| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook 15:33 - May 13 with 5878 views | ITFC1977 |
Didn’t have a great time here but bought some good players that have been instrumental in our promotion and nobody can deny he done his best under Evans. |  | | |  |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 22:46 - May 13 with 1773 views | Herbivore |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 20:20 - May 13 by ibbleobble |
I remember him fondly for signing Chaplin, Walton, Morsy and Burns amongst others. Without them, we wouldn’t be in the Championship. |
Walton signed for us permanently under McKenna. |  |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 00:32 - May 14 with 1694 views | Rocky |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 20:20 - May 13 by ibbleobble |
I remember him fondly for signing Chaplin, Walton, Morsy and Burns amongst others. Without them, we wouldn’t be in the Championship. |
Whatever his shortcomings as a manager he clearly signed some very good players for us. Morsy, for one, signed for us through his regard for Paul Cook. |  | | |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 06:42 - May 14 with 1647 views | ibbleobble |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 22:46 - May 13 by Herbivore |
Walton signed for us permanently under McKenna. |
Bit of a stretch that. Cook got him in the door with a view to signing permanently which he did early in to McKenna’s tenure. Not sure KM can take the credit for that one despite his good forays into the market. | | | |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 07:45 - May 14 with 1635 views | Herbivore |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 06:42 - May 14 by ibbleobble |
Bit of a stretch that. Cook got him in the door with a view to signing permanently which he did early in to McKenna’s tenure. Not sure KM can take the credit for that one despite his good forays into the market. |
It's a factual statement, so not really a stretch. It's a stretch to praise Cook for Walton still being here when he signed permanently after Cook had left.
Cook was largely hopeless here. We signed some good players under him but he was backed strongly and it's not like he unearthed some unknown gems, any League 1 manager would have loved to have bought the likes of Morsy and Chaplin if they were given the funds to do so. | |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:23 - May 14 with 1608 views | Mullet |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 20:20 - May 13 by ibbleobble |
I remember him fondly for signing Chaplin, Walton, Morsy and Burns amongst others. Without them, we wouldn’t be in the Championship. |
That's the Milburn gave us the youth setup argument for this generation isn't it?
The idea we wouldn't have signed quality players regardless is nonsense. Doing one bit of his job well by virtue of excellent backing and still finishing 11th with those players is an odd fondness to have. |  |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:45 - May 14 with 1573 views | Herbivore |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:23 - May 14 by Mullet |
That's the Milburn gave us the youth setup argument for this generation isn't it?
The idea we wouldn't have signed quality players regardless is nonsense. Doing one bit of his job well by virtue of excellent backing and still finishing 11th with those players is an odd fondness to have. |
There's a lot of hindsight being applied and the current team's success is giving a warm rub to Cook in some quarters. It's very odd. Yes, he signed some quality players but he couldn't get them to perform and any manager should be able to sign good players with the kind of backing he had. Taking that squad to midtable was a shameful performance. Playing Nsiala over Woolf to the extent we nearly lost Woolf tells you everything you need to know about what a poor manager Cook was for us. | |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 10:23 - May 14 with 1541 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 15:55 - May 13 by BlueBadger |
Why, even now, do people on here still carry a torch for failed managers?
I mean, it's nice to see he's found his level, but.... |
We know you are thick, but......
Some people still carry a torch for failed managers, their prerogative !
You still carry a torch for the failed players who took us down without a fight. Tell us about them, these fantastic professionals |  | | |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 10:45 - May 14 with 1526 views | tractorboy1978 |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:45 - May 14 by Herbivore |
There's a lot of hindsight being applied and the current team's success is giving a warm rub to Cook in some quarters. It's very odd. Yes, he signed some quality players but he couldn't get them to perform and any manager should be able to sign good players with the kind of backing he had. Taking that squad to midtable was a shameful performance. Playing Nsiala over Woolf to the extent we nearly lost Woolf tells you everything you need to know about what a poor manager Cook was for us. |
He was poor on the pitch for sure and McKenna is light years ahead of him. Where I disagree with a lot of people though is that I agreed with him that a bomb needed putting under the whole squad. He made the right decision in that regard and nobody that went that summer has gone on to prove him wrong. Obviously he wanted to keep Downes but him going was always inevitable.
And for all people say we 'had a big budget we were always going to sign good players' he still had a big pull and managed to convince a few players that are too good for this level to drop down. Chaplin, Morsy, Walton wouldn't have been here in the first place but for him.
It was the right time for him to go and I certainly don't hold him in huge regard but I stand by the fact we needed him that summer to allow us to transition to where we are now. [Post edited 14 May 2023 10:47]
| | | |
Login to get fewer ads
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 15:42 - May 14 with 1447 views | Mullet |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 10:45 - May 14 by tractorboy1978 |
He was poor on the pitch for sure and McKenna is light years ahead of him. Where I disagree with a lot of people though is that I agreed with him that a bomb needed putting under the whole squad. He made the right decision in that regard and nobody that went that summer has gone on to prove him wrong. Obviously he wanted to keep Downes but him going was always inevitable.
And for all people say we 'had a big budget we were always going to sign good players' he still had a big pull and managed to convince a few players that are too good for this level to drop down. Chaplin, Morsy, Walton wouldn't have been here in the first place but for him.
It was the right time for him to go and I certainly don't hold him in huge regard but I stand by the fact we needed him that summer to allow us to transition to where we are now. [Post edited 14 May 2023 10:47]
|
That doesn't really hold much water though does it? Walton signed on loan to get his career going, Chaplin the same (he was very embittered by how Barnsley treated him) Morsy was his former captain all of whom we secured on Championship money.
"Pull" is only so valuable these days and none of those players wanted out when Cook went. Quite the opposite.
If that's all he offers beyond obviously being a nice fella etc. it's not saying much is it? | |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 21:34 - May 14 with 1384 views | ITFC1977 |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:23 - May 14 by Mullet |
That's the Milburn gave us the youth setup argument for this generation isn't it?
The idea we wouldn't have signed quality players regardless is nonsense. Doing one bit of his job well by virtue of excellent backing and still finishing 11th with those players is an odd fondness to have. |
I was the op and I’ve read this and nobody has talked about any real fondness for Cook, it was wishing him, Kieron, clements and dobra luck ( all ex ipswich people) and just saying that arguably our 4 best players since he left were purchased by him .
Did he get them to gel, no, is he a great manager, no, but he played a part in where we are now and I wished him good luck. As well as the players he brought in, look at the Players he got rid of ( downes excluded, he wanted to leave anyway) they’ve ALL gone to do nothing.
Wishing him good luck and the 3 others was as deep as it went. | | | |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 07:30 - May 15 with 1283 views | Churchman |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 10:45 - May 14 by tractorboy1978 |
He was poor on the pitch for sure and McKenna is light years ahead of him. Where I disagree with a lot of people though is that I agreed with him that a bomb needed putting under the whole squad. He made the right decision in that regard and nobody that went that summer has gone on to prove him wrong. Obviously he wanted to keep Downes but him going was always inevitable.
And for all people say we 'had a big budget we were always going to sign good players' he still had a big pull and managed to convince a few players that are too good for this level to drop down. Chaplin, Morsy, Walton wouldn't have been here in the first place but for him.
It was the right time for him to go and I certainly don't hold him in huge regard but I stand by the fact we needed him that summer to allow us to transition to where we are now. [Post edited 14 May 2023 10:47]
|
Getting rid of most of Lambert’s squad was an obvious thing to do. No problem with that. I do though have a problem with how he went about it. This bomb squad nonsense, raging about them in public, binning the lot then bringing one or two back in the fold. It was wasteful and crude.
Also crude was the recruitment process. Because he’d basically dumped the whole team he/Ashton were left with bringing in players however, whenever they could. Yes, many have proven to be good players but attracting them is much easier when you can pay them more and sell the promise of a higher league further down the line.
Cook didn’t build a team. Recruitment in 2021 was let’s throw mud at the wall and see what sticks. Could somebody else have attracted the quality of some of the players he did? Of course, just as somebody else could have binned Lamberts mob - possibly in a less disruptive and wasteful manner.
Cook tried. He’s a decent man who knows a good player - as well as a few poor ones. His aims were right, his methods wrong. He was a poor fit and did an awful job.
He had the best opportunity at L1 level any manager could have and through basic incompetence hosed it up the wall. ITFC have had plenty of duffers as managers in the past 20 years. Cook is right up there amongst them. [Post edited 15 May 2023 7:35]
|  | | |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 07:48 - May 15 with 1252 views | tractorboy1978 |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 15:42 - May 14 by Mullet |
That doesn't really hold much water though does it? Walton signed on loan to get his career going, Chaplin the same (he was very embittered by how Barnsley treated him) Morsy was his former captain all of whom we secured on Championship money.
"Pull" is only so valuable these days and none of those players wanted out when Cook went. Quite the opposite.
If that's all he offers beyond obviously being a nice fella etc. it's not saying much is it? |
Would McKenna have attracted such players here as a complete novice without a first team game in management under his belt? I don't think so regardless of the money offered. I think we needed someone with a bit of a proven substance/success for that summer rebuild, hence why I said we needed him to transition to where we are now. Lets not forget us getting him here in the first place was seen as a massive coup at the time.
McKenna is light years ahead of Cook and it seems he impressed the squad very quickly hence why we retained Walton as an example. As I said, I'm certainly no huge fan of the job Paul Cook did here but the recruitment/actions that summer (whether you agree with the bluntness with which he did it or not) created the foundation for McKenna to come in. He was a means to an end. [Post edited 15 May 2023 7:53]
| | | |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:02 - May 15 with 1215 views | Herbivore |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 07:48 - May 15 by tractorboy1978 |
Would McKenna have attracted such players here as a complete novice without a first team game in management under his belt? I don't think so regardless of the money offered. I think we needed someone with a bit of a proven substance/success for that summer rebuild, hence why I said we needed him to transition to where we are now. Lets not forget us getting him here in the first place was seen as a massive coup at the time.
McKenna is light years ahead of Cook and it seems he impressed the squad very quickly hence why we retained Walton as an example. As I said, I'm certainly no huge fan of the job Paul Cook did here but the recruitment/actions that summer (whether you agree with the bluntness with which he did it or not) created the foundation for McKenna to come in. He was a means to an end. [Post edited 15 May 2023 7:53]
|
We've signed Broadhead, Clarke, and Davis under McKenna as well as Walton on a permanent deal. There's nothing to suggest he'd have massively struggled to recruit players if he'd been here in summer 2021. I imagine some of the recruitment would have been much better thought through. | |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:28 - May 15 with 1179 views | Churchman |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 07:48 - May 15 by tractorboy1978 |
Would McKenna have attracted such players here as a complete novice without a first team game in management under his belt? I don't think so regardless of the money offered. I think we needed someone with a bit of a proven substance/success for that summer rebuild, hence why I said we needed him to transition to where we are now. Lets not forget us getting him here in the first place was seen as a massive coup at the time.
McKenna is light years ahead of Cook and it seems he impressed the squad very quickly hence why we retained Walton as an example. As I said, I'm certainly no huge fan of the job Paul Cook did here but the recruitment/actions that summer (whether you agree with the bluntness with which he did it or not) created the foundation for McKenna to come in. He was a means to an end. [Post edited 15 May 2023 7:53]
|
Would those players Cook recruited have come if Poundland Evans had still been running the club? Cook or no Cook, of course not. Did they head for the door when he was sacked? Nope.
Would KMs recruitment have been as good? No idea. Nothing to suggest since his arrival that it wouldn’t have been. One thing I’m pretty sure of is that he’d not have blown up the entire existing team in the way Cook did and left us wondering when pre season started whether we’d actually be able to field a team.
He’d have moved players on, but my guess is he’d have had a look at them first and decided who was worthwhile, who was not. Cook’s way was not the only way in my view. | | | |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:42 - May 15 with 1156 views | itfcjoe |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:28 - May 15 by Churchman |
Would those players Cook recruited have come if Poundland Evans had still been running the club? Cook or no Cook, of course not. Did they head for the door when he was sacked? Nope.
Would KMs recruitment have been as good? No idea. Nothing to suggest since his arrival that it wouldn’t have been. One thing I’m pretty sure of is that he’d not have blown up the entire existing team in the way Cook did and left us wondering when pre season started whether we’d actually be able to field a team.
He’d have moved players on, but my guess is he’d have had a look at them first and decided who was worthwhile, who was not. Cook’s way was not the only way in my view. |
We had something like 22 players out of contract that summer, whoever was here was always going to do a total refresh - but no need to chuck the baby out with the bathwater when we had players like Kayden Jackson bombed out and (who has since proven valuable) and Myles Kenlock jusy not registered for the team despite paying his wages all season and having Matt Penney in as a back up left back when MK could have just done that role
I imagine so much energy was expended in trying to find new homes for the players that were bombed out unnecessarily that it took away from what we were trying to do as just added huge amounts of workload |  |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:46 - May 15 with 1153 views | tractorboy1978 |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:02 - May 15 by Herbivore |
We've signed Broadhead, Clarke, and Davis under McKenna as well as Walton on a permanent deal. There's nothing to suggest he'd have massively struggled to recruit players if he'd been here in summer 2021. I imagine some of the recruitment would have been much better thought through. |
All of those were signed once McKenna had built some substance/reputation though. By this January he was thought of as one of the brightest managers outside the Premier League. And Walton was already in the door and enjoyed working with McKenna. [Post edited 15 May 2023 8:47]
| | | |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 09:03 - May 15 with 1126 views | tractorboy1978 |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:28 - May 15 by Churchman |
Would those players Cook recruited have come if Poundland Evans had still been running the club? Cook or no Cook, of course not. Did they head for the door when he was sacked? Nope.
Would KMs recruitment have been as good? No idea. Nothing to suggest since his arrival that it wouldn’t have been. One thing I’m pretty sure of is that he’d not have blown up the entire existing team in the way Cook did and left us wondering when pre season started whether we’d actually be able to field a team.
He’d have moved players on, but my guess is he’d have had a look at them first and decided who was worthwhile, who was not. Cook’s way was not the only way in my view. |
It can be true that players both want to be well remunerated and are also attracted by playing for a certain manager. | | | |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 09:11 - May 15 with 1109 views | itfcjoe |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 09:03 - May 15 by tractorboy1978 |
It can be true that players both want to be well remunerated and are also attracted by playing for a certain manager. |
I think it is also true that players know all managers are here today, gone tomorrow, so the main thing they look at is their own contract situation | |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 09:14 - May 15 with 1106 views | hype313 |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:45 - May 14 by Herbivore |
There's a lot of hindsight being applied and the current team's success is giving a warm rub to Cook in some quarters. It's very odd. Yes, he signed some quality players but he couldn't get them to perform and any manager should be able to sign good players with the kind of backing he had. Taking that squad to midtable was a shameful performance. Playing Nsiala over Woolf to the extent we nearly lost Woolf tells you everything you need to know about what a poor manager Cook was for us. |
He's a clown, wanted rid of Wolfle and no sooner had Burgess signed, he wanted rid of him.
He was all over the shop, yes players came, but given we were outgunning most championship clubs on salaries, do people really think they came here just for Paul Cook?
Some people are so naive. |  |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 10:37 - May 15 with 1059 views | Herbivore |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 08:46 - May 15 by tractorboy1978 |
All of those were signed once McKenna had built some substance/reputation though. By this January he was thought of as one of the brightest managers outside the Premier League. And Walton was already in the door and enjoyed working with McKenna. [Post edited 15 May 2023 8:47]
|
Walton had worked with him for about 3 weeks when he signed permanently, so not sure how well that holds. By January you could argue McKenna was forging a reputation, although we were wobbling in January and plenty on here were questioning him. It's even more arguable whether McKenna had a reputation in the summer when we signed the likes of Davis, who was a massive coup for us. I'll be honest, I just don't remotely buy the argument that Cook deserves some credit. He handled the clear out badly and was then well backed. There's little to suggest another manager would have done worse at rebuilding given the backing available at the time. What we do know is that Cook looked clueless managing two different squads here and for that he goes down as one of the worst managers in our history. | |
| |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 10:54 - May 15 with 1038 views | tractorboy1978 |
| Good luck Chesterfield and Cook on 10:37 - May 15 by Herbivore |
Walton had worked with him for about 3 weeks when he signed permanently, so not sure how well that holds. By January you could argue McKenna was forging a reputation, although we were wobbling in January and plenty on here were questioning him. It's even more arguable whether McKenna had a reputation in the summer when we signed the likes of Davis, who was a massive coup for us. I'll be honest, I just don't remotely buy the argument that Cook deserves some credit. He handled the clear out badly and was then well backed. There's little to suggest another manager would have done worse at rebuilding given the backing available at the time. What we do know is that Cook looked clueless managing two different squads here and for that he goes down as one of the worst managers in our history. |
To be honest, Cook was always a stop gap for GC and Ashton. He never fitted in with the model and structure they wanted to operate and after his terrible start at the end of 2020/21, they would have been justified to sack him then really.
I do think there was some acknowledgment we needed a fairly big rebuild and pre us establishing our recruitment/scouting team we needed a manager with a decent contacts book and some pull though. I guess we will never truly know how another manager would have done. | | | |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
