I guess that if the final outcome (relegation) of his process hasn't convinced you, clearly nothing ever will.
Didn’t Phil Brown get the relegation on his CV not Mark Molesley? I mean that’s how it works isn’t it? Just like Kevin Bond got the credit for keeping the club up and not anything Chris Powell had done for the previous 8 months? ?? ?
Having changed our fortunes with a different and more attacking style of play from the nonsensical tactics he immediately implemented when he joined and maintained for far too long, he then inexplicably and catastrophically changed them again and went ultra defensive when (almost) everyone could see that we had to win matches, which actually meant we had to score the odd goal.
Yep he identified that his preferred style of play wasn’t going to work and found a way of picking up regular points and winning some games. He was also astute enough to recognise that the squad he had and had been allowed to assemble (not for the want of trying) simply didn’t have enough fire power to risk having to score 3/4 goals to win a game so the only other alternative in that situation to enable you to pick up points is to stop conceding them!
The Xgoal stats, missed chances and missed penalties were evidence that he was actually right to think that would be enough but ultimately the lack of player ability meant too many opportunities were being wasted….he could only pick from who he could pick from….in normal circumstances that would come under the managers remit and his responsibility but surely we’d all accept that recruitment of players is one thing was always very much out of of MMs hands, no tactics and formations were ever going to change the personnel available to score or their ability levels.
Remind me of the objective of football. Oh yeah - to score more goals than the opposition. If that were the only issue (which it wasn't by far) it would be the issue that would see every side with that issue relegated and every manager with that issue sacked...........and, quite rightly, he was.
Of course. But more goals than the opposition can be 1-0….and if you know you don’t have the capability of scoring 3/4 you have to accept it will take a clean sheet to win a game. That’s just pragmatism I very much doubt it was preferred choice.
Bottom line is he was sacked and it’s very hard to argue against it being deserved other than it had no impact on the outcome and we’ll never know if it made a difference or not.
What we do know is we then lost to just about the only other team we had hope of catching with a terrible performance in a derby game that had ongoing hints at problems behind the scenes that probably put the final nails in the coffin.
However I accept I am a bit of an idealist and utopia has no place in football….But I’m a firm believer that had CP not been sacked the outcome would’ve been the same as it was under Bond…I also still believe either way the club would still be in a better place today with CP still in charge rather than any of the following 5 incumbents….but then I also thought Waddock should’ve been given he job ahead of Campbell….
But that’s a whole other debate cos in my world :-
I wouldn’t have sacked CP
I wouldn’t have chosen Bond to replace him.
I would’ve given Waddock the job before Campbell even became an option.
I wouldn’t have sacked MM.
I wouldn’t have gone back to PB.
All old ground though and it’s not changing anything now. But I do wish MM well at Aldershot and I do think he’ll go on to have a pretty healthy career in management around the lower leagues (1/2/Conf)
