Putting Nailsworth On The Map: EFL 22/23

What do we know about Chris Hargreaves then?

feels like you could have done better, looking at his resume

feels like you could have done better, looking at his resume

it still freaks my nut out that once upon a time i had a match ticket to a league fixture between hereford and leeds. the game was snowed off, i never went

Not sure it's true but final interviews are today and he's the name floating round.

Apparently John Askey is out because of lack of full time ambition.

Despite being ex-Argyle Hargreaves is fairly well thought of at ours I think, he was a part of our coaching set-up and it looked to me as though he would progress inside the club. Wouldn’t seem like a terrible appointment on the face of it. (FWIW it’s my opinion that managerial appointments are less important than we mostly like to think)

My friend Gavin gave him a proper kick when playing youth football in the 80s apparently.

I can vaguely remember Hargreaves when he was that malingering long-haired fucker (I think) who played for the Cobblers when they were one of our hated rivals. He was possibly on the pitch for the game at Sixfields that was abandoned when a falling advertising hoarding almost killed somebody. A detail much more memorable than any of the football being played on the day.

"managerial appointments are less important than we mostly like to think"

As long as there is a reasonable level of organisational competence and the candidate isn't an insecure and vindictive idiot, then there could be some truth in this.

sooooome truth yes, but there's definitely a balance to be made between letting players express themselves without fear and second-guessing, and the instilling of tactical rigour and organisation, which can be surprisingly difficult to find

quite happy with our current manager, even if he doesn't have the gravitas, bloody-mindedness or uncompromising sheer energy of a Warnock quite yet. alas, given he appears to have been Hudds' second choice, he probably isn't far off a move upward

yeah he was allegedly on our radar because his contract situation at Charlton isn't very solid apparently?

he joined on the understanding that there'd be a takeover. the takeover fell apart. his contract is up in the summer. on we lurch

yeah we are in takeover deadlock as well. Lots of issues like a legal wrangle between previous and current chairman, stadium company issues as well - it's falling apart! It's rumoured there is an American consortium interested 🤮

of course there's American interest. UK assets post-Brexit might as well paint a stars and stripes on now

(our current owner is US based and both the consortium he failed to sell to and the one it's rumoured he's still dealing with are US money)

thing is the leveraged debt/parasite it dry/sell at a profit model of ownership might work well at Man Utd, but I don't how it works with EFL clubs.

let's see how it works with a whole country!!1!!!!!

alas, given he appears to have been Hudds' second choice, he probably isn't far off a move upward

― imago, Monday, 20 February 2023 09:27 (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

in talks with qpr apparently, lol

far off a move upward indeed! It wouldn't be too fantastical to imagine Town finishing above QPR and still going down. They are sat on the cushion of a good start to the season making the table look more respectable for them, but it's 1 win since October.

ofc the main link for them is ainsworth. could it finally be time

oh man, our away win against QPR was so hilarious: A freak double from at least one of the top 5 worst players on the pitch, Ruffles. First he crossed the ball into the back of the net and then scored an outrageous overhead kick that must have been some kind of mistake. And lol, Foth did his best to set them up to lose the game.

What the actual fucking fuck

After Saturday's shitshow we go away to top of the league Fylde and are 3 up after an hour.

I can only assume the new manager is common knowledge behind closed doors.

Askey goes to Hartlepool

Big Ron Atkinson had lunch with Colin Addison today. Someone reassure me it's just a coincidence.

people who you thought ....

i could've sworn

Rumours that have been ruled out now are Chris Hargreaves and a start in management to Stuart Fleetwood.

Having been told Monday was final interviews, today's noises are about taking time to find the right candidate. Who has both a smaller wage and a smaller budget than Josh did.

If this is softening us up to Hodgkiss and Klukowski on a permanent basis then I'm going to have to consider whether I renew.

Darren Kelly resigns from Newport yesterday. Hmm.

thank u 4 ur service huddersfield

lost 3-0 to darlington today, wonder if many fans made the journey from hereford, hope not.

I've not looked at the league table for weeks, filled with that same sense of dread that logging into my bank account gives me. gulp.. it still looks bad, but a respectable draw against Norwich and a shithouse away victory against the Wall is a good way to go into the international break. Rowett is still a total arsehoil.

wonder if many fans made the journey from hereford

About 50 I think.

The past few weeks have been horrendous, I walked out of a match before the end for the first time in 40+ years of attending matches. Last week neither side attacked enough to deserve nil.

Only Holloway is really good enough for next season, Evans when back from injury. There are another few worth being given a go in a different role or a settled (and different) formation but it really is wholesale clear out territory.

and our new evil American billionaire owner is called Kevin M Nagle (need that emoji combining account to do a lol/vomit combo)

Battle for 11th place hotting up. Tim's lot making a big move last night. We see you

Kevin NAGL. (This is a cheap crack, I know nothing about him.)

All of a sudden we seem to be playing well. Not quite mathematically safe yet, but it’s good to be where we are- last nights Barnsley game was the first in a brutal run-in that includes all 7 of the top 7 in our last 9 games.

The main thing now is Argyle not going up, the derby will be a very big lunchtime in a few weeks.

I feel quite sick about it tbh, but our last owner was a scumbag so quelle difference? It's quite easy to envisage a not too distant future in which the club is where it was last week i.e. a complete mess on the verge of administration but this time also in massive debt thanks to Mr Nagl. And tbf on our last rich scumbag custodian, he apparently wrote off £40m to enable this deal. But god knows where that debt came from, our player budget is bottom 3 of the champo level and has been for years now.

A Yank, of course

Warnock is gonna do it, the madman!

I've always secretly considered him to be god, an unpopular opinion on here for sure - but you people can't handle the truth! Even when he wasn't getting results or writing off the game against Burnley as a "free hit" before a complete arseholing - his calmness has been impressive. After the team suffering the psyche damage of a useless quiet guy manager followed by a useless braying nasty fucker. Neil realised he needed to be kind, benevolent old Uncle Neil with these players to heal them.

and we are above QPR now - that was entirely predictable!

I was on course to win £500 if Swansea scored. I checked out a stream and they didn't look like they were going to score and I cashed out the bet for £47. Thank fuck they didn't win - that would have made it bad friday.

Old Testament God = violent, arbitrary, vengeful, a complete dick

but he gets results, dammit

what makes his success so far - fingers crossed and all that - quite amusing is that he doesn't even seem committed enough to get violent or vengeful about anything, including some of the shit results. His jovial chuntering about his upcoming holiday and book tour after bad results had some people worrying. As well as him turning up on next opposition podcasts talking in a friendly manner about how much he rates their squad and great fans blah blah blah. He hasn't even signed a contract. His casual approach is probably just what was needed imo.

happy he's having fun and doing a job, i'm lousy at holding grudges anyway

He has pissed off a lot of people over the years tbf! Including the Town fans when he turned down a million quid our ex-chairman offered him and went to the vile revenant instead. Although he has since confessed regret on that decision where he badly miscalculated how much of a festering arsehole Ken Bates was.

What’s his quarrel with Chris Wilder? Radio 5 kept going on about them not even looking at each other (which would hardly be an odd choice for either).

no idea about that, perhaps it's a Blades related thing from Wilder's time there?

they seem cut from similarish cloth, except Wilder lacks a bit of Warnock's charm, probably a 'room in this town for two of us' thing

seems a shame that all the QPR fans quit ILX tbh, this would be a great time to hear from them

RTC to thread!

can't imagine Wilder being able to work a crowd like Uncle Neil does! Years ago a work colleague who was coaching the Brighouse Town girls team used to see Wilder at some of their games. Possibly in the period after he'd lost his job due to Halifax going bust. Said he was a nice guy, but this guy would say that about anybody!

Wednesday bottling League One btw. Keep it up lads

the beef between Warnock and Wilder might go deeper, but in more recent history he replaced Warnock at Middlesbrough and he wasn't happy about the manner in which they sacked him. As in not letting him in and telling him the press conference with Wilder is commencing soon.