Putting Nailsworth On The Map: EFL 22/23

One of the various Rob Edwardses knocking around (this being the one who fairly acrimoniously walked out on FGR at the end of last season) has been sacked by Watford after 10 games, never mind eh? I'm sure Slaven Bilic will do an excellent job.

Mark Fotheringham took his first training session today and people have took photos of it. Yet the club haven't announced him and you could still get 1/20 on him at skybet a few hours ago. Maybe taking training is part of the interview process and he's already been let go, beat that Watford. The Wagner deal fell through because Young Boys are still paying his and Bhuler's contract for the rest of the season, unless he finds another job. Tuesday night at Stoke vs chilling at his Majorca holiday home with what might be his last big-club salary still coming in was a tough choice.

How are you feeling about Fotheringham?

he doesn't seem the worst option tbh. He's what some might call a bit of a character. He's obsessed with the Bundesliga style of coaching and can speak a bit of German from his time there. I listened to a podcast interview and he comes across more like an obsessive student of the game rather than another pretender.

Even if he isn't any good, it wouldn't take that much to be an improvement on Danny Schofield. And I survived managers like Mick Wadsworth and Andy Ritchie in the past. The Schofield appointment was the worst decision my club made since selling Marcus Stewart to Ipswich.

As for Greenwich boozers, I'd recommend the River Ale House, not far from the ground - it's a home pub but historical Charlton/Exeter beef is, I am fairly certain, negligible. Failing that, the Prince of Greenwich in proper Greenwich is as good as it gets, probably. They closed the lovely craft-ale pub a few doors down and incorporated it into hideous hellhole Richard I a few years back :(

― imago, Wednesday, 7 September 2022 09:24 (three weeks ago)

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/30/near-the-greenwich-pub-where-the-mini-budget-was-born-londoners-share-their-fears

I hadn't realised it was quite this much of a hellhole these days

this is the most i have ever been vindicated

That is correct.

I was planning a day trip to Exeter tomorrow to see us play the gas but the rail strikes have put paid to that. Critical support to my striking comrades for helping me avoid looking at Joey Barton's face. (Also just general support too obv.)

the same critical support from me after the 8th oct strikes were announced the day after i bought lincoln match + rail tickets. the most critical support ever. the hardest-won solidarity

Ah, Lincoln's a bad miss, a fantastic away trip IMO.

did it last year, testament to how much I enjoyed it that I'm returning. well, if i can. got the match tickets as i say, so i'm gonna have to find a way

On Saturday our manager was asked by the BBC if there was any truth in the rumour that he'd been approached by Rotherham to go and manage them - I'm sure everyone expected him to make the usual "it's flattering but for now I am the manager of ECFC" noises. Matt Taylor's truthful to a fault, though and he answered honestly: "yes, they've offered me the job and I have to make a decision in the next 24 hours". Obviously everyone took this to mean he was off, because if he wasn't going why would he even mention it?

No news on Sunday, then on Monday morning our supporters trust tweeted and immediately deleted a link to a joint / club-trust statement announcing Taylor's departure; a press conference was scheduled for midday. Then the presser was put back to 4pm and cancelled. People confidently saying that there were "a few legalities to sort out", others saying just as confidently that Rotherham had withdrawn their offer and are in fact going to appoint the freshly-sacked Chris Wilder instead.

It's all very exciting.

and here I was looking forward to a 1-1 struggle sesh vs Managerless Exeter next week

The allure of managing at that world famous New York stadium will turn the head of many a manager. I was getting Exeter Matt Taylor mixed up with other Matthew Taylor who are both roughly the same age noughties footballers and pursuing coaching careers, other one not doing as well.

Not to be confused with DJ Martian’s eternal favourite, England’s Matty Taylor of Portsmouth / Bolton fame.

There’s a good 50/50 chance we’ll still be managerless on the 11th, LJ. Taylor was appointed within 10 minutes of Tisdale’s sour defection to Franchise but we usually take a bit of time and see who applies.

oh to be managerless again, miss those days

it makes a nice change sometimes

Such a sense of possibility! In our case a possibility made all the more exquisite by the appointment of ex-Torquay boss Kevin Nicholson as caretaker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHX965ejq_k

Foghorn Leghorn gets a revamp. The badge is not the worst but the manner in which they have unveiled it is quite amusing.

New chicken! Fancy!

in todays YP some hack writes that Matt Taylor + Fotheringham represent a trend amongst the poorer EFL clubs of appointing coaches who are driven to improve what they've got rather than giving the club owners a headache and undermining the players confidence by moaning about the lack of quality in the squad after bad results. There probably is something in that. But Fotheringham dropped our Japanese international leftback out of the squad because he didn't have "fire in his belly/the eye of the tiger" on the training ground. He picked Mbete instead who had just put in one of the worst defensive performances seen in decades in the previous game, and he did the same again and had to be taken off at h/t, his confidence completely broken because he seemingly looked scared of even putting in a tackle and was 100% responsible for 2 goals. He seems useful on the training ground but I think his tombola team selections could be his undoing. Even though we got away with an away 3-3 at a difficult place to go and caused Nathan Jones to have another hilarious meltdown.

Matt Taylor is a fairly intense character but came through the Tisdale school of prizing intelligence more than blood and thunder.

In a world where league position correlates very closely to expenditure on playing staff, it makes sense to try to find someone who’ll squeeze more out of cheaper players. It can only last so long, though, no-one has a magic formula.

I'm going to Lincoln so I'll be able to let you know just how ready to be rolled over we'll be on Tuesday

(it turns out LNER are running a single morning service, and am staying overnight)

(does that make me a scab?)

The main problem is when you get the magic formula right they get tapped up! Although our last good manager, Corbaran went through a period of 3 wins in 27 games in his first season - I think about 90% of EFL clubs would have sacked him before his methods and game plan started getting through to the players. But in his case it was clear to see he was doing it properly despite results, or perhaps we couldn't afford to sack him at the time.

I like Lincoln, wouldn't want to live there but it's a nice place to visit.

Wonder if this is directed to anyone 🤔 #htafc pic.twitter.com/U1pBiqe3ZE

— Nathan (@nthnl04) October 9, 2022

it seems games are won and lost on the training ground to Fotheringham and when he drops players out of the squad he likes to talk to them about it at the press conference.

“ These players are getting paid great money to do the best job in the world so they need to come in with focus and determination, otherwise they can go and work like my dad as a scaffolder or like my mum folding laundry in a hospital."

^ pass-agging the players in public well-known to be a 100% successful method for team building and motivation.

it never ends well but a lot of our lot think this is what the players need. Nobody wants to work with a tyrannical bully and it makes no difference that they are on relatively good money, eventually a majority consensus in the squad will form that he's a wanker and it could start going very wrong imo

Time for this season's ILX EFL derby then. God

The most embarrassing scoreline in football it is

Match report: Charlton deserved a win on balance, looked more dangerous than we did going forward against our makeshift defence, and did well in restricting the chances our lot made in the several periods when we were on top. There wasn't a great deal between the two teams though, IMO and I don't think a draw would have been unfair either.

I don't much like it when players refuse to celebrate goals against their former clubs, so found Jayden enthusiastically claiming / celebrating a blatant own goal by one of ours to be highly amusing - he got a nice round of (mostly) applause at the end.

Tell you what though - what the hell has happened to the atmosphere at Charlton? I understand that Exeter on a Tuesday is not a fixture to get the blood pumping but when we've been before there seemed to be a bit of life to the place - last night was a distinctly sombre affair, no spark about the place at all even when Charlton were 3 up. I hope for their / your sakes it's not like that every week, it was a bit grim.

Our ownership is definitely entering its death-spiral in the finest Charlton tradition and it'll take a prolonged period of on-field success to dispel that perception. The natives are EXTREMELY restless - those who remain; there's also a lot of apathy. Hard to resist the thought that running a football club is a mug's game at the best of times, but the sort of outlay required even to get to the Championship these days is outrageous. The slow-dawning realisation that we are stuck here has entered our soul like poison. Could be worse - I rate our manager and some of our players - but with staff cuts, rumours of the owner's partner and son running the show, and zero transfer fees paid, it is all looking ropey at best. We've done transfer business about as well as possible without spending, save for securing an extra forward - you were unlucky to be on the wrong end of sicknote's sicknote Chuks Aneke's first appearance of the season, helping settle the game decisively while Exeter looked likely to equalise. If he sticks around (and if young Leaburn isn't badly injured) then things will be much, much rosier on the playing front, and we can beat anyone in this division (which will be tested against Portsmouth next Monday)

We've not really had the bounce of the ball go our way this season, so your one that hit the bar felt like a bit of justice - nothing personal ofc.

We're renowned for keepball but we've gone a bit more direct in recent games - Exeter's passing and movement felt maybe a little better than ours for the middle half of the game especially. Played some lovely stuff and that Caprice is a gun wing-back. Can see why you've been troubling a lot of teams this season, although with a defence that let the smallest man on the field score a header, you'll need to score a few. Our lopsided 4-4-2/4-3-3 hybrid was a good match for Exeter, I felt - our midfield duo of Dobson and Fraser were able to focus on the essentials, and both had great games I thought, plus our right-back Egbo had a superb game, absolute baller for a free signing.

Stockley celebrating the goal like it was his was some incredible heel material, yep

Plus, I can sort of admire what your keeper's doing with the sea cucumber on his bonce

Fotheringham is such a comically inept manager it's almost hard to believe at times and quite predictably after the way he publicly scapegoats them after games, one or two at a time, you can see the players all hate his guts already.

Quite bizarrely for the last 2 games he's started spending half time remaining on the pitch, chatting with the subs while they warm up instead of going down the tunnel with the players "because I want to see who is looking hungry and might be able to influence the game - it's what I like to do" and after this malarkey he only made one zero impact substitution in the last 15+ mins of a dire game. Everyone takes the piss out of Watford but I would be quite happy right now for Town to be on their 3rd manager of the season by November, the longer he's there - the harder it will be to fix the damage.

Many more games like last night's and the Cowleys might be available!

*hides from calzino*

the Cowley's were horrible, but at least you could see what they were attempting to achieve, as ugly as it was and they could draw on their experience of some promotion seasons from their thugball methods. And their methods got us out of relegation trouble. All Fotheringham has done has learned German and hung out with some big name managers, he might even be a good coach but he's too brainless to be a manager, he makes Steve Bruce look like a progressive scholar of the game.

oh how we laughed when Leeds employed Dave Hockaday

sometimes your cheap punt turns out to be a gun manager tbf! see: ben garner

there are a few managers in L1 you lot could stand to look at tbh, who even is this 'fotheringham'

so so playing career - Celtic reject to Norwich, was an assistant at Hertha Berlin and some other Bundesliga clubs and gave such a good interview our clueless DoF guy and chairman went all out for him and gave him a 3 year contract when the Wagner deal hit some major snags. He can talk up a storm but he was just as inexperienced as Danny Schofield was.

I think they thought he might be able to get them playing and stamp his authority on the squad through the blunt force of his very unlikable, bullyboy personality.

“For me Matty Pearson goes and heads that ball for the second goal that our Japanese international doesn't win”

he's so bad he's saying a player who is currently injured and was out of form before he got injured would have hypothetically done better than "our Japanese international" whose name is Yuta Nakayama, Yuta is easy enough to remember. God I really hate this guy.

urgh, he's like Bowyer without the charm, lol

ngl I hate the bullyboy method as well, just so counterproductive and unseemly. so glad we have a manager who isn't like that at all

our two most successful managers in recent times both always made an effort to give some encouragement and lip service to players who weren't getting in the XI and were likable personalities, to a massive degree in Wagner's case - who was the most good vibes manager we've ever had. It was my happiest football day in years when it seemed pretty certain he was returning a few weeks back. Then this grim troglodyte rocks up, publicly throwing different players under a bus on the game by game. Tactically clueless. Some older heads are saying they haven't seen such a shapeless disorganised Town side since the late 80's Supermac days, and he had the excuse that he was pissed 90% of the time and was self-medicating with alcohol and had serious unresolved injury issues.

having quit Twitter last week I'm going to take your word for it lol, no searching 'fotheringham' for me! your word is now the terriers law