Hurst v Holloway (In the dugout)

Let's make no mistake it about, Hurst's return hasn't been good enough.  

But he inherited an absolute shower of shite with very little to work with in terms of budget.  It says everything that there are no Holloway signings involved anymore with the exception of Morais and fleetingly Jackson, who'll likely have further involvement now.

The other players who Hurst uses but didn't bring in (McKeown, Hendrie, Hewitt, Clifton and Hanson) were all here pre-Holloway.

One of Hurst's first acts was to offload a lot of those signings made by Holloway.  Those that remained such as Scannell and Williams have pretty much been frozen out.

The first thing that springs to my mind is that there's something at play far bigger than on-pitch performances.  It smacks of the situation 11 years ago, Neil Woods inherited Mike Newell's squad that was completely unprofessional and he had to a) offload the deadwood/bad apples b) bring in a new team mid-season c) make that team gel and d) fight a relegation battle.

Under Woods it got worse before it got better and it's the same this time round. Hurst just had less time to make an impact and I suspect a lesser budget to play with (purely judging on where he's brought in a lot of his signings from).

I've wanted Hurst to be braver sooner than he has.  I was fuming at his decision at Carlisle to invite pressure when we were comfortable.  I don't think he's perfect and I think it a lot of other clubs he would have been the shown the door by now, be that fair or not.  But the situation he inherited is a joke.  He came in with the expectation to turn the Titanic with a dinghy.  Holloway's stats are weighted by the first few months of the season were no-one was up to speed really, it was a bit of a free-for-all and our lack of a decent pre-season/solid recruitment wasn't as much of a hinderance.  Mid-October onwards, everyone else got their excrement together and we got left behind.  Yes, Holloway left and we were outside the relegation places. But that slide had started.  Scunthorpe at home aside, the last two months under Holloway we looked absolutely disjointed and clueless.

Don't under estimate the mess that charlatan left behind.

For us going down this season i will not and dont blame Hurst or even Holloway depsite the way he left.

I blame this fully on Fenty  As with Slade MK2 i think Holloway was told to cut costs and get the wages right down hence we lost some decent players.  Holloway probably thought he could build out of very little money and scoured the lower leagues and loans for someething apporaching decent players, most were not decent or not ready for the step up.
They told us the budget was virtually used up.

Come Christmas Holloway decides to leave in dubious circumstances as the team is virtually the worst in the league.
Hurst comes in and now they decide there is plenty of cash left in the pot to go out and sign another complete team of players.

How can this be when we was close to budget first time round???    

This is Fentys doing and its not the first time as we see with Slade cutting budget.

Buy cheap buy twice.

We are down i think, hope Fenty never calls himself a supporter ever again and hope he is never welcome back to the ground once the sale has gone through. Hope he gives the shares back to the trust but i dont think he will as he seems greedy power mad nasty piece of work!

Quoted from Fillipe Noche

I’ve looked at some stats based upon the number of games Hurst and Holloway stood in the dugout.

There’s a couple of games neither were present, and to be fair to Hurst, until he started to bring in his own players and that was complete by end of Jan, he was saddled with Holloway’s dross.
Holloway:
Played 19
Goals For 17
Goals Against 32
GD -15

Hurst:
Played 12
Goals For 5
Goals Against 15
GD -10

As I’ve said, Hurst was saddled with Holloway’s players for much of January, early on suffering a couple of 3 nils whilst getting to know his team. Arguably that gives him a -6 goal disadvantage so to speak

If you look at Hursts last 9 games, he’s never lost by more than a single goal.

But there’s no doubt that goals have dried up.

I know Hurst now has an analyist on board. It must be jumping off the page that the problem is that we DO NOT create enough clear goal scoring opportunities when we have the ball.

Getting that sorted is our one and only hope of performing the great escape, assuming Barrow, Colchester and Port Vale can get back to their consistent bad form, which they may well do.

Add to the above that Holloway’s team ineptitude was also at its height when being knocked out of the FA Cup with a 3-1 embarrassment v Dagenham and Redbridge

Whilst I was never a fan of Holloway or most of his signings, at least his dross wasn't bottom of the league 8 points adrift.

I was a fan of Holloway, but it was clear that the trajectory was downwards this season. The guy had lost his marbles.

I think a lot can be read into the now relatively settled starting 11 we have. Just one Holloway signing tells you all you need to know about his recruitment. But also look at Macca, Hendrie, Hewitt, Clifton.....they all look back to form and look like the good players I for one always thought they were. As well as his awful recruitment, I think as a coach Holloway was useless.

At the same time, the fact that Hurst signings like Payne and Adams can't get a game tells you that many brought in during January were far from first choice signings.

last 6 games Hurst's record better than Holloways, last 10 games they are equal (although Hurst's is now superior if you include the Dagenham embarrassment)

inconvenient stats for several voiceferous posters who've been notably quiet over the last 12-15 hours

I was always of the opinion that January would be about recruitment, February about getting the team to gel and March would be the month that we started to see better results and that's what has broadly happened.

Unfortunately during this period, we slipped even further into trouble and we now have a monumental task on our hands. Was hoping we would have picked up a few more points here and there while we improved, but it has been slim pickings. The other unfortunate thing is the 4 drawn games we have had before the win last night. Can't help think about all the points going begging that we couldn't quite grasp. The late sickener against Carlisle, the two chances that came back off the woodwork and some of the reffing decisions for and against.

I don't think anyone can now deny that we are a much more competitive and organised unit than we were under Hollowhead, but I fear it's come too late.

I think PH has done exactly what we thought he would, but we just hoped he had done it sooner. We are now a lot harder to beat but I think the task to transform us was way beyond what even we thought it was. It's taken longer than hoped because we were an absolute basket case under IH.

As stated before, I'm not the biggest fan of PH and his pragmatic approach, but if you could pick someone to put us back together and steady the ship, he fits the bill for me. I think whatever happens this season, he should be given the chance to build on what he has already implemented and if he is here next season, then I would be fine with that. I think he will be anyway, despite what anyone thinks.

Looking at the 4 draws, they would all have been decent results 10 games ago but with time running out, I didn't even celebrate the Williams equaliser v Mansfield.

Five undefeated

In a season when Hurst hadn’t inherited a relegation situation off the muppet Holloway, a 5 game undefeated run would be getting plaudits.

There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Hurst is doing a good job and a significantly better job than Kermit Holloway,

I knew Holloway was a wrong un when he ordered coffee with his fish and chips instead of tea

Quoted from Fillipe Noche

Five undefeated

In a season when Hurst hadn’t inherited a relegation situation off the muppet Holloway, a 5 game undefeated run would be getting plaudits.

There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Hurst is doing a good job and a significantly better job than Kermit Holloway,

I knew Holloway was a wrong un when he ordered coffee with his fish and chips instead of tea

Don’t bite. Anybody. Especially you DB.