Managerial Merry-Go-Round 2020/21

[EnglishRed]

Did you have decent weather in Barrow in August.

It's all relative. Light drizzle counts as good weather in Barrow.

 

[Boz]

Dawes is out, Adkins in as caretaker.

Adkins recent record as a manager and the fact he seems to be technical director as a favour to Mark Palios coupled with personal non-footballing reasons mean I’d hope the replacement is sorted quickly.

He is clearly never a manager but their squad is poor anyway.

If everyone is fit and the players deployed correctly, our squad is perfectly capable of L2 survival, perhaps more. Though I’d agree not of the calibre of the richer clubs like yours.

 

[chipmunx]

Did you have decent weather in Barrow in August.

The game was at Tranmere....

 

[Robshep]

The game was at Tranmere....

I know where the game was.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

A certain ex EFL manager living in Chester is back posting on Twitter declaring himself ready and raring to go just hours after Tranmere sacked Ian Dawes.

I can see Artell getting the job there as well...

 

[Master D]

A certain ex EFL manager living in Chester is back posting on Twitter declaring himself ready and raring to go just hours after Tranmere sacked Ian Dawes.

I can see Artell getting the job there as well...

How is Gary Brabin these days?

 

[Reginald Fodstain]

How is Gary Brabin these days?

Enough PTSD for one day, thanks...

 

[Robshep]

How is Gary Brabin these days?

Gary Brabin signed most of the players that got Tranmere promoted. He knows a good player, just not what to do with them.

 

[Boz]

A certain ex EFL manager living in Chester is back posting on Twitter declaring himself ready and raring to go just hours after Tranmere sacked Ian Dawes.

I can see Artell getting the job there as well...

On a Rovers forum it was suggested Artell was offered the job before Dawes made permanent and turned it down. No idea if accurate, but seems at odds with what’s happening on Twitter.

 

[AdamStag]

Artell would be a good shout, what happened to him at crewe?

He always came across as very competent.

 

[lordofthepies]

Artell would be a good shout, what happened to him at crewe?

He always came across as very competent.

His last season was an absolute disaster, unfortunately. We lost 4 of 5 of our best players and he didn't play another of them due to a contract dispute and all of the replacements he brought in were catastrophically bad and he was trying to do everything himself and made some absolutely baffling decisions in the process. I do think there was a world where we could have actually been relegated and he'd have kept his job due to the goodwill he'd built up. However, that season was so disastrous, it became impossible. He seemed to be in a bad place mentally by the end, it felt like the sacking was putting him out of his misery.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Artell would be a good shout, what happened to him at crewe?

He always came across as very competent.

I echo what my esteemed friend lordofthepies has said but I'll also add some more bits.

Our Radio Stoke commentator went on holiday shortly before Artell was sacked, when he come back to cover the club he couldn't believe how bad the atmosphere was at the training ground and even he said a change was badly needed once the sacking was duly announced.

There were Academy lads waiting in the wings to sign first year professional deals. At least two parents refused to let their kids sign unless Artell was removed from the job. I have no idea why they felt this way, but there's no smoke without fire. The players subsequently signed pro deals.

Just before Artell was sacked, our captain at the time, Luke Murphy, had a very candid and honest interview with Radio Stoke. He criticised himself for his poor performances but also took aim at the squad and said we'd been "embarrassing" at times and let the fans down. It was refreshing honesty. His reward for that was to be dropped to the bench because Artell took great exception to the interview.

As LOTP said, Artell took too much on himself. This also meant he didn't trust or listen to his assistants at all. He banished Lunt in an unexpected reshuffle which led to them falling out but still ignored Bell and Morris post reshuffle. He was very much on his own and lost the dressing room. 15 defeats in 16 games including a club record 8 consecutive home defeats is concrete evidence of this.

Only one player from 10 Summer signings in 2021 was at the club 12 months later. None of Artell's Winter 2022 signings are at the club today and of those Winter acquisitions, only Agyei was successful. Only Chris Long remains from players signed that season and he has been a revelation when fit. The scouting was poor. I'm convinced we signed MacFadzean because he scored two past us on opening day a few years before. Kashket a disastrous signing and we paid MacFadzean and Thomas off within 4 months of signing. Madger Gomes was probably the worst signing I've seen us make in 22 years and we only signed him because he got League One player of the month once. Not to mention Artell signed "striker" Bassala Sambou who went 30 odd games without scoring a goal in the league. He also inserted a clause in his contract where if he made 10 appearances in a season he'd get a new deal. Seriously what sort of manager does that? It's what an 8 year old does on Football Manager!

There are other minor gripes too. The Lowery situation as LOTP mentioned was staggering considering he'd played players who were running down their contract the season before. The fact we sold our best Academy prospect in years for a third of the price Colchester just sold their fullback Tchamadeu to Stoke for because Artell inserted in a really low clause to make sure he signed a new long-term deal. He was also very reluctant to release fringe Academy players which is why we're still saddled with a few poor players on the books on long-term contracts they didn't deserve although we've loaned them out now so we're not paying their full wages.

I do like the bloke for what he did for us, but he had to be sacked. I'm not so sure he'll succeed elsewhere too because he does have a streak of arrogance and is a massive control freak. But he was far more likeable than Davis ever was and I'd wish him well in the future.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

On a Rovers forum it was suggested Artell was offered the job before Dawes made permanent and turned it down. No idea if accurate, but seems at odds with what’s happening on Twitter.

I have a very good friend who supports Tranmere and he said Artell applied for the job, that I do believe. I don't know whether he turned it down or not but my mate seemed to assume Tranmere went with the cheaper managerial option so they could afford a couple of quality strikers. And I'm sure Dennis and Norris are well paid by L2 standards as well given they both turned down the chance to play in League One this season.

 

[Boz]

I have a very good friend who supports Tranmere and he said Artell applied for the job, that I do believe. I don't know whether he turned it down or not but my mate seemed to assume Tranmere went with the cheaper managerial option so they could afford a couple of quality strikers. And I'm sure Dennis and Norris are well paid by L2 standards as well given they both turned down the chance to play in League One this season.

I’ve no inside knowledge at all. We’ve been down the cheap manager expensive player path before with Mike Jackson/James Vaughan. Doesn’t seemed to have worked either time.

Would Artell succeed with Rovers? Mark Palios is a chair who appears to get significantly involved with the recruitment side of things. That might not suit someone as strong-minded as Artell?

 

[lordofthepies]

I’ve no inside knowledge at all. We’ve been down the cheap manager expensive player path before with Mike Jackson/James Vaughan. Doesn’t seemed to have worked either time.

Would Artell succeed with Rovers? Mark Palios is a chair who appears to get significantly involved with the recruitment side of things. That might not suit someone as strong-minded as Artell?

I think it's difficult to say. He acknowledged he didn't have the support he needed with recruitment and he brought in the current head of recruitment (who seems to be doing a very good job!) but never got to work with him as he got the sack before the new guy started work.

 

[JJ1990]

A lot of Artell's flaws have been well laid out, but I'll throw another in: His tactics. Even during the promotion season, he lacked a plan B which cost us in a few games. Then when it came to the relegation season, he kept trying to switch between one system at home and one system away, despite both struggling. He couldn't for the life of him work out how to properly set up a 3-5-2, he had the wing backs(strikers, midfielders, anybody but actual wing backs played there also) far too deep, the midfield was a confused mess.

I question whether he would cope well with a Technical Director above him and a potentially meddling owner. I doubt he'd be able to accept just being the coach. I get the sense he thinks very highly of himself in terms of scouting, when in reality he was utterly woeful at it. Still, Tranmere have a few young players, so he could be the right choice to mould them into a decent group. But how he'd do under a lot of pressure there to succeed right away, I don't know.

 

[lordofthepies]

A lot of Artell's flaws have been well laid out, but I'll throw another in: His tactics. Even during the promotion season, he lacked a plan B which cost us in a few games. Then when it came to the relegation season, he kept trying to switch between one system at home and one system away, despite both struggling. He couldn't for the life of him work out how to properly set up a 3-5-2, he had the wing backs(strikers, midfielders, anybody but actual wing backs played there also) far too deep, the midfield was a confused mess.

I question whether he would cope well with a Technical Director above him and a potentially meddling owner. I doubt he'd be able to accept just being the coach. I get the sense he thinks very highly of himself in terms of scouting, when in reality he was utterly woeful at it. Still, Tranmere have a few young players, so he could be the right choice to mould them into a decent group. But how he'd do under a lot of pressure there to succeed right away, I don't know.

That last point is key - we had a good 2 years of struggle under Artell, where we were making fairly small improvements in terms of league position before starting to look really good halfway through his third season and getting promoted in his fourth. I don't know if he'd need that much time to turn things round in his second managerial job but i think any other club would have sacked him before he had time to put a promotion team together and i can't imagine Tranmere having anything like as much patience.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

That last point is key - we had a good 2 years of struggle under Artell, where we were making fairly small improvements in terms of league position before starting to look really good halfway through his third season and getting promoted in his fourth. I don't know if he'd need that much time to turn things round in his second managerial job but i think any other club would have sacked him before he had time to put a promotion team together and i can't imagine Tranmere having anything like as much patience.

If the rumours were true at the time, which I genuinely believe they were, had he lost that Boxing Day game to Lincoln in his second full season in charge, Bowler was ready to pull the trigger.

It's funny how two games against Lincoln in consecutive seasons probably saved Artell from the sack.

That first full season he recruited pretty poorly. Raynes came in as a leader but never looked good enough to start every week. Brad Walker was a total disaster of a signing too. I think he'd be straight out the door if Artell took charge of Tranmere because Artell was very critical of him towards the end of his stint with us. Eddie Nolan, Paul Green and Jordan Bowery were solid signings though and a big part in getting us up the table towards the season's end. The latter two put in an inspired display in a 4-1 away win at Lincoln which would be the start of a rise from 22nd to 15th in the league over the next two months.

The second full season I'm convinced we'd have done so much better had we not lost Paul Green to a broken leg in August. Wintle couldn't do it on his own and I always thought Jones was apprehensive about tackling after he come back from a long injury layoff. Throw in the fact we missed Lowery for most the season and the Ainley experiment failed and we just had no working midfield at all. Funny how results and performances picked up dramatically when Green returned to the side and dominated a top of the league Lincoln. I believe that was the start of us rising from 21st to 12th in the league too.

But as JJ says, Artell was pretty poor tactically. His first full season we had a knack of leading a game going into the dying minutes and then losing it because we sat back, switched off and conceded two late goals. The promotion season saw us lose a lot of leads away from home and even in League One we dropped so many points from winning positions in the first season that we could've easily made the playoffs had we managed to pick up maximum points in half of those games! The relegation season we were sitting ducks for the last few months of his reign. He had no interest in attacking and it was a matter of damage limitation each game which was embarrassing and led to 15 defeats in 16 and the sack. We lost a lot of big games under him too. Had an awful record against Vale and if we went away from home to a promotion contender we'd often get beat.

I do like how he got us behind the club again after the horrendous Davis years dragged on too long but by the time he was sacked, it was as bad as it was under Davis. But he never took swipes at the fans for criticising him in the media and I do respect him for that because his predecessor sure loved playing the fans off each other for years and winding them up at times at the end of games too. Will always be remembered as a promotion winning captain and manager here and I'd love him to do well elsewhere. But he had to leave the club when he did else we were heading to non league if he had another transfer window in charge.

 

[Reginald Fodstain]

Just hope Palios does his job properly this time and makes the right appointment instead of going on the cheap. As Boz said, he's gone down that road twice and it's gone disastrously wrong on both occasions. Adkins is about as theoretically competent a stand in as you could wish for, although I doubt he'll end up with the job permanently, given that he hasn't taken a job in so long (and his last couple didn't exactly work out well), so I can foresee us potentially waiting a few months for Stockport's board to eventually get bored of Challinor.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Just hope Palios does his job properly this time and makes the right appointment instead of going on the cheap. As Boz said, he's gone down that road twice and it's gone disastrously wrong on both occasions. Adkins is about as theoretically competent a stand in as you could wish for, although I doubt he'll end up with the job permanently, given that he hasn't taken a job in so long (and his last couple didn't exactly work out well), so I can foresee us potentially waiting a few months for Stockport's board to eventually get bored of Challinor.

I've seen your fans want Darrell Clarke but I can't see that happening. Still lives in Southampton and given the tragic circumstances he's been through last couple of years, I don't see him wanting to relocate. Don't think he'll take another distance job again.

I genuinely think Artell is the most realistic hire you lads can get given he's Chester based, has declared he's ready for a return to the game and, despite his faults, he's proven in League Two. I don't think he'd cost as much as proven managers usually would too. The downside is, did he fluke it with us or has he still got a point to prove?

 

[JJ1990]

All these posts about Artell, watch them give it to Adkins or someone else!

 

[Indian Dan]

Isn’t Artell more of a builder than a sudden impact manager? Looks as if Tranmere need some shock treatment to get them going.

 

[Conker]

A job closer to Mansfield would work for Darrell Clarke.

 

[Richard Cranium]

It’d have to be a very good opportunity for Clarke to get back into management this soon. I’d be very surprised if Tranmere would tempt him currently.

 

[Boz]

All these posts about Artell, watch them give it to Adkins or someone else!

Don’t think Adkins wants it long term. His first interview as caretaker was a good motivational one, if he’s able to translate that across to how we play, shoukd be good.

 

[Gi Dalor]

Artell has been floating around for ages. Saying that he turned a club down. Pretty sure he's alluding to Crawley last summer, and that's not their version of events. Maybe he's waiting for the right club, or a club where he's given a large amount of control, but I'm not sure he's going to get that.
I think he could be a successful manager, but if he doesn't land (or accept) something soon, he'll become a forgotten man.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Artell has been floating around for ages. Saying that he turned a club down. Pretty sure he's alluding to Crawley last summer, and that's not their version of events. Maybe he's waiting for the right club, or a club where he's given a large amount of control, but I'm not sure he's going to get that.
I think he could be a successful manager, but if he doesn't land (or accept) something soon, he'll become a forgotten man.

He was heavily linked with the Swindon job towards the end of last season but got passed over for Jody Morris if the rumours were to be believed. Have to take what Artell says with a pinch of salt as he's got form for embellishing the truth.

It's no coincidence he became very active again on social media the day Ian Dawes was sacked. That's the best possible job he could land right up the road and I genuinely think they'll take a punt on him.

 

[LS Bantam]

Would Adkins be a bad pick? Seems a decent long term appointment for our league.

 

[JJ1990]

He was a disaster at Charlton, although who isn't these days? I just don't think his "power of positivity" stuff works these days. You get the sense this is his last chance in management. I think Palios is giving him a few games as caretaker and if they see a response, they'll give him the job full time. He's from Birkenhead, so if he can turn his career around, it's Tranmere.

 

[lordofthepies]

Artell has been floating around for ages. Saying that he turned a club down. Pretty sure he's alluding to Crawley last summer, and that's not their version of events. Maybe he's waiting for the right club, or a club where he's given a large amount of control, but I'm not sure he's going to get that.
I think he could be a successful manager, but if he doesn't land (or accept) something soon, he'll become a forgotten man.

He says he's turned a few jobs down which didn't feel right for him. I'm pretty sure he interviewed at Walsall in the summer (he was photographed in their car park before they appointed Mat Sadler permanently anyway!) but that doesn't mean they offered him anything, of course.