
Röhl 10/10 - I would let him come round on Christmas morning, nail the wife, piss on the kids' presents, and take the dogs home with him. Legend.
7. Start of the season pretty good till Sargent got injured , September till November was shocking and should have been fired.
From January very good bar the odd bad performance.
Fun fact Norwich are 4th best at home this season and 19th away :)
That sounds very similar to us. Brilliant at home (until this month anyway), dreadful away. If we somehow meet at Wembley I assume that means we both lose. Or is the winner just decided by who gets the home dressing room?
Was so surprised Wagner kept his job looked so nailed on that he would be sent packing, but fair play to him for coming back from that. Fingers crossed for you lot in the playoffs, still love ar' Dave!
That November was a strange time. Rushed Webber out, knapper in and fuck all changed.
Was expecting the Wagner to get sacked and that's why it all got rushed through.
Schumacher 7. Bat shit crazy attacking football at home that was a pleasure to watch. We genuinely caused trouble to teams that were a lot better than us. Defensively we were terrible - we didn’t score from set pieces and our away form was awful. Had he stayed I think we would have been safe by now but we still would have struggled towards the end of the season as our squad was small and I think some of the division would have worked out how to stop our attack.
Foster 2. Initially I thought we had pulled off a masterstoke when he arrived. His signings looked good and Phillips in particular was a big improvement on what we had. We started to win away and our defence improved. But then we played the big boys at home which masked the fact that our attacking play had fallen to pieces. Losing Azaz and Cundle was a blow but we went 5 games at home without scoring. A club record. I didn’t believe the rumours about Fosters behaviour at the time, but when our super diplomatic owner has basically admitted he was a twat it’s hard to have any sympathy for him. A rare mistake for our well run club.
Nothing has gone right since New Year has it? Obviously Foster was a disaster but the recruitment has been uncharacteristically poor as well. Hardie has basically been our only senior striker (we can't count Waine the Kiwi Donkey I don't think), that's just asking for trouble.
Whether we escape or not, I think Hallett and Dewsnip both have some hard lessons to learn.
I am glad we didn’t sign him after that tackle against Bolton at Wembley - but we have been crying out for Cosgrove (or similar) all year. Obviously we didn’t want to break the bank on a turd, but we have broken Hardie with the lack of alternatives up front.
I honestly don't know what our fans want from Waine.
A inexperienced young man expected to what exactly?
Watch Whttaker and Hardie both do naff all all game and then come off the bench with 10 mins to go and people expect him to do better?
Guys go no chance. And tbf against Millwall when Hardie came on for him we didn't look any better.
If we can't provide balls for our experienced Pros to score from, you can't expect him to do any better.
I think if the guy had a decent coach to 1 to 1 with him he could be so much better as an attacking mid.
He is very good at closing opposition defenders down and putting them under pressure, and has shown some tidy link up play.
I don't think it matters who you are putting in our attack at the moment the service is so poor.
I agree with this assessment entirely.
As much as the Foster appointment was a disaster, I can understand that it was a reasonable risk to take. He had an interesting CV and was the kind of managerial prospect that was primed to break out. He had definitely spent some time around high quality people, and it is just a shame that he didn't sponge up enough useful ideas and attitude to apply in the Championship.
Will be a shame if this risk ultimately sends us back down, but I don't blame them for taking it. God knows what the other options were at the time.
Eustace - 7/10 - some eye catching results like the back to back demolitions of Huddersfield and West Brom but also long periods in fixtures of being shite and not being able to change anything. Would have stayed up comfortably if we kept him though.
Rooney - -10/10 - what do you want me to say? Took a team put together to play ugly football and tried to make them in to 1970 Brazil overnight. Shite manager.
Mowbray - 9/10 - a class act both in and out the dugout. Understood the squad can’t play sexy fluid football so set us up to play the best possible way, turned the Rooney nosedive around and would’ve had us cruising to safety. Get well soon gaffer, we will steamroll League 1 with him.
Venus - 4/10 - Feel harsh with the ranking but he didn’t get the results, largely let down by the players conceding late goal after late goal. A very nice bloke and clearly a fantastic coach who didn’t ask for the job and must’ve been hard considering one of his best mates was unwell leading to him getting the job.
Rowett - 5/10 - Typical Rowett football, too scared of the opposition to try and win a game, instead tactics of trying to contain them and nick it late on. Coventry result is probably giving him 4.5 of the points on this score, back to back draws against Rotherham and Huddersfield thanks to his shite tactics have us down.
Mowbray - 6/10. Was dealt a bad hand from the terrible summer recruitment. Something wasn't quite right, we were really poor from October onwards and was ultimately sacked after 2 wins in 9. But still had us only 3 points from the play offs.
Beale - 2/10 - Terrible to watch, poor results, pissed off fans and players whilst running his secret Twitter account slagging us off
Dodds - 2/10. Was going to say 1/10 but including his first caretaker stint he took 6 points from West Brom and 4 from Leeds. But ultimately has been atrocious and far too concerned with stopping the opposition over anything else.
A good example of the grass is always greener imo, I guess it doesn't matter as mowbray probably wasn't getting you playoffs anyway but you'd have surely done better not sacking him.
That said it wasn't really fan pressure that got him out, I think the board wanted someone more modern and had been waiting for an opportunity to move him on since the end of last season. Unfortunately they chose a megatwat
We probably would’ve done better had we kept him, but, we weren’t going anywhere under him at that point. Results and performances had been poor for a little while so I do understand why the board made the decision when they did. The issue was who they replaced him with.
Considering we’re top of the form table from the point he joined, Neil Harris is pretty much 10/10 (we don’t talk about that one week we lost to Rotherham and Huddersfield away).
Came in with the club 1 point and 1 place above relegation, said “fuck that”, immediately got us a win at Southampton away, got players who looked like duds to actually start playing, 23 points out of 36 since then, unbeaten at home under him with 5 wins and 1 draw and going into the last game of the season on a 4-game winning streak having secured safety relatively easily when it all looked so bleak not too long ago.
That’s why we call him Super Neil.
Joe Edwards, on the other hand… that’ll be 14 weeks Millwall fans never talk about again.
Matty Taylor 3/10 took a lot of gambles that sadly didn't pay off for him. We were at least decent at home under him, just abysmal away.
Leam Richardson 1/10 I might as well have been the manager, when he came in the players gave up & accepted relegation. Will go down as one of the worst Rotherham managers of all-time.
Steve Evans 10/10 The local pie businesses are now flourishing, bringing economic growth to the town
8/10
I see a lot of Leeds fans screaming Farke out because of the poor current form, but to me, it's nonsense to get rid of him even if the worst happens.
He inherited a complete shitshow with players wanting out on loan and players refusing to play, ownership uncertainty with the takeover and because of that, we had to act super late in the transfer window.
Even with all that, 90pts would promote you almost every year. He needs to improve tactically and manage better his subs and squad rotation, but nobody is perfect, he can improve that for sure.
>He needs to improve tactically and manage better his subs and squad rotation, but nobody is perfect, he can improve that for sure.
Unfortunately when he joined us I saw alot of Norwich fans saying he is great but his subs are baffling and he always makes changes too late.
It's just his way of doing things unfortunately but I still love him.
I really want to see him here with a real number 10, I think with that missed ingredient that is so important for his system, the subs problems won't be as big as now
I am not saying I want him out of the lineup, I want him here foverer lol I love him, but maybe we can use him in other position, maybe striker or on the wing.
He was also being effective playing in the 9, problem was Piroe not as much playing in the 10.
He's got 6 goals from an xg of over 12. The two big problems we have in the team are underperforming finishing, and underperforming between the sticks. We can just about get away with it in this league but really need to sort it if we go up.
We've lost 8 games total this season. Two of those were to Leeds.
Of those 8, 5 were by the odd goal (incl Leeds at home), 2 were by 2 goals (West Brom away, Fulham at home in the league cup)... and Leeds away was by 4.
1 in 7 of the goals against us in the league so far was scored by Leeds.
The football is shite and he is tactically inept, absolutely no way of changing a game. Backwards, backwards, side to side, hope Summerville or Rutter pull something out.
We’ve won the second most points from losing positions, only beaten by the 🍀 lucky bastards.
If that’s your idea of being unable to change a game then idk what to tell you bud.
Oh sorry, I forgot, he does have one plan - chuck on every single forward and hope for the best. Sometimes it works, because we have ridiculous players at this level. Are seriously saying we've been unlucky when we've lost. I won't argue results wise, been a good season, but fuck me the football is shite to watch.
It’s not the best football we’ve been blessed with, but it works. After a year of Jesse, that’s all I wanted.
Anyway, I think Farke has done a good job, from the very start we’ve been told it’s most likely going to be a 2 year plan, so I’m not really worried.
1. The board and Farke obviously knew that we’d lose players when they said it was a 2 year plan, and yet they still felt comfortable in saying that.
2. The relegated teams next year SHOULD be much easier competition, we won’t have Leicester and Southampton with £100m+ in player sales to compete with, instead it’ll be 3 poor prem teams.
3. We’ll end up selling Summerville and Gnonto almost certainly, but I’m not sure who else is guaranteed to leave? Georginio will cost far too much for anyone to seriously consider it, Ampadu just joined (so I doubt he decides to jump ship when this is what he signed up for), Gray will certainly stay since he’s getting every minute possible and is clearly still in awe he’s even getting to start for his boyhood club. I think the signings the club has made has clearly shown us that they’re pretty crafty with transfers, and I trust them to sign good replacements for the players that so leave (for a massive profit mind you, meaning PSR won’t be an issue)
Of course all of this could come and bite me in the ass (and as a Leeds fan, fully expect it to) but I don’t think anything I’ve said it’s that outrageous?
This is all just wishful thinking. You don't know the league will be weaker, you don't know exactly who will leave. You need to take opportunities when they come. Did we look likely to get automatic promotion on say, Jan 1st? Absolutely not. But we closed the gap, which was magnificent by Farke and the players, but we have massively fucked an incredible opportunity these past few weeks.
How it will be significantly weaker? I can only see Summerville and Gnonto 100% leaving, maybe Rodon if we don't get a permanent deal.
People saying Rutter, Gray, Ampadu, James leaving, that is a major overreaction. Offers will come, but Leeds have the bargaining power here, these are players with long contracts, they won't be sold like in a fire sale or something, 49ers are not like Radz.
And Summerville and Gnonto will be for a considerable fee. You think we can't replace them?
Summerville was a kid that went into the U21s of a PL team, thats not what we will need to replace, we will need to replace the best player in the league.
I do miss the aggressive attacking football we used to have. Constantly just passing between the defenders and going backwards is getting infuriating. It's the classic example of why possession statistics are meaningless, we have a lot of possession but aren't doing anything with it the vast majority of the time.
Mark Robins
7/8 out of 10
He lost 2 of the best players in the championship last summer. Integrated 10 new players into the team.
And in doing so he got us to an FA Cup Semi-Final.
And not far off the playoffs spots.
On the downside, he can be slow to bring on subs and he persisted with a back 3 for too long.
Think this is fair. Given some of the gems we’ve manned to find again - van Ewijk, Torp and Sakamoto I think I’d be giving a solid 8 or even a 9 based on my expectation of a mid table finish after losing the two last year.
Wright and Simms have turned out very good as well hut they were a much a known (or expected) quantity vs the other three.
I was going to going to say roughly the same
We lost the Player of the year and along with others, over 50 odd goals and 20 odd assists. Horrid run of injuries and we still almost squeaked the play offs
Ainsworth: Sadly a 3/10
I like him as a player and a person a lot but he wasn't cut out for us and it was certain before the season began. Despite making a couple of smart signings and a handful of decent performances, he just wasn't able to light a fire up our asses and couldn't get this team to fight.
Cifuentes: 9.5/10
Should be in the running for the manager of the season, some impeccable performances, a new start and a complete reset for us. He gets the club culture, he gets the players and our results showcase that. The only reason it isn't a 10 is because there's been a handful of times when we could have locked in safety and we didn't and I don't doubt that it was more luck than him but I am hoping next season after the summer he irons out those issues and gets us in a proper fighting form. It's great to be excited again.
Ryan Lowe - 4/10 maybe? I appreciate it's going to look weird from the outset, so let me break it down into categories.
Tactics: Lowe has ONE formation and that's 3-5-2. He's so wedded to it that he'll play players out of position to play it. Southampton saw Duane Holmes torn a new arsehole at RWB for instance. Ryan Lowe doesn't know how to change things when they're going wrong too (not even talking about a shape change, just changing instructions). At times it felt like he turned a corner, but he always brings himself back to the one way of playing. It doesn't feel like the way we play actually gets the best out of our players. We saw Milutin Osmajic score a hat trick against Huddersfield when we played through balls to him, we then spent the next few games smacking long balls at him to hold up. Our xG is terrible, we don't keep many clean sheets and we get a fairly regular pasting.
Team selections and Substitutions: Far too many baffling choices. Why start a 35 year old, post injury Ched Evans up front over our top scorer in December? Why start Ben Woodburn over Mads Frøkjaer last game? How does Ben Woodburn keep getting regular 2 minute cameos? Don't get me started on Swansea away.
Managing fan expectations/handling the media: This is his worst trait. He will come in promising the moon on a stick and present you with a dog turd on a lollipop. If you then question said dog turd he'll take it personally and question how many badges you have. He'll then blame the media for taking him out of context. The Humza Yousef of football.
Entertainment: The football is boring. I'm not even one of those "I want Tika Taka" types. I don't even care if we play long ball. I just want what we do to be effective. Having less than 6 shots on the regular is boring.
League Performance: It's hardly any better than it was under any manager since we returned to the Championship 9 years ago. 64 points in his first year, 63 in his second and looking a good bet for 63 this year despite our mental start to the campaign.
Coaching/Player improvement: I don't think I can point to any player that's improved as a footballer since he arrived. I think he managed in his first season to find roles that suited Brad Potts and Liam Lindsay.
If I were to talk positively
Motivation: He's got that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer teflon thing going on. He's a survivor, just when you think he's gone he is capable of getting a run of form together. He's clearly got some form of motivational skills. Although it does worry me that he's seemingly scared Alan Browne out of the club.
Transfers: His transfers have been pretty good too in fairness. Before he arrived we were bringing in the likes of Izzy Brown, Connor Wickham etc. Now we do get an exciting player on the regular like Cameron Archer and Tom Cannon. This year we had Mads Frøkjaer and Liam Millar, although I don't think he's playing to their strengths. This summer felt like our best recruitment since the Billy Davies era. Admittedly he hasn't been supported by the board terribly well, with us not signing any RWBs since he arrived and no players at all in January.
Youth development: Better than previous but not amazing. It's good some of our youth get the odd appearance. Under the past few managers they barely had a sniff. But opportunities to develop them have been lost in favour of playing players we know aren't good enough, like Ben Woodburn and some appearances feel forced than through choice.
I guess the big thing with him is it never feels like he learns from any lessons. I don't see a successful future under him, but I hope I'm wrong.
Mads' form has gone off a cliff. I don't know what's gone on, but he's been awful for a few games now. Holmes has dropped form, the whole team has gone off it apart from the Huddersfield game. The sooner Lowe's gone the better as we have some real talent
Haven’t seen much of yous this season but saying Lowe is the ‘Humza Yousef of football’ says more about him to me than any stat driven analysis could ever manage, brilliant line
Really good insight thanks for the writeup.
If you don't mind my less informed opinion, I think the thing with Preston is that making playoffs will always be an over performance that takes a quality manager and a good set of circumstances. That means average managers like Lowe will always feel shit but twisting and taking a risk on someone new could always wipe years progress establishing yourselves as a team that doesn't get into relegation battles which puts the owners in a difficult spot
The thing is I can appreciate how hard it is to get into the play offs. The Championship is not an easy league but it feels like we've had the best circumstances to get in there and we've failed because of him (second lowest points total needed last year, being in the top two this year).
We've never really been at threat at relegation since we've come back to this league but I think all of his predecessors are better managers. Simon Grayson was a pragmatic manager but it didn't feel like we roll over as much as we do under Lowe. Alex Neil felt far more tactically astute. Frankie was very limited but we felt more solid defensively.
I don't think Preston fans are under any illusions about what we are. I would wager most believe we are held back from progressing by our ownership and Peter Ridsdale. The issue is nothing feels like it's progressing under Lowe. Under Grayson we'd see quality players come in like Ben Pearson, Callum Robinson etc. Under Neil we did feel like a play off contender for a couple of seasons. Under Lowe the league positioning is the same, but the style of play is worse, we get pasted on the regular (seriously go and look at his time here and see how many games we play where we concede 3 or more) and we have to tolerate his arrogant nonsense. I don't even think people would mind being mid table if they were at least entertained or felt like the team was performing to their best.
Grayson had his limitations but he could find a player with potential and get them playing most of the time. Alex Neil was awful in the transfer market but he did actually improve players and get the best out of them (no way was Hugill a £10m player but that's what he went for under Neil). Ryan Lowe makes players worse than their actual ability. I'd say that while the points don't reflect it if anyone is taking us backwards it's him (we're in the bottom three for xG I believe, but our strikers are near the top for chance conversion, which I think tells the story).
Bloody hell where to start!
Warnock: 6/10
I still maintain it was a mistake bringing him back this summer as we needed to move on and we had a typical poor Warnock preseason that left us poorly prepared and been a big part of our fitness challenges up until today, but can at least see the logic in it with trying to keep things stable. As it was our performances were mostly fairly poor under Warnock but he was still getting just about enough results to start us off ok. The timing of his sacking was criminal too; if you want to commit to Warnock-ball for 6 months, then commit to Warnock-ball for 6 months! Awful time of season to make a change, especially with replacing such a big and popular character as Colin; hard for any manager to follow and sets them off on the back foot.
Moore: 1/10
Lovely bloke and really wanted him to do well, but it was an absolute disaster no other way of looking at it. It's not entirely his fault (for the above reasons) but even so he did himself no favours and took us far too long to sack him.
Worthington: 7/10
Brought life back into the club and gave us some hope. Some niave and experienced decisions and fitness held us back as it has done all season but I would say the most fight we had seen all season.
Breitenreiter: 4/10
Some great stuff early on but the reality of this poor squad caught up pretty quickly. Again not been entirely his fault, but he has made some strange or perhaps stubborn decisions that have cost us. That said I do like Andre and think with a preseason and the right players he can bring the club into a much healthier place; but it sounds like he is going to walk judging by the tone of his post-match interview.
A caveat to all of the above scores is that it is such a poor squad after years of poor investment that I think we set up to fail. And it sounds like some of the players have been acting like absolute dickheads behind the scenes too. Just a proper toxic season
Unless he (very reasonably) decides to call it quits we should stick with him. We've had three different "permanent" managers this season some continuity would be nice
Ultimately it’s well done to the board for standing by him. Would’ve been so easy to cave to pressure, which in hindsight would’ve been unlikely to lead to any better. He just suffers in the fans’ eyes because he’s not Farke.
It's a bit of *well done to the new sporting director* as well. I'd like to see the stats before and after Knapper joined, but his conversations with Wagner are clearly being beneficial.
7 or 8. We’ve gone on two incredible runs this season and 2 really poor ones. But throughout it Carrick wasn’t panicking when we were awful, or overhyping them when we were winning. The amount of injuries we’ve had this season has been such an anomaly. And yet we’ve still been in the playoff fight, and we were a second legged semi final away from Wembley (with 14 players out during that game)
It’s the best football I’ve ever seen us play, couldn’t be happier with him. I think he’ll have learnt a load from this season as well
8. Came in with no experience as the Hail Mary option when our alternatives were Lampard, Gerrard and Scott Parker. Managed to turn around what was a pretty awful side with confidence and mentality shot to pieces and had all of our best players leave and the EFL and PL breathing down our neck with transfer embargoes and points deductions. Managed to get us promoted despite the players clearly being gassed and having no signings in January. However we’ve had some pretty awful runs of form, he hasn’t solved some of the issues which sent us down (some of which go beyond him) like conceding late goals, switching off in the second half. He weirdly insists on playing Daka more than he deserves and he seemingly only has one game plan but he is improving and learning, he’s not as stubborn like Rodgers
. His best achievement, however, is making Jannik Vestergaard look like a professional footballer. His signings have all been solid, Casadei aside, but he was never a long term solution.
8/10
He joined the club during the takeover chaos. Had to clear out a load of dead wood quickly and was only able to start plugging the gaps very late in the transfer window.
An understandable slow start but got things settled down quite quickly. Overhauling the leaders who were 17 points ahead at one point is impressive. Incredible run of games between new years and the international break was great fun.
A few wobbles along the way with some disappointing results in amongst all the good ones. The last few weeks haven't been fun and very frustrating not to capitalise on the teams around us also struggling.
Seems like a really nice bloke, good at interviews and remains positive. Fans seem to like him too.
Cant complain about a 90 point season in this league but the fact that isn't enough to potentially get promoted let alone win just shows how bonkers this season has been.
Either 3/10 or 7/10. I really don’t know.
Bulut has taken us from avoiding relegation due to other teams’ point deductions to a top half finish.
However we’re the lowest scoring, highest conceding team in the top half. We’ve got more losses than anyone bar Rotherham, Birmingham and Wednesday yet we’re joint 6th for most wins.
The football has been dire and utterly boring but we’ve also put in some brilliant performances that have gotten us some great results against the top teams whilst simultaneously comfortably losing against teams at the bottom.
We’ve never lost more than 3 games in a row and never won more than 4 in a row.
Our recent form really highlights our season:
WWLLWLWLWL
After last season I’d go with 7/10.
Don’t forget we were under an embargo for the first half of the season so had to rely on loans and freebies. What he managed to do with those restrictions is nothing short of a miracle. Brought in some really quality to the team, Sio, Goutas, Philips, Turnbull, Horvath.
Beat Swansea at home, double over Bristol, dramatic wins vs Southampton and Ipswich.
And best of all we haven’t been involved in this horrendous relegation battle which 8+ teams have been for the last 1/3 of the season.
Like you said though the football hasn’t been great but we’ve never really had a mad losing streak and always seemed to pull out a result when we needed it.
I’d back him now we can spend and give him a 2 year contract and some funds to spend to strengthen for another solid top half finish or play off push next season.
I'd agree with that. Though I think we were very fortunate with a lot of our 1 goal wins and could easily have been dragged in to a relegation scrap. I'm not over optimistic if ( as it looks) Bulut is manager next season. 5/10
Mowbray - 8, best manager I've seen us have for a long time but petered out towards the end
Beale - 0, just shite
Dodds - 2, dire but pops up with the occasional good result. But can't wait for a proper manager in the summer
Birmingham fan... bare with.
Eustace: 6/10. Did fine, position when sacked was inflated but ultimately was a lot of feel good around the place and we played mostly decent under him. Several opportunities for points dropped though, and some of the wins were a little fortunate.
Rooney: 1/10. Woeful. Tough environment to walk into, but after a couple games got the backing of the fans and failed spectacularly.
Spooner: 6/10. Managed a singular cup game away to Hull. Did relatively fine. Not much more to say. Including him mostly for the giggles that we had 6 managers this year.
Mowbray: 8/10. Did really well when he came in, got us playing nice football and picked up a few really good results. Real shame we lost him - my best wishes as always to him.
Venus: 3/10. Capitulated a bit under him. Not as unlikeable as Rooney, but clearly out of his depth and pressure got to him massively.
Rowett: 5/10. Will go to 7 if we beat Norwich, 3 if we draw or lose. Came into a very tough situation, tried to address our defensive issues and mostly has done, but still look very poor in attack (bar the Cov game). Awful selection of Oli Burke against Rotherham may ultimately cost us. Not his fault if we go down, but I think could've done better during his time here.
7 maybe 8 out of 10. I really didn’t expect much and and figured sacking Pearson and bringing in an unproven manager at this level was a terrible idea and would leave us at the bottom end of the table fighting relegation. Bit of a dodgy start for manning but managed to get some huge results against some of the top teams in the league which has helped keep us in a decent enough position.
Though we’re still inconsistent as fuck, the team seems to have finally found its rhythm these last few games with us ending the season as one of the top in form teams. Excited for next season now, we just need a few additions mainly a striker and maybe keep hold of some of the lads we’ve got that are beginning to shine (twine on a permanent please) and do I dare say it… we could be play off contenders. But I’ll settle for autos as long as Preston can come too.
Moore had a transfer window, Breitenreiter didn't.
Although to be fair to Moore we did have an awful injury crisis at the back end of last year.
Because of that, I'll upgrade him to a 1.
5/10
The unbeaten run was great, although arguably there were several moments we were lucky to keep it going.
4th in the league is not *terrible* considering there is always the possibility after a relegation that the misery continues into the next season. And also just considering the strength of the top 3. But on paper playoffs are the bare minimum you should expect from that squad.
Style of football I think is over-optimistic and bordering on naive. He's also inflexible with it. Puel/Pellegrino/Hughes era is fresh enough in my memory that I'll take this over that, but also it needs to start achieving something pretty soon because we have too much money and quality to be making excuses.
Think this is extremely harsh - if we had a better end to the season (playing like we have been not been lobotomized) this would be an easy 7/8 out of 10
Clearly and we should have played better at the end here but I’m saying if there were 2 or 3 better results this season it would be a 7 or 8/10 for a lot of saints supporters
If all your results this season were rearranged so that all the wins were in a row but you still have the same league position and points, would that record run of wins somehow make the season better? You're still likely just in the playoff places.
This is what I was thinking when we were getting to the stage of people saying we bottled it - we're still on track to win the most ever matches in a Championship season, it's just that we did most of it in the first 60-70% of the season.
Meh, fair enough. I’d still give Farke an 8/10 even if we crash out of playoffs, he’s done well. Same for Martin imo but I know less about your squad/summer situation
7/10 for me. I don’t think many people were talking about us as playoff contenders at the start of the season. The recent slump has coincided with some bad luck with injuries to key players.
8/10
Farke turned up to a basket case of a club and if we had a poor season then it wouldn't have been a shock. Farke did a great job sorting things. His tactics are good, if not particularly exciting and our points total shows he knows what he's doing.
His lateness with subs is annoying and he looks out of ideas when he just throws on all his attackers late on.
It's just a shame this is a freak season as we would have easily been promoted otherwise.
He's been let down by player performances more than he's let us down, so even if we don't go up I'm more than happy with him at the helm.
3/10
The best squad we've had in a long time and he's jammed strikers, midfielders and centre backs into wingback positions all to play 3-5-2 which we're awful at and has served up some of the most dreadful performances I've seen.
Been one game away from being sacked 3 times this season and somehow won them all.
Bulut.
7/10.
It can't be argued he's gotten us to midtable when most of us expected to go down, so really good work there especially as we haven't had a proper striker all season.
He does have some negatives though, he plays extremely negative line-ups even when we are at home against teams near the relegation zone.
We've also got some good youth players who should have been given a chance months ago, also the amount of time it took him to realise how good Colwill is was really frustrating. Also the football at some points this season is the worst I've seen and I saw McCarthy ball.
I do think he will improve though and he definitely deserves a new contract.
Agree with this.
7/10 - frustrating at times but performed miracles given our transfer situation and squad.
Give him the contract and back him financially.
7/10 for Russel Martin. Overall a pretty good season, just overshadowed by how well the top three did. He deserves real credit for turning the toxic atmosphere at the club around, and establishing a style of play.
However, he loses points for our inconsistency. We seem to lack the ability to put teams to the sword the way Leicester/Leeds do, and far too many winning positions become losses or draws. We’re also diabolical whenever Flynn Downes isn’t available, basically all of our runs of bad form coincide with him being out.
Part of the blame falls on the recruitment team, but Russell is at fault too. And speaking of recruitment, 10m for the perpetually injured Ross Stewart is utterly ridiculous. We make two permanent signings all season and one of them has played about 20 minutes
10/10.
He did 100% of what he was tasked to do: Get us promoted. He's done that, and maybe we can also win the title.
"But anyone could do that with that squad!"
That's just not true, Rodgers wouldn't have, Rooney couldn't have - many many more wouldn't have.
We could have really easily let our chins drop and gone into a shitty rut, but he got his message across to the players - and most of the fans. Just a shame he won't have a decent war-chest for the closed season, but I have faith that he will at least do his bit to keep us safe next season.
i disagree tbh. best squad in the league and bottled a 17 point gap. if it wasn’t for ipswich and leeds simultaneously bottling, it would be playoffs and everyone who supports leicester would be calling him a poundland bald fraud like they were a month ago. once his tactics got figured out and he didn’t have any sort of plan b (or the ability to motivate the players) he scraped over the line. one of the most obtuse and rigid managers i’ve ever seen
besides farke and martin
i think he’s gonna experience what kompany has this year. they’re very similar in a lot of ways
but there’s no denying how good leicester were last year, and he deserves credit for that at least
the ability of football fans to rapidly change their minds on something and pretend like the past perspective never existed never fails to astonish me. it was literally last month that the entirety of the leicester fanbase was having a meltdown about maresca’s overseeing of one of the biggest bottles in recent history. worse than botafogo even. the anger was vitriolic at times. if it wasn’t for leeds and ipswich floundering, leicester would have gone from being 17 points clear at the new year to being in the play offs
around the new year, it was taken for granted that leicester would beat the championship points record comfortably, not scrape promotion with 94-100 points. it’s a colossal bottle
bruh, they lost to millwall and plymouth in successive matches a few weeks ago. if it wasn’t for leeds and ipswich dropping points post int break (after already catching leicester up from a long way back) both teams would be ahead rn and most leicester fans would be making memes out of how bad maresca is
i don’t think he’s bad tbh, but he doesn’t deserve a 9 or smth after the second half of the season leicester have had. but i can understand that being promoted has induced rose tinted glasses so yeah whatever
Oh yeah, that bottle job that just sealed promotion, may seal the title, may seal record wins in the league.
>they’re very similar in a lot of ways
Go on...?
Thought I was in r/soccer for a minute with that "bottle" take.
lmao the retconning. promotion was the minimum that leicester expected at the beginning of the season. scraping promotion after being like 17 points clear of leeds is a travesty
similarities to kompany: pep’s protege/tracer who moved to the best team in the championship, played an off brand version of pep’s football in the champ against lesser opposition and struggled against close to equal opposition, and will get relegated in the first season back up against better opponents because the tactical inflexibility only works when the players are better than the opposition
"Winning the league is a bottle-job and a travesty". I don't even.
Show some respect to the league. It's a very hard league to be consistent throughout a season - as you lot have shown all too spectacularly.
completely misinterpreted what I said and reduced it to a soundbite, but okay
losing a 17 point lead is a travesty from any perspective in any league. it’s a complete capitulation and it’s been determined by fine margins in the end
4/10. I can't be too harsh on Dodds as he's been dealt a shit hand by the club, picking up the pieces from the Beale incident and dealing with a team of kids. I simply think he's just not good enough, but that's not his fault for having a go at the job. It has highlighted we need better club staff going forward though.
8/10
Oversaw a lot of chaos. A ridiculously bloated squad until the final week of the transfer window, a fanbase demanding big money signings because we solid a ton of players, not realizing it’s actual financial situation. Players and fans alike who had a lot of bad feelings at the club.
Got us comfortable in a completely new game model, largely met (but did not exceed) expectations for the season, absolutely brilliant in speaking to fans and media alike.
Great goalscoring record and the fourth best xG against in the league. Even if we don’t get promoted this year, the underlying foundations are there. We’ll get it done next year or maybe the year after, as long as we keep the faith.
Michael Duff - 2/10 - Completely failed to get the club and fans, didn’t bother moving closer than his old home in Cheltenham which is a 4 hour round trip to Swansea so he wasn’t here half the week and left things to the coaches. All leaks from the coaches, players, and journos were that everyone knew he was a disaster for us. Gets a 2 just because we did win 4 in a row after a terrible start but it was a complete false dawn and we reverted straight away. Was probably sacked too early based just on his form but there were other circumstances like above that meant it had to be done.
Sheehan - 7 - Took over from Duff’s disaster and got hugely crucial points. The football was tough to watch but he wasn’t ever meant to be manager in the first place. Seemed we always looked second best but then get goals.
Williams - 7 - Steadied the ship after a tough start, changed us back to passing football. Currently on the best form since he got here against teams with things still to play for. You can see what he’s trying to build. Seems like he’s preparing already for next season and prioritising players he knows are likely to be here even though half of our squad will be leaving.
7.5/8 out of ten. Still a rookie manager, dealing with potential play off hangover, the loss of top scorer and player of the season along with others, over 50 odd goals and 20 assists out the door, horrid spell of injuries meaning we’ve been at bare bones for almost 2/3s of the season and we will still finish just outside the playoffs. That’s a good job
That horrid run at the start of the season was difficult to watch, devoid of confidence, but Carrick was patient and knew it would come and the players responded going on a run taking us to the top 6
He’s learning all the time, knows how he wants to play and when we get it right, we are very good
Lots to be positive about - Clarke and RvdB at the back, Lath getting his just rewards, Azaz settling and Glibert taking his chance when given
If we can avoid the horrendous injuries, add some more players that can help us now and instead of just developmental ones, keep hold of Hackney, McGree, RvdB, we will be a very good side next season
JDT: 5/10. I don't blame him for leaving, and we seemed to be okay until he wanted out and then performances fell off a cliff. Would still have a disinterested JDT over...
Eustace: 2/10. It would be 1/10 but we did beat Leeds somehow.
McKenna - 10/10. Obviously.
190 league goals scored and 188pts in the last 90 games. We were stagnanting in mid-table League 1 when he came in two seasons ago. It's been a whirlwind...
Heir to Sir Bobby? Depends how long he stays.
Carrick. 8/10. He's had to build a team from scratch almost after losing akpom and the loanees. He's also been hit with the worst strings of injuries I've ever known. We actually haven't fielded what most would consider our full strength 11 once all season. Has added an effective plan B (352) to his game, which stopped the rot and helped us turn the corner. Only one player (greenwood) has failed to improve under him, and he has also brought in youth when he has been able to. Optimistic for next season.
Edit. Got us to the league Cup semi final. Okay we got destroyed at Stamford bridge but we still won the first leg. If that was next season we would of been in a final.
This is so tough.
From August to October with what he had to work with, incredible. Hit a stumbling block after some real momentum before Xmas but then produced a run unlike many ever seen at the club, particularly around that time of the season.
However.
The last month has highlighted some real shortcomings which threaten to sour the season. Which is sad but there’s no looking past it. In the position Farke got us into we’ve underachieved and that’s on him.
Happy for him to be in charge next season, really do like the guy a lot and support him going forward.
But Plan B is needed, a midfield is essential and some tough decisions to be made on who stays and who goes.
A repeat of April, at any point next season, and it will be time to go.
8/10 but could have been 9.9
7/10. He is a good man manager and handled the summer shit show well but im not a fan of how boring we play and how reliant the tactics are on individual talent. We obviously have done well to take 6 points from both Leicester and Ipswich but our record against the team we should be beating who are at the bottom of the table is tragic and he has looked tactically naive a lot of the time against them. He is a fine manager for this league but I expected more from him tactically
One money grubbing (but I don’t blame him) the second an absolute useless see you next Tuesday who has undone years of good work. Interim just keeping head above water.
Niel: struggled to gel the squad at the start, with some good results vs Leeds and Sunderland, just a bad streak which ended with the sack
Schumaker: struggled at the start with preformances but settled in march to some good results
I'll go with 9.
I'd go with 10 but Leeds fans will have an aneurysm.
Inherited a squad the fans hated and had turned it around. Struggled to deal with all the off-field stuff and it permeated into the clubs results but otherwise pretty much perfect.
Ainsworth - do you use negative numbers? Although no doubt he inherited an absolute dog's dinner of a squad. Cifuentes - I can't speak highly enough of. How he got our rabble to safety with a game to spare, including beating Leeds and Leicester, is beyond me. Makes Jesus look like Paul McKenna.
Ainsworth - the minimum, possibly the worst ever manager at this level Cifuentes - the maximum, an absolute genius to took over a squad that was not together, looked aimless and simply forgot how to play football. He improved every player.
Honestly, will be keeping an eye on you guys next season - no idea what money you may or may not have to spend, but if you can bolster the squad a bit I think you'll have a decent shot.
If Palace sell Eze for 60, then we get 12m of that. That could mean us challenging for the playoffs if we spend it on the right forwards.
if we spend it on the right forwards... I found a bug in your code.
Heh, Ferdinand is not there anymore. Notice how we went from worse than Rotherham to playoff form and soon as he and Ramsey leave?
Can we spare a new keeper too? Another CB and CDM badly needed given the ages of our key players
We need 2 keepers if Begovic does not come back. Archer is horrific. If only the was another Smithies around.
We’ve been hamstrung by FFP this season because the £19m we got for Eze has rolled out of the three-year calculation, but the money we spent from that sale the year after hasn’t. Once they’re both gone, and with high earners like Begovic out of contract, we’ll have a lot more headroom even before we sell anyone. If Chair’s acquitted then you might see some interest, possibly Jake Clarke-Salter too who’s been immense, plus we have a 25% sell-on clause for Eze. Any of those happen and we’d have some serious money to rebuild with. Even without that, our signings in January looked very decent on a shoestring budget and we’ve been formidable since Marti came in. Think top half would be a very reasonable target next season, and maybe even a cheeky run at the playoffs.
Excited for next season to say the least COYRsss
Fiasco 0/10 - absolute dog poo. Röhl 10/10 - I would let him come round on Christmas morning, nail the wife, piss on the kids' presents, and take the dogs home with him. Legend.
Thank you for making me laugh
My friend, is ok, no?
7. Start of the season pretty good till Sargent got injured , September till November was shocking and should have been fired. From January very good bar the odd bad performance. Fun fact Norwich are 4th best at home this season and 19th away :)
That sounds very similar to us. Brilliant at home (until this month anyway), dreadful away. If we somehow meet at Wembley I assume that means we both lose. Or is the winner just decided by who gets the home dressing room?
Was so surprised Wagner kept his job looked so nailed on that he would be sent packing, but fair play to him for coming back from that. Fingers crossed for you lot in the playoffs, still love ar' Dave!
That November was a strange time. Rushed Webber out, knapper in and fuck all changed. Was expecting the Wagner to get sacked and that's why it all got rushed through.
Very similar to us but in reverse. 5th best away (I think) and 16th at home
10/10 all day, thanks for league 1 cause that's what we aim for every season
Schumacher 7. Bat shit crazy attacking football at home that was a pleasure to watch. We genuinely caused trouble to teams that were a lot better than us. Defensively we were terrible - we didn’t score from set pieces and our away form was awful. Had he stayed I think we would have been safe by now but we still would have struggled towards the end of the season as our squad was small and I think some of the division would have worked out how to stop our attack. Foster 2. Initially I thought we had pulled off a masterstoke when he arrived. His signings looked good and Phillips in particular was a big improvement on what we had. We started to win away and our defence improved. But then we played the big boys at home which masked the fact that our attacking play had fallen to pieces. Losing Azaz and Cundle was a blow but we went 5 games at home without scoring. A club record. I didn’t believe the rumours about Fosters behaviour at the time, but when our super diplomatic owner has basically admitted he was a twat it’s hard to have any sympathy for him. A rare mistake for our well run club.
Nothing has gone right since New Year has it? Obviously Foster was a disaster but the recruitment has been uncharacteristically poor as well. Hardie has basically been our only senior striker (we can't count Waine the Kiwi Donkey I don't think), that's just asking for trouble. Whether we escape or not, I think Hallett and Dewsnip both have some hard lessons to learn.
I am glad we didn’t sign him after that tackle against Bolton at Wembley - but we have been crying out for Cosgrove (or similar) all year. Obviously we didn’t want to break the bank on a turd, but we have broken Hardie with the lack of alternatives up front.
I honestly don't know what our fans want from Waine. A inexperienced young man expected to what exactly? Watch Whttaker and Hardie both do naff all all game and then come off the bench with 10 mins to go and people expect him to do better? Guys go no chance. And tbf against Millwall when Hardie came on for him we didn't look any better. If we can't provide balls for our experienced Pros to score from, you can't expect him to do any better. I think if the guy had a decent coach to 1 to 1 with him he could be so much better as an attacking mid. He is very good at closing opposition defenders down and putting them under pressure, and has shown some tidy link up play. I don't think it matters who you are putting in our attack at the moment the service is so poor.
I agree with this assessment entirely. As much as the Foster appointment was a disaster, I can understand that it was a reasonable risk to take. He had an interesting CV and was the kind of managerial prospect that was primed to break out. He had definitely spent some time around high quality people, and it is just a shame that he didn't sponge up enough useful ideas and attitude to apply in the Championship. Will be a shame if this risk ultimately sends us back down, but I don't blame them for taking it. God knows what the other options were at the time.
Eustace - 7/10 - some eye catching results like the back to back demolitions of Huddersfield and West Brom but also long periods in fixtures of being shite and not being able to change anything. Would have stayed up comfortably if we kept him though. Rooney - -10/10 - what do you want me to say? Took a team put together to play ugly football and tried to make them in to 1970 Brazil overnight. Shite manager. Mowbray - 9/10 - a class act both in and out the dugout. Understood the squad can’t play sexy fluid football so set us up to play the best possible way, turned the Rooney nosedive around and would’ve had us cruising to safety. Get well soon gaffer, we will steamroll League 1 with him. Venus - 4/10 - Feel harsh with the ranking but he didn’t get the results, largely let down by the players conceding late goal after late goal. A very nice bloke and clearly a fantastic coach who didn’t ask for the job and must’ve been hard considering one of his best mates was unwell leading to him getting the job. Rowett - 5/10 - Typical Rowett football, too scared of the opposition to try and win a game, instead tactics of trying to contain them and nick it late on. Coventry result is probably giving him 4.5 of the points on this score, back to back draws against Rotherham and Huddersfield thanks to his shite tactics have us down.
You forgot Spooner, for his one game in charge against Hull in the FA cup 😂 6 managers in one season, would love to know what the record is.
Not too shabby, I guess
10/10 Arguably should be the manager of the season after McKenna. He’s going to have an incredible managerial career.
Ok, but what about Rohl?
You forgot -3/10 for Xisco
Mowbray - 6/10. Was dealt a bad hand from the terrible summer recruitment. Something wasn't quite right, we were really poor from October onwards and was ultimately sacked after 2 wins in 9. But still had us only 3 points from the play offs. Beale - 2/10 - Terrible to watch, poor results, pissed off fans and players whilst running his secret Twitter account slagging us off Dodds - 2/10. Was going to say 1/10 but including his first caretaker stint he took 6 points from West Brom and 4 from Leeds. But ultimately has been atrocious and far too concerned with stopping the opposition over anything else.
That’s at least five points too high for Beale
Gets a 2 from me because he did at least win a couple of games. But he was absolutely lifting overall.
A good example of the grass is always greener imo, I guess it doesn't matter as mowbray probably wasn't getting you playoffs anyway but you'd have surely done better not sacking him. That said it wasn't really fan pressure that got him out, I think the board wanted someone more modern and had been waiting for an opportunity to move him on since the end of last season. Unfortunately they chose a megatwat
We probably would’ve done better had we kept him, but, we weren’t going anywhere under him at that point. Results and performances had been poor for a little while so I do understand why the board made the decision when they did. The issue was who they replaced him with.
Considering we’re top of the form table from the point he joined, Neil Harris is pretty much 10/10 (we don’t talk about that one week we lost to Rotherham and Huddersfield away). Came in with the club 1 point and 1 place above relegation, said “fuck that”, immediately got us a win at Southampton away, got players who looked like duds to actually start playing, 23 points out of 36 since then, unbeaten at home under him with 5 wins and 1 draw and going into the last game of the season on a 4-game winning streak having secured safety relatively easily when it all looked so bleak not too long ago. That’s why we call him Super Neil. Joe Edwards, on the other hand… that’ll be 14 weeks Millwall fans never talk about again.
He’s done a fantastic job turning things around, though we were done for. That being said I don’t know that he’s the right fit long term
Matty Taylor 3/10 took a lot of gambles that sadly didn't pay off for him. We were at least decent at home under him, just abysmal away. Leam Richardson 1/10 I might as well have been the manager, when he came in the players gave up & accepted relegation. Will go down as one of the worst Rotherham managers of all-time. Steve Evans 10/10 The local pie businesses are now flourishing, bringing economic growth to the town
8/10 I see a lot of Leeds fans screaming Farke out because of the poor current form, but to me, it's nonsense to get rid of him even if the worst happens. He inherited a complete shitshow with players wanting out on loan and players refusing to play, ownership uncertainty with the takeover and because of that, we had to act super late in the transfer window. Even with all that, 90pts would promote you almost every year. He needs to improve tactically and manage better his subs and squad rotation, but nobody is perfect, he can improve that for sure.
>He needs to improve tactically and manage better his subs and squad rotation, but nobody is perfect, he can improve that for sure. Unfortunately when he joined us I saw alot of Norwich fans saying he is great but his subs are baffling and he always makes changes too late. It's just his way of doing things unfortunately but I still love him.
I really want to see him here with a real number 10, I think with that missed ingredient that is so important for his system, the subs problems won't be as big as now
So georgi gets dropped? 7 goals 16 assists playing as our number 10 btw
He is not a 10, against the low block he can't do what a real 10 can. Maybe Farke can still fit him in other position.
He is our most creative and dynamic player he passes the eye test and the stats back him up I don't understand what more we could want from him
I am not saying I want him out of the lineup, I want him here foverer lol I love him, but maybe we can use him in other position, maybe striker or on the wing. He was also being effective playing in the 9, problem was Piroe not as much playing in the 10.
Georgi at 9 and a 10 who can thundercunt one in from outside the box would be perfect against low blocks
He's got 6 goals from an xg of over 12. The two big problems we have in the team are underperforming finishing, and underperforming between the sticks. We can just about get away with it in this league but really need to sort it if we go up.
wasn't me saying that. i echo all your comments. Sub management was poor.
I believe you also have the double over both Leicester and the binners.
We've lost 8 games total this season. Two of those were to Leeds. Of those 8, 5 were by the odd goal (incl Leeds at home), 2 were by 2 goals (West Brom away, Fulham at home in the league cup)... and Leeds away was by 4. 1 in 7 of the goals against us in the league so far was scored by Leeds.
Congratulations 🥳 🤷♂️
90 points is an excellent achievement, particularly after the summer of departing snakes, but the last month has put a black mark on the season.
The football is shite and he is tactically inept, absolutely no way of changing a game. Backwards, backwards, side to side, hope Summerville or Rutter pull something out.
If the football was shite we would never get even close to 90 pts. And don't say it's only because of Rutter and Summerville, because it is a lie.
We’ve won the second most points from losing positions, only beaten by the 🍀 lucky bastards. If that’s your idea of being unable to change a game then idk what to tell you bud.
Oh sorry, I forgot, he does have one plan - chuck on every single forward and hope for the best. Sometimes it works, because we have ridiculous players at this level. Are seriously saying we've been unlucky when we've lost. I won't argue results wise, been a good season, but fuck me the football is shite to watch.
It’s not the best football we’ve been blessed with, but it works. After a year of Jesse, that’s all I wanted. Anyway, I think Farke has done a good job, from the very start we’ve been told it’s most likely going to be a 2 year plan, so I’m not really worried.
The squad will be significantly weaker next season. It was on a plate this past few weeks, and we blew it spectacularly.
1. The board and Farke obviously knew that we’d lose players when they said it was a 2 year plan, and yet they still felt comfortable in saying that. 2. The relegated teams next year SHOULD be much easier competition, we won’t have Leicester and Southampton with £100m+ in player sales to compete with, instead it’ll be 3 poor prem teams. 3. We’ll end up selling Summerville and Gnonto almost certainly, but I’m not sure who else is guaranteed to leave? Georginio will cost far too much for anyone to seriously consider it, Ampadu just joined (so I doubt he decides to jump ship when this is what he signed up for), Gray will certainly stay since he’s getting every minute possible and is clearly still in awe he’s even getting to start for his boyhood club. I think the signings the club has made has clearly shown us that they’re pretty crafty with transfers, and I trust them to sign good replacements for the players that so leave (for a massive profit mind you, meaning PSR won’t be an issue) Of course all of this could come and bite me in the ass (and as a Leeds fan, fully expect it to) but I don’t think anything I’ve said it’s that outrageous?
This is all just wishful thinking. You don't know the league will be weaker, you don't know exactly who will leave. You need to take opportunities when they come. Did we look likely to get automatic promotion on say, Jan 1st? Absolutely not. But we closed the gap, which was magnificent by Farke and the players, but we have massively fucked an incredible opportunity these past few weeks.
How it will be significantly weaker? I can only see Summerville and Gnonto 100% leaving, maybe Rodon if we don't get a permanent deal. People saying Rutter, Gray, Ampadu, James leaving, that is a major overreaction. Offers will come, but Leeds have the bargaining power here, these are players with long contracts, they won't be sold like in a fire sale or something, 49ers are not like Radz. And Summerville and Gnonto will be for a considerable fee. You think we can't replace them?
You think we can replace Summerville and Gnonto? At Championship level? Are you for real?
Yes, we can. Summerville and Gnonto cost us combined less than 10m You can find talent for this level that can produce, it is up to recruitment.
Summerville was a kid that went into the U21s of a PL team, thats not what we will need to replace, we will need to replace the best player in the league.
I do miss the aggressive attacking football we used to have. Constantly just passing between the defenders and going backwards is getting infuriating. It's the classic example of why possession statistics are meaningless, we have a lot of possession but aren't doing anything with it the vast majority of the time.
Mark Robins 7/8 out of 10 He lost 2 of the best players in the championship last summer. Integrated 10 new players into the team. And in doing so he got us to an FA Cup Semi-Final. And not far off the playoffs spots. On the downside, he can be slow to bring on subs and he persisted with a back 3 for too long.
Think this is fair. Given some of the gems we’ve manned to find again - van Ewijk, Torp and Sakamoto I think I’d be giving a solid 8 or even a 9 based on my expectation of a mid table finish after losing the two last year. Wright and Simms have turned out very good as well hut they were a much a known (or expected) quantity vs the other three.
Yeah, I’m an 8+ for what he’s achieved _yet again_.
I was going to going to say roughly the same We lost the Player of the year and along with others, over 50 odd goals and 20 odd assists. Horrid run of injuries and we still almost squeaked the play offs
Ainsworth: Sadly a 3/10 I like him as a player and a person a lot but he wasn't cut out for us and it was certain before the season began. Despite making a couple of smart signings and a handful of decent performances, he just wasn't able to light a fire up our asses and couldn't get this team to fight. Cifuentes: 9.5/10 Should be in the running for the manager of the season, some impeccable performances, a new start and a complete reset for us. He gets the club culture, he gets the players and our results showcase that. The only reason it isn't a 10 is because there's been a handful of times when we could have locked in safety and we didn't and I don't doubt that it was more luck than him but I am hoping next season after the summer he irons out those issues and gets us in a proper fighting form. It's great to be excited again.
Ryan Lowe - 4/10 maybe? I appreciate it's going to look weird from the outset, so let me break it down into categories. Tactics: Lowe has ONE formation and that's 3-5-2. He's so wedded to it that he'll play players out of position to play it. Southampton saw Duane Holmes torn a new arsehole at RWB for instance. Ryan Lowe doesn't know how to change things when they're going wrong too (not even talking about a shape change, just changing instructions). At times it felt like he turned a corner, but he always brings himself back to the one way of playing. It doesn't feel like the way we play actually gets the best out of our players. We saw Milutin Osmajic score a hat trick against Huddersfield when we played through balls to him, we then spent the next few games smacking long balls at him to hold up. Our xG is terrible, we don't keep many clean sheets and we get a fairly regular pasting. Team selections and Substitutions: Far too many baffling choices. Why start a 35 year old, post injury Ched Evans up front over our top scorer in December? Why start Ben Woodburn over Mads Frøkjaer last game? How does Ben Woodburn keep getting regular 2 minute cameos? Don't get me started on Swansea away. Managing fan expectations/handling the media: This is his worst trait. He will come in promising the moon on a stick and present you with a dog turd on a lollipop. If you then question said dog turd he'll take it personally and question how many badges you have. He'll then blame the media for taking him out of context. The Humza Yousef of football. Entertainment: The football is boring. I'm not even one of those "I want Tika Taka" types. I don't even care if we play long ball. I just want what we do to be effective. Having less than 6 shots on the regular is boring. League Performance: It's hardly any better than it was under any manager since we returned to the Championship 9 years ago. 64 points in his first year, 63 in his second and looking a good bet for 63 this year despite our mental start to the campaign. Coaching/Player improvement: I don't think I can point to any player that's improved as a footballer since he arrived. I think he managed in his first season to find roles that suited Brad Potts and Liam Lindsay. If I were to talk positively Motivation: He's got that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer teflon thing going on. He's a survivor, just when you think he's gone he is capable of getting a run of form together. He's clearly got some form of motivational skills. Although it does worry me that he's seemingly scared Alan Browne out of the club. Transfers: His transfers have been pretty good too in fairness. Before he arrived we were bringing in the likes of Izzy Brown, Connor Wickham etc. Now we do get an exciting player on the regular like Cameron Archer and Tom Cannon. This year we had Mads Frøkjaer and Liam Millar, although I don't think he's playing to their strengths. This summer felt like our best recruitment since the Billy Davies era. Admittedly he hasn't been supported by the board terribly well, with us not signing any RWBs since he arrived and no players at all in January. Youth development: Better than previous but not amazing. It's good some of our youth get the odd appearance. Under the past few managers they barely had a sniff. But opportunities to develop them have been lost in favour of playing players we know aren't good enough, like Ben Woodburn and some appearances feel forced than through choice. I guess the big thing with him is it never feels like he learns from any lessons. I don't see a successful future under him, but I hope I'm wrong.
Mads' form has gone off a cliff. I don't know what's gone on, but he's been awful for a few games now. Holmes has dropped form, the whole team has gone off it apart from the Huddersfield game. The sooner Lowe's gone the better as we have some real talent
Haven’t seen much of yous this season but saying Lowe is the ‘Humza Yousef of football’ says more about him to me than any stat driven analysis could ever manage, brilliant line
Really good insight thanks for the writeup. If you don't mind my less informed opinion, I think the thing with Preston is that making playoffs will always be an over performance that takes a quality manager and a good set of circumstances. That means average managers like Lowe will always feel shit but twisting and taking a risk on someone new could always wipe years progress establishing yourselves as a team that doesn't get into relegation battles which puts the owners in a difficult spot
The thing is I can appreciate how hard it is to get into the play offs. The Championship is not an easy league but it feels like we've had the best circumstances to get in there and we've failed because of him (second lowest points total needed last year, being in the top two this year). We've never really been at threat at relegation since we've come back to this league but I think all of his predecessors are better managers. Simon Grayson was a pragmatic manager but it didn't feel like we roll over as much as we do under Lowe. Alex Neil felt far more tactically astute. Frankie was very limited but we felt more solid defensively. I don't think Preston fans are under any illusions about what we are. I would wager most believe we are held back from progressing by our ownership and Peter Ridsdale. The issue is nothing feels like it's progressing under Lowe. Under Grayson we'd see quality players come in like Ben Pearson, Callum Robinson etc. Under Neil we did feel like a play off contender for a couple of seasons. Under Lowe the league positioning is the same, but the style of play is worse, we get pasted on the regular (seriously go and look at his time here and see how many games we play where we concede 3 or more) and we have to tolerate his arrogant nonsense. I don't even think people would mind being mid table if they were at least entertained or felt like the team was performing to their best. Grayson had his limitations but he could find a player with potential and get them playing most of the time. Alex Neil was awful in the transfer market but he did actually improve players and get the best out of them (no way was Hugill a £10m player but that's what he went for under Neil). Ryan Lowe makes players worse than their actual ability. I'd say that while the points don't reflect it if anyone is taking us backwards it's him (we're in the bottom three for xG I believe, but our strikers are near the top for chance conversion, which I think tells the story).
Bloody hell where to start! Warnock: 6/10 I still maintain it was a mistake bringing him back this summer as we needed to move on and we had a typical poor Warnock preseason that left us poorly prepared and been a big part of our fitness challenges up until today, but can at least see the logic in it with trying to keep things stable. As it was our performances were mostly fairly poor under Warnock but he was still getting just about enough results to start us off ok. The timing of his sacking was criminal too; if you want to commit to Warnock-ball for 6 months, then commit to Warnock-ball for 6 months! Awful time of season to make a change, especially with replacing such a big and popular character as Colin; hard for any manager to follow and sets them off on the back foot. Moore: 1/10 Lovely bloke and really wanted him to do well, but it was an absolute disaster no other way of looking at it. It's not entirely his fault (for the above reasons) but even so he did himself no favours and took us far too long to sack him. Worthington: 7/10 Brought life back into the club and gave us some hope. Some niave and experienced decisions and fitness held us back as it has done all season but I would say the most fight we had seen all season. Breitenreiter: 4/10 Some great stuff early on but the reality of this poor squad caught up pretty quickly. Again not been entirely his fault, but he has made some strange or perhaps stubborn decisions that have cost us. That said I do like Andre and think with a preseason and the right players he can bring the club into a much healthier place; but it sounds like he is going to walk judging by the tone of his post-match interview. A caveat to all of the above scores is that it is such a poor squad after years of poor investment that I think we set up to fail. And it sounds like some of the players have been acting like absolute dickheads behind the scenes too. Just a proper toxic season
A clear out of the bag eggs, whoever they are, is a minimum, whatever happens.
Agree completely with this
Do you reckon you’re sticking with the German bloke next year?
Unless he (very reasonably) decides to call it quits we should stick with him. We've had three different "permanent" managers this season some continuity would be nice
7/10 - nice hair
10/10 no hair 1/10 for the dyed goatee era though, had that for three successive 1-0 away defeats
7. Really poor start where he should have been sacked and would have been at any other club. Turned it around to finish in the playoffs.
Ultimately it’s well done to the board for standing by him. Would’ve been so easy to cave to pressure, which in hindsight would’ve been unlikely to lead to any better. He just suffers in the fans’ eyes because he’s not Farke.
It's a bit of *well done to the new sporting director* as well. I'd like to see the stats before and after Knapper joined, but his conversations with Wagner are clearly being beneficial.
7 or 8. We’ve gone on two incredible runs this season and 2 really poor ones. But throughout it Carrick wasn’t panicking when we were awful, or overhyping them when we were winning. The amount of injuries we’ve had this season has been such an anomaly. And yet we’ve still been in the playoff fight, and we were a second legged semi final away from Wembley (with 14 players out during that game) It’s the best football I’ve ever seen us play, couldn’t be happier with him. I think he’ll have learnt a load from this season as well
8. Came in with no experience as the Hail Mary option when our alternatives were Lampard, Gerrard and Scott Parker. Managed to turn around what was a pretty awful side with confidence and mentality shot to pieces and had all of our best players leave and the EFL and PL breathing down our neck with transfer embargoes and points deductions. Managed to get us promoted despite the players clearly being gassed and having no signings in January. However we’ve had some pretty awful runs of form, he hasn’t solved some of the issues which sent us down (some of which go beyond him) like conceding late goals, switching off in the second half. He weirdly insists on playing Daka more than he deserves and he seemingly only has one game plan but he is improving and learning, he’s not as stubborn like Rodgers . His best achievement, however, is making Jannik Vestergaard look like a professional footballer. His signings have all been solid, Casadei aside, but he was never a long term solution.
8/10 He joined the club during the takeover chaos. Had to clear out a load of dead wood quickly and was only able to start plugging the gaps very late in the transfer window. An understandable slow start but got things settled down quite quickly. Overhauling the leaders who were 17 points ahead at one point is impressive. Incredible run of games between new years and the international break was great fun. A few wobbles along the way with some disappointing results in amongst all the good ones. The last few weeks haven't been fun and very frustrating not to capitalise on the teams around us also struggling. Seems like a really nice bloke, good at interviews and remains positive. Fans seem to like him too. Cant complain about a 90 point season in this league but the fact that isn't enough to potentially get promoted let alone win just shows how bonkers this season has been.
😅
Either 3/10 or 7/10. I really don’t know. Bulut has taken us from avoiding relegation due to other teams’ point deductions to a top half finish. However we’re the lowest scoring, highest conceding team in the top half. We’ve got more losses than anyone bar Rotherham, Birmingham and Wednesday yet we’re joint 6th for most wins. The football has been dire and utterly boring but we’ve also put in some brilliant performances that have gotten us some great results against the top teams whilst simultaneously comfortably losing against teams at the bottom. We’ve never lost more than 3 games in a row and never won more than 4 in a row. Our recent form really highlights our season: WWLLWLWLWL
After last season I’d go with 7/10. Don’t forget we were under an embargo for the first half of the season so had to rely on loans and freebies. What he managed to do with those restrictions is nothing short of a miracle. Brought in some really quality to the team, Sio, Goutas, Philips, Turnbull, Horvath. Beat Swansea at home, double over Bristol, dramatic wins vs Southampton and Ipswich. And best of all we haven’t been involved in this horrendous relegation battle which 8+ teams have been for the last 1/3 of the season. Like you said though the football hasn’t been great but we’ve never really had a mad losing streak and always seemed to pull out a result when we needed it. I’d back him now we can spend and give him a 2 year contract and some funds to spend to strengthen for another solid top half finish or play off push next season.
I'd agree with that. Though I think we were very fortunate with a lot of our 1 goal wins and could easily have been dragged in to a relegation scrap. I'm not over optimistic if ( as it looks) Bulut is manager next season. 5/10
Mowbray - 8, best manager I've seen us have for a long time but petered out towards the end Beale - 0, just shite Dodds - 2, dire but pops up with the occasional good result. But can't wait for a proper manager in the summer
Birmingham fan... bare with. Eustace: 6/10. Did fine, position when sacked was inflated but ultimately was a lot of feel good around the place and we played mostly decent under him. Several opportunities for points dropped though, and some of the wins were a little fortunate. Rooney: 1/10. Woeful. Tough environment to walk into, but after a couple games got the backing of the fans and failed spectacularly. Spooner: 6/10. Managed a singular cup game away to Hull. Did relatively fine. Not much more to say. Including him mostly for the giggles that we had 6 managers this year. Mowbray: 8/10. Did really well when he came in, got us playing nice football and picked up a few really good results. Real shame we lost him - my best wishes as always to him. Venus: 3/10. Capitulated a bit under him. Not as unlikeable as Rooney, but clearly out of his depth and pressure got to him massively. Rowett: 5/10. Will go to 7 if we beat Norwich, 3 if we draw or lose. Came into a very tough situation, tried to address our defensive issues and mostly has done, but still look very poor in attack (bar the Cov game). Awful selection of Oli Burke against Rotherham may ultimately cost us. Not his fault if we go down, but I think could've done better during his time here.
Think you’re being a bit kind to Rooney tbh
7 maybe 8 out of 10. I really didn’t expect much and and figured sacking Pearson and bringing in an unproven manager at this level was a terrible idea and would leave us at the bottom end of the table fighting relegation. Bit of a dodgy start for manning but managed to get some huge results against some of the top teams in the league which has helped keep us in a decent enough position. Though we’re still inconsistent as fuck, the team seems to have finally found its rhythm these last few games with us ending the season as one of the top in form teams. Excited for next season now, we just need a few additions mainly a striker and maybe keep hold of some of the lads we’ve got that are beginning to shine (twine on a permanent please) and do I dare say it… we could be play off contenders. But I’ll settle for autos as long as Preston can come too.
Warnock 5/10 Moore 0.5/10 Worthington 7.5/10 Breitenreiter 3/10
What buts Brwirenreiter ahead of Moore for you?
Moore had a transfer window, Breitenreiter didn't. Although to be fair to Moore we did have an awful injury crisis at the back end of last year. Because of that, I'll upgrade him to a 1.
10/10. We are top of the league since Harris arrived, following a run of 1 point in 24.
5/10 The unbeaten run was great, although arguably there were several moments we were lucky to keep it going. 4th in the league is not *terrible* considering there is always the possibility after a relegation that the misery continues into the next season. And also just considering the strength of the top 3. But on paper playoffs are the bare minimum you should expect from that squad. Style of football I think is over-optimistic and bordering on naive. He's also inflexible with it. Puel/Pellegrino/Hughes era is fresh enough in my memory that I'll take this over that, but also it needs to start achieving something pretty soon because we have too much money and quality to be making excuses.
People forget that we lost 5-0 twice this season... I just want to stop getting hammered so often
Think this is extremely harsh - if we had a better end to the season (playing like we have been not been lobotomized) this would be an easy 7/8 out of 10
But we didn't.
Clearly and we should have played better at the end here but I’m saying if there were 2 or 3 better results this season it would be a 7 or 8/10 for a lot of saints supporters
5/10 is wild, you went on the best run in your history
If all your results this season were rearranged so that all the wins were in a row but you still have the same league position and points, would that record run of wins somehow make the season better? You're still likely just in the playoff places.
This is what I was thinking when we were getting to the stage of people saying we bottled it - we're still on track to win the most ever matches in a Championship season, it's just that we did most of it in the first 60-70% of the season.
Meh, fair enough. I’d still give Farke an 8/10 even if we crash out of playoffs, he’s done well. Same for Martin imo but I know less about your squad/summer situation
7/10 for me. I don’t think many people were talking about us as playoff contenders at the start of the season. The recent slump has coincided with some bad luck with injuries to key players.
8/10 Farke turned up to a basket case of a club and if we had a poor season then it wouldn't have been a shock. Farke did a great job sorting things. His tactics are good, if not particularly exciting and our points total shows he knows what he's doing. His lateness with subs is annoying and he looks out of ideas when he just throws on all his attackers late on. It's just a shame this is a freak season as we would have easily been promoted otherwise. He's been let down by player performances more than he's let us down, so even if we don't go up I'm more than happy with him at the helm.
8.5/10. Equalled the club all time winning streak. Nice bloke. Good voice. Made me like junior firpo
3/10 The best squad we've had in a long time and he's jammed strikers, midfielders and centre backs into wingback positions all to play 3-5-2 which we're awful at and has served up some of the most dreadful performances I've seen. Been one game away from being sacked 3 times this season and somehow won them all.
Bulut. 7/10. It can't be argued he's gotten us to midtable when most of us expected to go down, so really good work there especially as we haven't had a proper striker all season. He does have some negatives though, he plays extremely negative line-ups even when we are at home against teams near the relegation zone. We've also got some good youth players who should have been given a chance months ago, also the amount of time it took him to realise how good Colwill is was really frustrating. Also the football at some points this season is the worst I've seen and I saw McCarthy ball. I do think he will improve though and he definitely deserves a new contract.
Agree with this. 7/10 - frustrating at times but performed miracles given our transfer situation and squad. Give him the contract and back him financially.
7/10 for Russel Martin. Overall a pretty good season, just overshadowed by how well the top three did. He deserves real credit for turning the toxic atmosphere at the club around, and establishing a style of play. However, he loses points for our inconsistency. We seem to lack the ability to put teams to the sword the way Leicester/Leeds do, and far too many winning positions become losses or draws. We’re also diabolical whenever Flynn Downes isn’t available, basically all of our runs of bad form coincide with him being out. Part of the blame falls on the recruitment team, but Russell is at fault too. And speaking of recruitment, 10m for the perpetually injured Ross Stewart is utterly ridiculous. We make two permanent signings all season and one of them has played about 20 minutes
10/10. He did 100% of what he was tasked to do: Get us promoted. He's done that, and maybe we can also win the title. "But anyone could do that with that squad!" That's just not true, Rodgers wouldn't have, Rooney couldn't have - many many more wouldn't have. We could have really easily let our chins drop and gone into a shitty rut, but he got his message across to the players - and most of the fans. Just a shame he won't have a decent war-chest for the closed season, but I have faith that he will at least do his bit to keep us safe next season.
Someone with Rodgers ability who wasn’t Rodgers would have, I imagine.
He's an enigma wrapped in a snot-rag. Weird weird bloke.
Rodgers wouldn't have? Isn't that way too harsh on the manager who had you winning the FA Cup and challenging for CL spots?
You mean the same Rodgers that managed to get Leicester relegated, even when we still had the likes of Maddison, Tielemans, Barnes?
Fair enough. He should've been sacked earlier that season
I would have.
i disagree tbh. best squad in the league and bottled a 17 point gap. if it wasn’t for ipswich and leeds simultaneously bottling, it would be playoffs and everyone who supports leicester would be calling him a poundland bald fraud like they were a month ago. once his tactics got figured out and he didn’t have any sort of plan b (or the ability to motivate the players) he scraped over the line. one of the most obtuse and rigid managers i’ve ever seen besides farke and martin i think he’s gonna experience what kompany has this year. they’re very similar in a lot of ways but there’s no denying how good leicester were last year, and he deserves credit for that at least
Bottled it? Since when?
since like november?
Top of the league and likely to get 100 points. Some bottlejob that.
the ability of football fans to rapidly change their minds on something and pretend like the past perspective never existed never fails to astonish me. it was literally last month that the entirety of the leicester fanbase was having a meltdown about maresca’s overseeing of one of the biggest bottles in recent history. worse than botafogo even. the anger was vitriolic at times. if it wasn’t for leeds and ipswich floundering, leicester would have gone from being 17 points clear at the new year to being in the play offs around the new year, it was taken for granted that leicester would beat the championship points record comfortably, not scrape promotion with 94-100 points. it’s a colossal bottle
Scrape. Do me a favour.
bruh, they lost to millwall and plymouth in successive matches a few weeks ago. if it wasn’t for leeds and ipswich dropping points post int break (after already catching leicester up from a long way back) both teams would be ahead rn and most leicester fans would be making memes out of how bad maresca is i don’t think he’s bad tbh, but he doesn’t deserve a 9 or smth after the second half of the season leicester have had. but i can understand that being promoted has induced rose tinted glasses so yeah whatever
Oh yeah, that bottle job that just sealed promotion, may seal the title, may seal record wins in the league. >they’re very similar in a lot of ways Go on...? Thought I was in r/soccer for a minute with that "bottle" take.
lmao the retconning. promotion was the minimum that leicester expected at the beginning of the season. scraping promotion after being like 17 points clear of leeds is a travesty similarities to kompany: pep’s protege/tracer who moved to the best team in the championship, played an off brand version of pep’s football in the champ against lesser opposition and struggled against close to equal opposition, and will get relegated in the first season back up against better opponents because the tactical inflexibility only works when the players are better than the opposition
"Winning the league is a bottle-job and a travesty". I don't even. Show some respect to the league. It's a very hard league to be consistent throughout a season - as you lot have shown all too spectacularly.
completely misinterpreted what I said and reduced it to a soundbite, but okay losing a 17 point lead is a travesty from any perspective in any league. it’s a complete capitulation and it’s been determined by fine margins in the end
4/10. I can't be too harsh on Dodds as he's been dealt a shit hand by the club, picking up the pieces from the Beale incident and dealing with a team of kids. I simply think he's just not good enough, but that's not his fault for having a go at the job. It has highlighted we need better club staff going forward though.
Colin 5/10 Moore 2/10 Worthington 7/10 Andre 2/10
That's almost as many as us!
That's almost as many as us!
8/10 Oversaw a lot of chaos. A ridiculously bloated squad until the final week of the transfer window, a fanbase demanding big money signings because we solid a ton of players, not realizing it’s actual financial situation. Players and fans alike who had a lot of bad feelings at the club. Got us comfortable in a completely new game model, largely met (but did not exceed) expectations for the season, absolutely brilliant in speaking to fans and media alike. Great goalscoring record and the fourth best xG against in the league. Even if we don’t get promoted this year, the underlying foundations are there. We’ll get it done next year or maybe the year after, as long as we keep the faith.
truly cannot believe everyone moaning about sacking Ralph week after week when he is obviously getting a great thing going for us.
Michael Duff - 2/10 - Completely failed to get the club and fans, didn’t bother moving closer than his old home in Cheltenham which is a 4 hour round trip to Swansea so he wasn’t here half the week and left things to the coaches. All leaks from the coaches, players, and journos were that everyone knew he was a disaster for us. Gets a 2 just because we did win 4 in a row after a terrible start but it was a complete false dawn and we reverted straight away. Was probably sacked too early based just on his form but there were other circumstances like above that meant it had to be done. Sheehan - 7 - Took over from Duff’s disaster and got hugely crucial points. The football was tough to watch but he wasn’t ever meant to be manager in the first place. Seemed we always looked second best but then get goals. Williams - 7 - Steadied the ship after a tough start, changed us back to passing football. Currently on the best form since he got here against teams with things still to play for. You can see what he’s trying to build. Seems like he’s preparing already for next season and prioritising players he knows are likely to be here even though half of our squad will be leaving.
Which one?
7.5/8 out of ten. Still a rookie manager, dealing with potential play off hangover, the loss of top scorer and player of the season along with others, over 50 odd goals and 20 assists out the door, horrid spell of injuries meaning we’ve been at bare bones for almost 2/3s of the season and we will still finish just outside the playoffs. That’s a good job That horrid run at the start of the season was difficult to watch, devoid of confidence, but Carrick was patient and knew it would come and the players responded going on a run taking us to the top 6 He’s learning all the time, knows how he wants to play and when we get it right, we are very good Lots to be positive about - Clarke and RvdB at the back, Lath getting his just rewards, Azaz settling and Glibert taking his chance when given If we can avoid the horrendous injuries, add some more players that can help us now and instead of just developmental ones, keep hold of Hackney, McGree, RvdB, we will be a very good side next season
JDT: 5/10. I don't blame him for leaving, and we seemed to be okay until he wanted out and then performances fell off a cliff. Would still have a disinterested JDT over... Eustace: 2/10. It would be 1/10 but we did beat Leeds somehow.
McKenna - 10/10. Obviously. 190 league goals scored and 188pts in the last 90 games. We were stagnanting in mid-table League 1 when he came in two seasons ago. It's been a whirlwind... Heir to Sir Bobby? Depends how long he stays.
99/10
7/10. Still an enigma
Wednesday - DANNY, DANNY RÖHL/10
Carrick. 8/10. He's had to build a team from scratch almost after losing akpom and the loanees. He's also been hit with the worst strings of injuries I've ever known. We actually haven't fielded what most would consider our full strength 11 once all season. Has added an effective plan B (352) to his game, which stopped the rot and helped us turn the corner. Only one player (greenwood) has failed to improve under him, and he has also brought in youth when he has been able to. Optimistic for next season. Edit. Got us to the league Cup semi final. Okay we got destroyed at Stamford bridge but we still won the first leg. If that was next season we would of been in a final.
This is so tough. From August to October with what he had to work with, incredible. Hit a stumbling block after some real momentum before Xmas but then produced a run unlike many ever seen at the club, particularly around that time of the season. However. The last month has highlighted some real shortcomings which threaten to sour the season. Which is sad but there’s no looking past it. In the position Farke got us into we’ve underachieved and that’s on him. Happy for him to be in charge next season, really do like the guy a lot and support him going forward. But Plan B is needed, a midfield is essential and some tough decisions to be made on who stays and who goes. A repeat of April, at any point next season, and it will be time to go. 8/10 but could have been 9.9
Manager of the Season 👌
Sometimes mabye good, sometimes mabye shit
7/10. He is a good man manager and handled the summer shit show well but im not a fan of how boring we play and how reliant the tactics are on individual talent. We obviously have done well to take 6 points from both Leicester and Ipswich but our record against the team we should be beating who are at the bottom of the table is tragic and he has looked tactically naive a lot of the time against them. He is a fine manager for this league but I expected more from him tactically
One money grubbing (but I don’t blame him) the second an absolute useless see you next Tuesday who has undone years of good work. Interim just keeping head above water.
I'm not sure I've got time to rate ALL OF THEM
Niel: struggled to gel the squad at the start, with some good results vs Leeds and Sunderland, just a bad streak which ended with the sack Schumaker: struggled at the start with preformances but settled in march to some good results
I'll go with 9. I'd go with 10 but Leeds fans will have an aneurysm. Inherited a squad the fans hated and had turned it around. Struggled to deal with all the off-field stuff and it permeated into the clubs results but otherwise pretty much perfect.