Caldwell out?

[STURTZ]

Whilst nobody can dispute that last season Ipswich were by far the best team in L1 and Plymouth weren't too far behind, I didn't think much of Sheffield Wednesday in either of our games and at Hillsborough, with our severely weakened team, deserved at least a point.
Many of the same teams, Barnsley , Bolton and Peterborough are challenging again this season(with big investment)and only Portsmouth has shown a significant improvement and Derby with a minor improvement. One also needs to add Oxford; the latter three also having significant investment. So L1 maybe not as strong as last season, but despite large investment to the above teams, not massively so.
The teams near the bottom end mostly struggled to a degree last season and if staying up will probably do the same next.
The teams coming up will be stronger than those going down and the relegated teams from the Championship will probably be no great shakes either. Huddersfield and Rotherham may well struggle in L1 and the third team is anyone's guess.
L1 next season will be competitive, but I suggest the standard won't be much better than this season. Signing a striker or two and attracting the right players in key positions could even make us one of the competitive teams?

Can't see that whatever teams come up from league 2 we can reduce our travel much although losing Carlisle will be good, maybe make up for losing Cheltenham. Teams coming down? Well weve got bloody Rotherham but QPR would be nice and, of course, Pl*mouth would be brilliant!

 

[StudentGrecian]

For the first question, the only fair way to look at it is to ask if anyone who applied for the job and got rejected has done better somewhere else. We could maybe add those who were mentioned in the media as serious candidates, even if they didn't formally apply. But the vacancy was open for a long time, they had every opportunity to put themselves forward.

So who did the club miss out on? Artell, now at Grimsby, and hoping to stay in L2. Holden, sacked by Charlton. Who else did City (supposedly) miss out on?

The only other option was obviously an internal appointment, where no results comparison is possible because he's here. So realistically, if we say that Caldwell should not have been appointed then it's basically Kevin Nicholson, who might have done a good job, but we can't know (maybe one day we will). And that's all.

Inventing other fantasy managers who would have been great is harmless fun for us, but it wasn't an option for the people who appointed Caldwell.

By that logic we should never signed Caldwell after his awful record before us. Sometimes managers find the right fit for them and sometimes it doesn't work out.

How many young and upcoming managers applied for the role that we never heard about? Its too simplistic to just say the alternatives were crap because we don't have a full list of those who applied, just a list of journeymen who were being pushed about for every job at the time.

The board were clearly swayed by his Wigan achievements, him talking up the importance of the Academy and the rediscovering of our latin motto! It's not something I blame them for, it looked a risk, but an okay appointment at the time. Should we be looking at extending his current deal, I'd argue not at the moment.

 

[Average Joe]

By that logic we should never signed Caldwell after his awful record before us. Sometimes managers find the right fit for them and sometimes it doesn't work out.

Every manager who isn't one of the top four clubs have failed more then succeeded. I prefer to look at a manager who has more contacts then we have ever had, a previous league one manager of the year winner and has been promoted from this league.

Gary is the most experienced manager we have hired in my time supporting Exeter. One more transfer window will determine if he is fit for our club or not.

 

[STURTZ]

By that logic we should never signed Caldwell after his awful record before us. Sometimes managers find the right fit for them and sometimes it doesn't work out.

How many young and upcoming managers applied for the role that we never heard about? Its too simplistic to just say the alternatives were crap because we don't have a full list of those who applied, just a list of journeymen who were being pushed about for every job at the time.

The board were clearly swayed by his Wigan achievements, him talking up the importance of the Academy and the rediscovering of our latin motto! It's not something I blame them for, it looked a risk, but an okay appointment at the time. Should we be looking at extending his current deal, I'd argue not at the moment.

Just suppose Caldwell's lean spells at Partick and Chesterfield were precisely because they didn't give him the time to establish himself and his team.
When it was suggested that most clubs would have sacked him after our bad run well perhaps most clubs would have been wrong...

 

[Boyo]

It's not something I blame them for, it looked a risk, but an okay appointment at the time.

Is there anyone who would have been zero-risk? Maybe Kevin Nicholson would have been the cheap option, but that would have had all sorts of different risks.

 

[Grecian Max]

Thank you for this.

Impressions about the relative strength of a league compared to other seasons are entirely subjective, and often based on the perceived quality of a couple of teams at the top. Absolute nonsense.

Subjective, but I wouldn't say nonsense

I think you can make a fair assessment over the course of the season of various teams quality, having played them twice

There's been some really poor games this year - I would put that down to there being more "poor" teams than usual, but as you say it's subjective

The fact that this team could eclipse the points total of last year's side says a lot to me. This team isn't as good as that one and trails by 31 goals currently. THIRTY ONE. We ended up with 56pts, -4GD, currently we are 9pts away from that target but -19GD

Personally, from many years of watching football this would suggest that the league is weaker at the bottom end - it's either that, or we simply aren't as good. Or both.

To say you can't compare leagues season by season is wrong I think, and yet another way to shoot down any sort of dissent. One thing I can say is saying so isn't nonsense "absolute". With such finality there.

I've said already that GC has done the job and the board have been vindicated. Doesn't mean we should rewrite history and make this is into some amazing season. It was dire, turgid and hard but we have got there with very few brilliant performances sprinkled in. Perhaps that in itself is an achievement with a limited squad.

 

[haka]

How many young and upcoming managers applied for the role that we never heard about? Its too simplistic to just say the alternatives were crap because we don't have a full list of those who applied, just a list of journeymen who were being pushed about for every job at the time.

It's highly unlikely that there were any serious, credible candidates that we never heard about. The appointment process was long, much longer than at most clubs (or at City in the past). A club that appointed Paul Tisdale would have at least considered an interview with a "young and upcoming manager".

Of course, there were probably many more CVs received but there always are. I applied for the Northampton job when I was at school, and they even sent a nice letter back! (We couldn't agree terms, I had to do my GCSEs first).

 

[John William]

Pl*mouth would be brilliant!

I disagree. These days I hate games against them, there is always menace and conflict in the air, it's an uncomfortable experience. Fun for the kids and uber-tribalists, I suppose, but now I'm old, I can do without the hassle. If we never play them again I'd lose no sleep, in fact the reverse.

 

[STURTZ]

For me the purpose of supporting City is to, one day, finish above them in the league!
We don't often win but when we do those games rank as the best games I have ever seen.

...and they are local.

 

[Exehausted]

For me the purpose of supporting City is to, one day, finish above them in the league!
We don't often win but when we do those games rank as the best games I have ever seen.

...and they are local.

I agree. After 56 seasons of watching City I obviously have many memories of tremendous matches. In my top ten, Argyle are there twice. The 3-0 win at their place in the early 90's under Bally and Ollie's double at SJP. After they had restricted us to no shots on target for 80 plus minutes and then Ollie bagged a double to beat them, fantastic!