| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, 18:33 - May 13 with 10432 views | NeedhamChris |
He hides from penalty shootouts too. Talk about showing confidence in your players. For a supposedly professional football manager that's absurd and embarrassing - if I was a Chesterfield fan I'd be livid at that.
Feel sorry for the Chesterfield fans today - but PC has well and truly found his level. |  |
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| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 18:52 - May 14 with 822 views | clive_baker |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 18:19 - May 14 by jayessess |
Paul Cook had 16 games with the inherited squad, 14 of them were against teams below us in the league when he took over and if he'd maintained Paul Lambert/Matt Gill's points per game, we'd have fulfilled his realistic target (making the play-offs). I think the idea that we chucked him into this nightmare scenario where it was impossible for him to succeed is bunk. |
Who is saying that of Paul Cook? He was heavily backed and couldn’t get a consistent performance out of his inherited squad or his new one. He can have no complaints whatsoever. |  |
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| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 18:54 - May 14 with 817 views | tractorboy1978 |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 18:45 - May 14 by pointofblue |
Maybe it's a degree of bitterness on my part, as he had an excellent record at Chesterfield, Portsmouth and Wigan but it all fell apart here rapidly. And his attitude of passing the blame onto the squad without taking personal responsibility, grated.
We spent one season longer than we should have done at this level due to his incompetence, incompetence which, up until joining us, was not evident. It was at the point where he looked out of his depth that I started wondering if the Town managerial post was cursed. |
Him starting so slowly/badly is arguably the best thing that has happened to this club in my lifetime (32 years). It was the tipping point that meant Evans sold and we are now on an upward trajectory with owners we could have only dreamed of 2 and half years ago. | | | |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 18:59 - May 14 with 792 views | jayessess |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 18:45 - May 14 by pointofblue |
Maybe it's a degree of bitterness on my part, as he had an excellent record at Chesterfield, Portsmouth and Wigan but it all fell apart here rapidly. And his attitude of passing the blame onto the squad without taking personal responsibility, grated.
We spent one season longer than we should have done at this level due to his incompetence, incompetence which, up until joining us, was not evident. It was at the point where he looked out of his depth that I started wondering if the Town managerial post was cursed. |
I think you can see the legacy of some of that buck passing above, lot of toxicity about people who played that season still remains, but he got to name matchday squads with a whole spine of players who subsequently competed well at the top end of this league or in higher ones - Wilson, Woolfenden, McGuinness, Downes, Norwood, Jackson, Parrott. [Post edited 14 May 2023 19:00]
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| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 19:00 - May 14 with 783 views | jayessess |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 18:52 - May 14 by clive_baker |
Who is saying that of Paul Cook? He was heavily backed and couldn’t get a consistent performance out of his inherited squad or his new one. He can have no complaints whatsoever. |
Sorry, mis-read your post! | |
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| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 19:05 - May 14 with 766 views | WestStanderLaLaLa |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 18:26 - May 14 by pointofblue |
Wish I could give this more that one up vote. When Lambert was sacked and Cook brought in the general consensus was the play offs were in reach, even with the squad we had. And they should have been. |
Yep. We were 1 point off 6th with a game in hand. Nearly all remaining games were against the bottom half, only 1 team above us. |  |
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| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 19:24 - May 14 with 738 views | Radlett_blue |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 18:56 - May 13 by NeedhamChris |
Yes, I'm not a fan and think he was a very poor manager for us and has underdelivered without Leam Richardson.
That said, I don't think it's a bizarre thing to comment on, it's pretty unusual and poor management to me. |
Indeed, not really an officer leading his men out of the trenches. |  |
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| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 19:31 - May 14 with 724 views | Stadiumofdark |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 19:30 - May 13 by PhilTWTD |
Not sure why there's this need to have a pop at ex-managers just because they're ex-managers and didn't bring success here. Can understand those who went out of their way to fall out with fans - Mick - or the media - Paul Lambert, cough - but Paul Cook was a nice enough bloke, it wasn't for a lack of trying that it didn't work out for him. Wish him well and his CV shows he's a better manager than National League level. |
was, not is....a better manager.
I couldnt stand him.
We are very lucky now |  | | |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 20:38 - May 14 with 672 views | itfcjoe |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 11:56 - May 14 by clive_baker |
Agree with that with regards to the older crop, its also true of the younger ones. Had many conversations on here at the time, the age profile of our squad was so unbalanced. At one point we had an ‘average age of 27’ at the back but it was 35 year old full backs in Chambers and Ward and kids in the middle. So a mean average, but none of the 4 were within about 7 years of it. The squad generally fell into 3 buckets: 1) former championship quality, but past it (Chambers, Ward, Judge) 2) good ages but in reality average at best L1 players (Nsiala, Holy, Hawkins) or 3) young and utterly unproven. Anyone who didn’t fit into those was generally permanently injured.
It was a crap squad and the talk of it being the best in the league was utterly delusional. The biggest question mark for me was the young players we had, I think people completely underestimate how tough it is for kids to step up at this level. It’s hard enough for a Cameron Humphreys when he’s got Morsy next to him and Burns, Chaplin, Ladapo etc around him, in a dominant side and with the management and coaching team we could’ve only dreamt of before. Try putting a few in together a few years ago, it won’t work. The clamours for it at the time used to wind me up so much. And that’s working on the assumption they even have the underlying potential anyway, which many of ours had no evidence of. Clements, McGavin, Dobra. They’ll all find their level below L1 IMO. And that’s now, they were kids then.
Expressing those views was never popular then though. Past it old players (who were largely still our best bet), bang average L1 / L2 mid career players, sick notes or unproven kids, most of which were probably never future L1 players anyway. I would say literally the only exceptions to that were Downes, Dozzell and Norwood. That was literally it, and none of them stayed fit anyway.
Lambert got a lot of stick and for good reason, but the bloke has been around football long enough to know he was working with a crock of sh1t. Absolutely chalk and cheese from where we are today. |
As most things at this club, the big problem boils down to the transfer window in summer 2018 - it was a suicide note and people lauded it as our best ever window and the like
We lost our best 5 players and the £6m or so we spent was on dross.
For all talk of young players being too green, and old players being past it - which I don’t disagree with….the issue is basically that we spent £750k on JD and he wasn’t as good as Chambers, £1.25m on Nolan and he wasn’t as good as Skuse, £1.6m on Jackson and he wasn’t as good as Sears, £750k on Nsiala and he wasn’t as good as anyone, £600k on Gwion Edwards and he wasn’t as good as the long departed Paul Anderson
Recruitment so important - and we turned our weaker players into our best players that window - that the players who were decent enough to do a job and fill a team we’re not good enough to be top Champ players should have surprised no one - but sone fans continue to blame them for not being able to do so |  |
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| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 20:46 - May 14 with 650 views | DJR |
| So not only does Paul Cook hide from difficult press conferences, on 19:24 - May 14 by Radlett_blue |
Indeed, not really an officer leading his men out of the trenches. |
The thing is, I don't think he's been the same since the Sex Pistols broke up. |  | | |
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