| Ranking Town's worst managers 09:42 - Jan 9 with 8572 views | Herbivore |
Thought it was worth doing an updated one of these in light of Cook's demise and departure. Given how his time here went, he has to be seen as a legit contender. I'm sticking to a list of five and I should caveat my list with the fact that I started supporting Town under John Duncan so haven't included anyone prior to his time in charge (or ultimately Duncan himself as it goes).
1. Paul Hurst - whilst Cook styled himself as demolition man, Hurst really did demolish a competent Championship squad and replaced it with dross. We've still not recovered.
2. Paul Cook - perhaps a touch controversial, but the shortness of his tenure speaks to his level of failure. To manage a worse record than Paul Lambert did in the third tier with the players at his disposal takes some doing.
3. Roy Keane - could easily have been a spot higher or indeed a spot lower, swapping with my number 4 on the list. Spunked away the only millions Evans ever really invested in fees on average players and seemed to lack almost every quality you need to be a manager.
4. Paul Lambert - frankly I'm stunned I have him this low but it speaks to the 'quality' of the opposition. After coming in and saying some nice things that led to a short term uplift in performances (though not results) he seemed to lose all desire and any clue. Famously blew an almost open goal shot at promotion off the back of 27 points from our opening 11 games by inexplicably engaging in a season long game of Lambingo.
5. Paul Jewell - what to say really? Inherited a bit of a mess from Keane and then smeared that mess around a bit for just under 2 years. Occasionally 5 game runs of looking great invariably followed by 10 game runs of looking like a pub team. By the end he looked totally lost and should have been put out of his misery much sooner.
That's my list. It's a packed field, despite all of the managers listed having managed Town within the last 12 years. [Post edited 9 Jan 2022 12:36]
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:24 - Jan 9 with 825 views | BiGDonnie |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:19 - Jan 9 by The_Romford_Blue |
I just can’t stress it enough how much I disagree here. He was nowhere near as damaging as Hurst, Keane or Jewell.
Jewell filled the side with loans and nearly got us relegated.
Keane sucked the life out of the squad and fans with his awful attitude.
Hurst sold a team of championship players and replaced them with sh*te, ultimately relegating us.
Ok cook failed to get us promoted but the football wasn’t dreadful, there was plenty of good moments and he showed genuine respect about our club. He’s nowhere near our ‘worst ever manager’ and shouldn’t even be in the discussion. |
Unless McKenna can pull off a minor miracle, it's Cooks fault we'll be spending another season in league 1. Actually make that two seasons if you include the last when he took the job.
Could say that's more damaging that what the others did or didn't do. |  |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:26 - Jan 9 with 826 views | Herbivore |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:21 - Jan 9 by The_Romford_Blue |
How was Cook better than Lambert?
- Goals
- Style of play
- General entertainment
There’s three off the top of my head. |
Some of the worst Town performances I've ever witnessed came under Cook so not sure I agree on the general entertainment and style of play points. We had some good games under Lambert in amongst the sh!te, just as we did under Cook. [Post edited 9 Jan 2022 19:27]
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:28 - Jan 9 with 812 views | Kropotkin123 |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:21 - Jan 9 by The_Romford_Blue |
How was Cook better than Lambert?
- Goals
- Style of play
- General entertainment
There’s three off the top of my head. |
- Didn't relegated us
- Got results against the top six in the league
- Left us with a good squad
- Didn't alienate the supporter base
- Didn't control and ban local media |  |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:29 - Jan 9 with 794 views | GlasgowBlue |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:19 - Jan 9 by The_Romford_Blue |
I just can’t stress it enough how much I disagree here. He was nowhere near as damaging as Hurst, Keane or Jewell.
Jewell filled the side with loans and nearly got us relegated.
Keane sucked the life out of the squad and fans with his awful attitude.
Hurst sold a team of championship players and replaced them with sh*te, ultimately relegating us.
Ok cook failed to get us promoted but the football wasn’t dreadful, there was plenty of good moments and he showed genuine respect about our club. He’s nowhere near our ‘worst ever manager’ and shouldn’t even be in the discussion. |
Cook was given a team that was two points off the play offs and managed to make us worse.
He was then given the resources to put together the best squad in the division and fcuked that up.
I think he overestimated his own coaching abilities, and underestimated what his previous coaches had contributed to his past success.
For all of the above I would put him down as our worst manager other than Hurst. [Post edited 9 Jan 2022 19:32]
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:30 - Jan 9 with 805 views | BiGDonnie |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:28 - Jan 9 by Kropotkin123 |
- Didn't relegated us
- Got results against the top six in the league
- Left us with a good squad
- Didn't alienate the supporter base
- Didn't control and ban local media |
- Results were sh*te!
Such a rubbish debate to have either way. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:30 - Jan 9 with 800 views | The_Romford_Blue |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:21 - Jan 9 by Herbivore |
He's top 5 without a shadow of a doubt and very likely top 3. It's hard for anyone to top Hurst given just how much damage he managed to do, but after that I don't see much to give Cook an edge over the other candidates. |
He’s 5th of those in my lifetime (I don’t know enough about the bad managers of the earlier years unfortunately).
Of the 5 in question:
1) Hurst. By a mile the worst manager we’ve had. And the most damaging.
2) Keane. Overspent. Acted like a tw*t. Had disdain for all of us.
3) Lambert. He made things towards the end genuinely bitter with 90% of the fans hating him. He banned Phil. He’s fortunate that fans weren’t in the stadium as it would’ve been toxic.
4) Jewell. Just general incompetence. And a team full of loanees.
5) Cook. Things didn’t work out on a big budget. Expectations were rightly high and he failed.
However he’s better than the four above because the style of football was better and he showed respect to the club whilst also not managing to ban Phil/show disdain for the club/damage us long term. |  |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:31 - Jan 9 with 791 views | jeera |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:28 - Jan 9 by Kropotkin123 |
- Didn't relegated us
- Got results against the top six in the league
- Left us with a good squad
- Didn't alienate the supporter base
- Didn't control and ban local media |
Although it's got to be fair to say he didn't get the chance.
Lambert was still popular at X amount of games in too, at least with a number of fans.
I liked Cook but it wasn't happening and I'm glad he was let go before anything could go sour.
If we'd adopted that approach sooner then we might not have suffered so much over the past decade or so. |  |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:32 - Jan 9 with 785 views | chicoazul |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 16:22 - Jan 9 by Darth_Koont |
Objectively it’s the managers who left us in the worst position compared to when they started. With leeway for managers who had ups and downs in a longer tenure.
For me that means over the past 25 years:
1. Hurst
2. Jewell
3. Lambert
4. Keane
5. Cook
6. Magilton
7. McCarthy
8. Royle
9. Burley |
Surely on that basis Lambert is the worst. Found us in the Championship left us in League 1. |  |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:32 - Jan 9 with 786 views | The_Romford_Blue |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:26 - Jan 9 by Herbivore |
Some of the worst Town performances I've ever witnessed came under Cook so not sure I agree on the general entertainment and style of play points. We had some good games under Lambert in amongst the sh!te, just as we did under Cook. [Post edited 9 Jan 2022 19:27]
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Peak Cook was better than anything we’ve had in 10 years imo*. That Wycombe final hour was ridiculous.
*I wasn’t at the game Saturday but King Kieran appears to have also produced some liquid football. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:33 - Jan 9 with 776 views | Herbivore |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:30 - Jan 9 by The_Romford_Blue |
He’s 5th of those in my lifetime (I don’t know enough about the bad managers of the earlier years unfortunately).
Of the 5 in question:
1) Hurst. By a mile the worst manager we’ve had. And the most damaging.
2) Keane. Overspent. Acted like a tw*t. Had disdain for all of us.
3) Lambert. He made things towards the end genuinely bitter with 90% of the fans hating him. He banned Phil. He’s fortunate that fans weren’t in the stadium as it would’ve been toxic.
4) Jewell. Just general incompetence. And a team full of loanees.
5) Cook. Things didn’t work out on a big budget. Expectations were rightly high and he failed.
However he’s better than the four above because the style of football was better and he showed respect to the club whilst also not managing to ban Phil/show disdain for the club/damage us long term. |
But can you not see how someone who is more bothered about results than whether the manager was likeable would have Cook higher on that list? Results wise only Hurst was worse. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:33 - Jan 9 with 775 views | jeera |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:32 - Jan 9 by chicoazul |
Surely on that basis Lambert is the worst. Found us in the Championship left us in League 1. |
I'm more concerned that list spells out 25 years.
How and when the feck did that happen? | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:35 - Jan 9 with 773 views | Herbivore |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:32 - Jan 9 by The_Romford_Blue |
Peak Cook was better than anything we’ve had in 10 years imo*. That Wycombe final hour was ridiculous.
*I wasn’t at the game Saturday but King Kieran appears to have also produced some liquid football. |
I just can't agree at all. Wycombe was a good performance but you're going overboard with it here and it was one game out of forty. His results here were awful and there were more abject displays than good ones under him. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:35 - Jan 9 with 772 views | The_Romford_Blue |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:26 - Jan 9 by Herbivore |
Some of the worst Town performances I've ever witnessed came under Cook so not sure I agree on the general entertainment and style of play points. We had some good games under Lambert in amongst the sh!te, just as we did under Cook. [Post edited 9 Jan 2022 19:27]
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Also worth saying, the worst performances under Hurst were worse than anything I’ve ever seen.
Hull away when we failed to register a shot was borderline disgraceful. Against a terrible team that day and we looked non league. Lincoln in the cup was horrendous under Mick too. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:36 - Jan 9 with 769 views | PJH |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:29 - Jan 9 by GlasgowBlue |
Cook was given a team that was two points off the play offs and managed to make us worse.
He was then given the resources to put together the best squad in the division and fcuked that up.
I think he overestimated his own coaching abilities, and underestimated what his previous coaches had contributed to his past success.
For all of the above I would put him down as our worst manager other than Hurst. [Post edited 9 Jan 2022 19:32]
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Agree 100%.
All Cook achieved was making Lambert look a little bit better than he actually was, in my opinion.
Cook made a mess of last season's end and made a mess of this season's start although there is still an outside chance of this season being saved, despite Cook.
I don't think Hurst can be challenged as our worst but Cook, for me with the resources that he had at the level we are, is the next worst. |  | | |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:38 - Jan 9 with 766 views | The_Romford_Blue |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:35 - Jan 9 by Herbivore |
I just can't agree at all. Wycombe was a good performance but you're going overboard with it here and it was one game out of forty. His results here were awful and there were more abject displays than good ones under him. |
I said it was superb after the game. I’m not going OTT for affect.. I genuinely believe it was that good. We destroyed Wycombe that second half and you can’t rewrite history for affect saying it was only ‘good’. It was a lot better than that. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:39 - Jan 9 with 761 views | The_Romford_Blue |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:33 - Jan 9 by Herbivore |
But can you not see how someone who is more bothered about results than whether the manager was likeable would have Cook higher on that list? Results wise only Hurst was worse. |
But if we’re talking about ‘worst ever manager’, surely the whole picture is everything. And that includes stuff off the pitch.
Banning Phil from press conferences should automatically have him as more damaging than cook as they had a similar record but Lambert did that. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:43 - Jan 9 with 756 views | bazza |
Jewell ..5-1 against Norwich..7-1 Peterborough.. that was a particular low point, he just used to slump in his chair in the dug out, and he had some very decent championship players, some of which went on to play in the premiership |  | | |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:44 - Jan 9 with 748 views | Darth_Koont |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:32 - Jan 9 by chicoazul |
Surely on that basis Lambert is the worst. Found us in the Championship left us in League 1. |
No, I think Hurst still shoulders most of the blame for that relegation. An incredibly bad transfer window and then with the behind the scenes stuff and poor results we were already badly hamstrung. Ditto Jewell who spent loads, which only served to drain the squad of value and youth, and turn us into relegation certainties.
An example of Hurst’s damage was effectively tossing Nydam aside to bring in Edun. He was on the verge of becoming a regular in our first XI, and a real bright spot in the disappointing end to the previous season (even more promising than Downes and Dozzell). So it was an amazing sliding doors moment for his career with a subsequent lack of playing time and injuries doing the rest. |  |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:45 - Jan 9 with 746 views | Herbivore |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:38 - Jan 9 by The_Romford_Blue |
I said it was superb after the game. I’m not going OTT for affect.. I genuinely believe it was that good. We destroyed Wycombe that second half and you can’t rewrite history for affect saying it was only ‘good’. It was a lot better than that. |
They battered us for 20 minutes of the second half and we required some very last ditch defending, excellent goalkeeping, and a bit of luck to keep the score at 3-1. It was our best performance under Cook but our best of the last decade as you've suggested? No chance. And you're ignoring some of the utter dross he served up as well. I get that you liked him but his performance here was really poor. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:45 - Jan 9 with 747 views | jeera |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:43 - Jan 9 by bazza |
Jewell ..5-1 against Norwich..7-1 Peterborough.. that was a particular low point, he just used to slump in his chair in the dug out, and he had some very decent championship players, some of which went on to play in the premiership |
No, he just didn't know what to do did he?
He'd buy the best players he thought he could get his hands on and then rely on them liking him to get a performance out of them. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:48 - Jan 9 with 737 views | bazza |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:45 - Jan 9 by jeera |
No, he just didn't know what to do did he?
He'd buy the best players he thought he could get his hands on and then rely on them liking him to get a performance out of them. |
I think because things haven’t improved, people have forgotten just how poor we were under Keane and Jewell, and with some bloody good players in the squad as well. | | | |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:49 - Jan 9 with 735 views | istanblue |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 11:49 - Jan 9 by tractordownsouth |
I wasn’t sure how to approach that side of things. On the one hand, recruiting good players means they haven’t caused as much damage for their successor to repair but it also means they’ve failed with a good squad. |
Recruitment should definitely factor into it as it's an integral part of a manager's job. Also the Evans factor needs to be considered too (especially post-2012 when the spending dried up).
Keane - Came in with massive expectations and a took a team pushing for the play-offs to 15th the next season. Couple that with 2 live TV humiliations (Bobby Robson game v Newcastle and Norwich 4-1 Holt Hogan hattrick). Also spent a ton of money on utter crap for the most part. Additionally, wasn't he the one who got rid of Klug? Only saving grace was he got us to the semis of a major cup competition.
Jewell - Made a modest improvement on Keane in 2010-11. Spent decent money on players who weren't good enough and bought in a host of bad or unprofessional characters (e.g. Chopra, Taylor, N'Daw etc.) Also way too reliant on loan players. The 7-1 against Peterborough is one of the most pathetic and embarrassing performances I've ever witnessed from ITFC (and of course, it was on TV) in addition to the 5-1 against Norwich, 4-0 against Burnley and 6-0 against Blackpool. Never challenged for promotion under him and left us bottom of the league when left. Only positives were a few decent signings (e.g. Creswell, Andrews, Campbell) and some freak results (e.g. 6-0 v Doncaster and 5-1 against West Ham)
Hurst - Completely out of his depth. I blame Evans much more for relegation as he allowed Hurst to rip a midtable Championship squad apart and recruit lower league no hopers as replacements. A competent owner would never have hired him in the first place.
Lambert - IMO we were doomed in 18-19 (due to Hurst and Evans) and Lambert was pretty much on a hiding to nothing. Did some positive stuff off the pitch at first and we had a great start in 19-20 and played some decent stuff (which people seem to forget). Should've been sacked at the end of that season as 11th in L1 is a disgrace for any ITFC manager. Had to do everything on a shoestring so don't necessarily blame him for shoddy recruitment. 20/21 was the most pointless and depressing season ever as there was never any hope under him.
Cook - Similar to Keane in that he came in with big expectations and was allowed to spend a good chunk of cash on players. Took a team 1pt off the play-offs to mid-table which set the tone for the rest of his reign. Hired his gis a job scouse mates as coaching staff. Couldn't get a tune out of two entirely different sets of players. Outplayed and outfought by the likes of Northampton, AFC Wimbledon, Cheltenham, Fleetwood, Accrington etc. Deservedly sacked.
Lowest win%: Hurst
Biggest failures/underachievers: Cook and Keane
Most toxic: Lambert
Biggest and most embarrassing defeats: Jewell (closely followed by Cook) |  | | |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:50 - Jan 9 with 728 views | PJH |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:45 - Jan 9 by Herbivore |
They battered us for 20 minutes of the second half and we required some very last ditch defending, excellent goalkeeping, and a bit of luck to keep the score at 3-1. It was our best performance under Cook but our best of the last decade as you've suggested? No chance. And you're ignoring some of the utter dross he served up as well. I get that you liked him but his performance here was really poor. |
That Walton save at 3-1 won us that game because if that goes in that game very likely ends as a draw. | | | |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:55 - Jan 9 with 719 views | BiGDonnie |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:49 - Jan 9 by istanblue |
Recruitment should definitely factor into it as it's an integral part of a manager's job. Also the Evans factor needs to be considered too (especially post-2012 when the spending dried up).
Keane - Came in with massive expectations and a took a team pushing for the play-offs to 15th the next season. Couple that with 2 live TV humiliations (Bobby Robson game v Newcastle and Norwich 4-1 Holt Hogan hattrick). Also spent a ton of money on utter crap for the most part. Additionally, wasn't he the one who got rid of Klug? Only saving grace was he got us to the semis of a major cup competition.
Jewell - Made a modest improvement on Keane in 2010-11. Spent decent money on players who weren't good enough and bought in a host of bad or unprofessional characters (e.g. Chopra, Taylor, N'Daw etc.) Also way too reliant on loan players. The 7-1 against Peterborough is one of the most pathetic and embarrassing performances I've ever witnessed from ITFC (and of course, it was on TV) in addition to the 5-1 against Norwich, 4-0 against Burnley and 6-0 against Blackpool. Never challenged for promotion under him and left us bottom of the league when left. Only positives were a few decent signings (e.g. Creswell, Andrews, Campbell) and some freak results (e.g. 6-0 v Doncaster and 5-1 against West Ham)
Hurst - Completely out of his depth. I blame Evans much more for relegation as he allowed Hurst to rip a midtable Championship squad apart and recruit lower league no hopers as replacements. A competent owner would never have hired him in the first place.
Lambert - IMO we were doomed in 18-19 (due to Hurst and Evans) and Lambert was pretty much on a hiding to nothing. Did some positive stuff off the pitch at first and we had a great start in 19-20 and played some decent stuff (which people seem to forget). Should've been sacked at the end of that season as 11th in L1 is a disgrace for any ITFC manager. Had to do everything on a shoestring so don't necessarily blame him for shoddy recruitment. 20/21 was the most pointless and depressing season ever as there was never any hope under him.
Cook - Similar to Keane in that he came in with big expectations and was allowed to spend a good chunk of cash on players. Took a team 1pt off the play-offs to mid-table which set the tone for the rest of his reign. Hired his gis a job scouse mates as coaching staff. Couldn't get a tune out of two entirely different sets of players. Outplayed and outfought by the likes of Northampton, AFC Wimbledon, Cheltenham, Fleetwood, Accrington etc. Deservedly sacked.
Lowest win%: Hurst
Biggest failures/underachievers: Cook and Keane
Most toxic: Lambert
Biggest and most embarrassing defeats: Jewell (closely followed by Cook) |
Pboro 7-1 is the most vivid memory of a game I have! Where I was, who I was with and so many details from the actual game itself.
Nicely put btw. | |
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| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:55 - Jan 9 with 708 views | footers |
| Ranking Town's worst managers on 19:50 - Jan 9 by PJH |
That Walton save at 3-1 won us that game because if that goes in that game very likely ends as a draw. |
What are your first impressions of McKenna and his two performances so far, PJH? Looks decent, doesn't he? [Post edited 9 Jan 2022 19:55]
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