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for a club like swindon, i dont think so.  ok, clubs like man u and arsenal have built their success on stability and continuity. but it doesnt work like that for clubs like swindon. Since hoddle, i would argue we have had three decent managers: hoddle, wise, and sturrock. All three have been picked by bigger clubs, chelsea leeds and plymouth. Its not possible to have both stability and success for clubs like swindon because as soon as you have a decent manager they get pinched/walk to a bigger club. whats the point of trying to maintain stability with a crap manager? this is where i disagree with fitton - id rather have a string of decent managers that stay with the club for a short period of time but are successful than trying to string out the tenure of an average/crap manager (malpas). The cost of sacking him would turn out to be much smaller than lost revenues etc by getting relegated.

At this stage of the season you start to get a picture of where we will be at the end. its clear that malpas is dragging us into a relegation battle and it makes sense to act early than wait until is too late.

however, i dont think holloway is the answer. the only reason hes popular with supporters is his witty remarks - his record isnt great and hes been out the game for a while. fitton made a mistake appointing malpas, and he now needs to swallow his pride and try again. take your time mr fitton, appoint the right man.

And how will we pay for chopping and changing all of the time? I agree Malpas has to go, even agree that Holloway isn't the best choice, but I don't think Fitton wants to go down the road of spending endless amounts of money, which is what will happen if we get a string of managers every 2 or 3 years.

I agree it's going to get to the stage where spending now will be beneficial compared to lost revenue with fans not coming along, but in reality stability and sustainability is the business model being used.

Also, we best not piss Fitton off too much. The lease for the CG is up in 2011, they'll have decided what to do regarding a (re)development and may decide it's not worth the hassle us fans moan at Fitton all the time.

I may of misunderstood but i would imagine the compo would pay for new managment. Cant remember the last time a manager left purely due to his contract ending. Fwiw i think stfcere has a good point

we have to accept we will be a stepping stone for managers and players, if Malpas turned it round starting tomorrow and we get promoted he would fuck off to a better team if a offer came in, but he wont, he will get sacked after yet 2 more home defeats

what im saying is that it would make more sense to be ambitious in appointing a manager, go for someone with a track record who may be more expensive. if they leave early you get good results and compensation, then bring in another proven manager. the gamble which fitton took is to go for an unproven cheaper manager who we are now stuck with because its too expensive to sack him.

 Management is such an inexact science though...you could bring in an expensive name, and they fuck up and you're left paying off a massive compensation....eg Spurs.

 In our case both T*dd and Evans had big reputations, fortunately T*dd jumped ship, and Evans was principled enough to not want to bankrupt the club, and so walked.

 Bottom line is Fitton and co, saved the club from oblivion and so have earned the right to do things as they see fit...we have the right to either go along with this, or as an increasing number seem to be doing, withdraw support.

I have to take issue with Wise and Sturrock being classed as 'decent managers' for us. Wise had half a season (thats generous as it includes the pre-season) in League 2 before walking away. Sturrock spent approximately a year here, sustained the good platform Wise built and consolidated in the league above. All fine and dandy in their own way, but nowhere near what Hoddle achieved.

Although that wasn't the crux of your argument, so feel free to ignore this pedantic cunt and carry on regardless.......

for example: cotterill, curbishley, billy davies, john gregory, hoddle, bryan robson, vialli, are all out of work currently and in my view none are unrealistic targets. i would imagine most unemployed managers would jump at the chance of getting back into football - my idea would be to bring someone in along these lines, get the results in, they leave after 6-12months to go to a bigger club bring in the compo and then bring in another decent manager. in my eyes stability is not necessarily key to success on the pitch

I would rather go for the gamble on decent players...its not too expensive to sack him,it will be more expensive if we get relegated,i for one was all for giving MMthe benefit but i feel if we lose tomorow then 6 home defeats will be his unlucky number,reading between the lines he is unhappy the effect ll this is having on his family and another defeat will be the last straw.
Lots of unproven managers have gone on to do big things,MM looks like he isnt one of them,though i hasten to add the team will be getting my full support tomorow as always during the 90 mins.

i think a change of manager every week is exactly what we need

curbishley davies hoddle robson vialli are all very unrealistic, cotterill would be a shout, gregory is fucked in football because of all the bungs he took at villa

You was doing so well

I would agree with all of the above except Billy Davies. What makes you think he wouldn't take on something in L1 to rebuild his reputation?

Motd has made him too high profile

the other key issue is contacts - malpas has no contacts to bring in decent players. a more expensive short term manager would have the contacts to bring in decent players, build a stronger team, he walks off to a bigger club six months later, in rolls the compo, bring in another decent proven manager

proven managers are not very often out of work, and Hoddle And Vialli dont want jobs in management. you wont find one every 6months

What happens if he's succesfull for 12 months but stays :(

12 matches would be a start!

sack him obviously

 The counter argument is Sturrock, brings in his old boys like JPM, Steve Adams, Blair, Hasney and Barry Corr none of whom have been that crash hot.

Has & Corr were pretty decent under Strurrock i thought, McGovern was alot better than he is now, adams and blair i take your point

All that works until one of the big name managers fucks up, either bringing in expensive flops or just all round bad performances. Then you're stuck with a potentially massive pay off and we're fucked.

It's a good plan in theory, but when it does fuck up the cost would be huge. I'd understand it if Fitton didn't want to run the club at that sort of risk level.

 None of these can be classed decent....of recent managers, the man with by far the best record of player acquisition is King...which is why Sturrock employs him at Plymuff.

i agree with that Reg, Kingy is a great scout, not a manager

malpas has so far brought in: timlin, amankwaah, nalis, casal, marshall, ashikodi, kanyuka, cox, and mcnamee. only cox and mcnamee have proven themselves as decent players. malpas has even managed to turn mcnamee from a confident skillfull player into a player low on confidence. bringing in an unproven cheaper manager is a false economy. we need a more expensive proven manager who has contacts in the game. so what if he leaves 6-12 months later?

so what happens when we get in a 'proven' manager on decent wages who is shit....then we sack him pay off shit loads of compo then have to trim fat out of the budget.

we wouldnt be able to get another big name manager off the back of that and thus the cycle is fucked

Timlin and Cox were sturrocks finds, Macca and Kanyuka were sturrocks targets whilst here aswell, the only players Malpas has himself got himself were Amankwaah, Yinka, Marshall, Ashikodi & Nalis (although sturrock advised him to sign for Malpas)

I'm not sure? The last time we tried appointing numerous high profile managers on big wages and budgets didn't we have a bit of financial bother?

:nod: Todd

Evans?

Seem to remember when Macca first signed, he was low on confidence and his flashes of skill were fitful at best. And plenty of people at the time slated him as being shit, and Malpas as an idiot for signing him. So if he did then become a confident skillful player does Malpas not get the credit for that as well as the blame for subsequently, by your argument, ruining his confidence and skill? Or maybe he's always been a bit inconsistent and hence the reason we were able to sign him at all.

When the going gets tuf.....Macca dosnt get going.......will be a force if we ever get the confidence back into the team.

My confidence would go if i was being replaced on the wing by timlin tbh though paul

Oh, absolutely. Wasn't having a go at Macca - I liked him from the moment we signed him and spent several months telling my seat-neighbours he was a decent player who'd come good, then several months after that being smug about it. I was just making the point that in some instances people are using the same arguments against Malpas both ways. And they don't need to - it's about results and performances. If they turn round, he'll stay and we'll all be happy (erm, assuming quite a big turnround there, obviously); if they don't he'll go. Simple as. All this bollocks about second-guessing whether a player would have been better/worse with one manager or another, or crap leaked from the dressing room by players with an axe to grind is just irrelevant. Results and performances. That's it.

If any Swindon manager EVER played you on the wing, I'd be calling for his head immediately :)

Haha i would do as good a job as some of them at the moment

The problem with changing managers is the changing of personnel on the pitch that comes with it. You get into situations where you're limited by budget because the likes of Pook are still under contract. How did Sturrock finance the playing budget? He sold two of our supposed rising stars. Many would argue that if you keep your talented players you will go places anyway.

FWIW, I don't think we need a big name manager, we just need someone who is decent at organising a team and making them play. I'd actually look a league or two below to get a decent manager and they'd probably stay off the radar for a season or two.

I wouldn't, well not an unproven from the conference anyway. Too risky in our situation. Look at the Gills.

I know cost and availability may be prohibitive right now but assuming Malpas doesn't turn it around, we need someone to step in who the players and fans believe in. Unfortunately "Sturrocks" don't grow on trees.

Is Stimson still at the Gills? The reason i asked is because it was a bit like Iffy for us when he took over a shite team but they seem to be doing well in League 2.

To be honest I agree with the original post.

At a club like Swindon the only way you can maintain stability is by mediocre performances on the pitch.  If the team achieves anything the chances of the manager leaving increase massivly, if the team does badly the manager gets sacked.

I'm not bothered about a big name manager, I'd just like a competant one who had a track record of achieving something ie. promotion(s). I'd also look at teh context of the managers achievements. I dont really classify Calderwood getting Forest out of L1 at the 2nd attempt as much of an achievement to be honest given their spending power and wage budget. Any half decent manager should have achieved that, better ones would have managed it at the 1st time of asking.

Depends what you mean by "Big Name" I suppose. Anybody with a decent record is going to be a sort of name and command a higher fee. I think people sometimes talk across each other a bit with different meanings of big/proven, but your not going to get a cheap proven manager and any "big" name which is cheap (someone pointed out Ince at Macclesfield in a different thread) is just as much a risk as an unknown appointment.

People say we should just appoint this guaranteed successful manager who they don't mind using the club as a stepping stone as if you can just go and get one off a shelf. We've been rather fortunate so far:

Colin Todd would have been more of a disaster if we hadn't got lucky with him going to Derby and had had to sack him and pay him of.

Roy Evans couldn't hack it without the luxury of a big budget (a risk with a "big" name I guess) and resigned, which is free.

There was no guarantee that Dennis Wise was going to work out well, in fact more than a few were fairly sceptical if I remember correctly. It's easy to look back with hindsight and say yeah lets just appoint someone like that again, but Wise could have been an expensive disaster. He certainly didn't guarantee success.

As far as any manager was guaranteed to make us progress then I guess it was Sturrock. But then it's not like you can just get a manager like that off the shelf. His take the first job offer attitude was pretty helpful too.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's not just a case of appointing a certain type of manager and we're guaranteed to get in this cycle of compensation when they move on. It sounds nice but it's an overly simple way of looking at things. And even if you could just pick these managers of the shelf then there's still a risk that they'll fuck up and the club will have to pay them off, at a higher cost that you'll likely to get with people like Malpas.

you just made me spit coffee over the screen with that comment, nice one

If MM goes King will be back...  :o

I think what is needed is a good management TEAM.  Most of our successful managers in recent years have had good assistants or coaches to support them.  Examples being Sturrock, Hoddle, Macari/Ardilles and, with the risk of being crucified by the TEF mafia, even Andy King was reasonable when Crosby was his assistant.

Obviously nothing is guaranteed.  But you have to say that the probability of someone with a decent track record being sucessful here is greater than that of someone with a poor / unproven record.

All managers have to start somewhere, and we have a better record than most in the last couple of decades for giving mangers their 1st opportunity and it working out well. But I dont think that now is the time for appionting a rookie.

Better fucking not!!!!

To be honest I think it's a pretty good time to start trying out rookies. Fitton and co have said they want to run the club with some financial stability, which may not include splashing out more for managers. As a club we're at what can generally be considered our natural level in the football pyramid. Oh and the aforementioned stability off the pitch, probably a good thing.

Obviously ideally you'd want a new rookie manager to come in for pre-season, but that's a luxury of timing and applies to any manager.

I understand your point, but it is far more important than any of that currently is that a new manager could come in and give the team a lift and start winning some games. 

I think that someone who has done that before stands a greater chance of achieveing compared to a rookie - but thats not to say that a rookie could not achieve it - Ince @ macclesfield being a good example.  The club wouldnt have to spalsh out as such - there are some reasonable unemployed managers, although I've no idea what sort of salary they would expect compared to MM

When Fitton came in he stated that someone would  be appointed with a proven track record. This never occured hence we have dropped from 8th in the division to 20th in 9 months with largely the same players.

The only stability you will get with this management team is relegation. It is all very well coming up with plans for the CCC in 3 years- but to do that on a shoestring you need a competent/experienced management team who can get results (Sturrock) with medicore players. Since Malpas came in he has done exactly the opposite. Coupled with the fact he cannopt attract decent loanees (unlike Allen love him or hate him) he simply has to go and the sooner the better.

Keep the faith Bart. The STFC phoenix will rise from the flames. Oh yes, we are on the up from tonight. Remember where you read it first.

What do you think you've bought to this thread bart? Was it worth your time?

To be fair, at least theres reasoning behind that. And some truth

Yeah. From me, yesterday....

I agree. For once, Bart's post seemed pretty reasonable.

I tend to sit on the fence when it comes to managers. I only really decided King's time was up when we entered that aweful spell in which Iffy was appointed. I supported Malpas when he came and continued to argue that we should give him more time until very recently, but now I just cannot see him getting us out of this. The players are perfectly capable of mid-table but it's not been evident at all this year.

So who do we bring in? I understand the point that proven managers can bring success and move on, but a string of expensive 'names' is likely to be a plan that falls apart and gets us into another financial mess. I'm feeling a bit out of the football loop at the moment, so can't really name any names, but I'd like to see a respected, experienced league 1/league 2 manager with some sort of reputation for getting a team to play as a solid unit. I think that would help us get more out of games than Malpas' 'footballing ideology'

And for the 48th time, it's not being done on a shoestring. If you can't tell the difference between not lashing out cash like a man with no arms and penny-pinching, that's your affair, but don't keep recycling this.

You don't have to 'splash out' for a proven manager or a big name, there are such things as incentives though, build bonuses into the managers contract so he is not picking up a big wage but give bonuses for league place, play-off's, cup run's etc and even build it in so the manager perhaps get's a cut of gate receipts over x000. so his contract is tailored towards rewards for sucess.

I'm spreading the word of Herthab

a big name or proven manager doesnt guarentee any stability what so ever. Its still a gamble.

I expect Leicester fans were happy enough when they appointed Ian Holloway, good track record and all that, stability....then he got them relegated

Less risk though.

Some Leicester fans do admit that Holloway was actually a pretty good manager though. And some of them reckoned that if they hadn't have fucked around with Megson and got Holloway in straight away they wouldn't have gone down.

Exactly. There are no guarantees that a proven manager will be sucessful here or that an unproven manager will be a failure

Its all about probability.

Hold on I'm struggling with one of Pauld's similes here.

How exactly does "a man with no arms" lash out cash? Are people with no arms notorious spendthrifts? Or is there some sort of mental visual that it's supposed to bring to mind that I'm failing to get?

I don't get it.

Mind you I have to agree with the overall sentiment. This closed season wasn't a shoestring affair. That was last year. We've signed players, and spent cash on a few, and aren't overly reliant on loans to fill out the squad for the first time in years.

Pity we're playing so shit.

[shrugs] It's just a phrase, like "Christ on a bike". I didn't make it up, I just use it. And I've never claimed to make any sense :)

You are definitely just making it up now  :):):)

See, I can imagine "Christ on a Bike"  (penny farthing in my mind, a drawing challenge for Ben)

I can't see a no-armed man with a wedge of used tenners.  I can understand Pauld's statement "never claim to make any sense"

Jew on a Unicorn.

Half Jew, half Unicorn. A Jewnicorn

See that's my point. How exactly is this no-armed man chucking all this cash about. Has he got really dextrous feet and double jointed hips? Has he got wads of tenners in his shirt pocket, a long neck and really supple lips?

And even if he's really remarkably dextrous for a bloke with no arms I'm pretty sure I could chuck cash quicker and further than him. It makes no sense at all.

Booooooooo!

I got your point Lumps.  I'm more concerned where he got the money in the first place.  Did he set himself up as some supple lipped freak show, does he perform 'services' with aforementioned protuberances ?

What exactly does he spend his fortune on ?  Jumbo sized lipsalve?   solid gold polo neck jumpers ?

He's a clever dick.

I think it might be a northern thing. It's one of those inverse phrases like "Cheap at half the price". And it was used in the 60s classic "Taste of Honey". So nyeeerrr

Not doubting you Iffy, but I've never met any.  In fact, one could argue that a distinct lack of stability was a key factor in their relegation.

What the long term solution to our problem is I don't know.  Cracking goal from Aliyev for Dynamo Kyiv tonight.

Aliyev for manager...