| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked 14:48 - Dec 4 with 16277 views | Woolfenthen |
2 years on, who would have imagined where would be |  | | |  |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 23:08 - Dec 4 with 2278 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 19:49 - Dec 4 by Herbivore |
Cook couldn't gel them in 5 months, McKenna gelled them in about a week. |
Not a week though, is it, if they'd been together 5 months before that. |  |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 00:11 - Dec 5 with 2230 views | BlueBadger |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 23:08 - Dec 4 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Not a week though, is it, if they'd been together 5 months before that. |
Poor old Cookie. Sacked, just as the team were about to gel. |  |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 00:16 - Dec 5 with 2225 views | Sharkey |
I guess the next two-year anniversary (in a day or two) must be the arrival of Rene Gilmartin. |  | | |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 00:20 - Dec 5 with 2214 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
Cook failed. Not the first not the last manager.
He had to go.
But he had cleared out our changing room and kicked out all parasities who were with us for a nice and easy payday. For that one I will be always be grateful to him.
Some football experts who criticise him......They had been saying that Dobra was good enough to be in our first 11 while Cook was with us. |  | | |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 06:08 - Dec 5 with 2156 views | BlueBadger |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 19:30 - Dec 4 by Vic |
He did change a lot in a short period of time. It needed to change. But without raking over old wounds, he was completely insensitive and even disrespectful to some of the players in the way he did it.
Personally I’m not sure that he would have got it right even with more time. We’ll never know. One thing is for sure, we’d never have the excitement, skill and style that we all so enjoy now if he’d have stayed. |
End of the day, he finished a season and his tenure in midtable.
He was even starting to show signs of blaming his new team for his failings when he went. | |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 08:30 - Dec 5 with 2108 views | Herbivore |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 23:08 - Dec 4 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Not a week though, is it, if they'd been together 5 months before that. |
The point is if anything performances were getting worse under Cook after 5 months so the gelling excuse looks weak. Unless the magic gelling point is precisely 5 months and one week and it all would have miraculously come good if we'd just given him another fortnight, but that doesn't really seem a plausible argument. McKenna took a team that was playing like a bunch of strangers and turned them into a well oiled machine almost immediately. That's down to his ability as a coach and manager, not because they reached some magic gelling point. |  |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 08:43 - Dec 5 with 2095 views | Steve_M |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 08:30 - Dec 5 by Herbivore |
The point is if anything performances were getting worse under Cook after 5 months so the gelling excuse looks weak. Unless the magic gelling point is precisely 5 months and one week and it all would have miraculously come good if we'd just given him another fortnight, but that doesn't really seem a plausible argument. McKenna took a team that was playing like a bunch of strangers and turned them into a well oiled machine almost immediately. That's down to his ability as a coach and manager, not because they reached some magic gelling point. |
Cook managed six weeks of decent form, from the Lincoln match to Wycombe, outside of that he performed objectively worse than Lambert with the same players and failed to get anything much out of the players he brought in.
It's remarkable just how generous some still are to a manager who did an appalling job here. |  |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 08:48 - Dec 5 with 2090 views | Funge |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 08:30 - Dec 5 by Herbivore |
The point is if anything performances were getting worse under Cook after 5 months so the gelling excuse looks weak. Unless the magic gelling point is precisely 5 months and one week and it all would have miraculously come good if we'd just given him another fortnight, but that doesn't really seem a plausible argument. McKenna took a team that was playing like a bunch of strangers and turned them into a well oiled machine almost immediately. That's down to his ability as a coach and manager, not because they reached some magic gelling point. |
Right!
FWIW, the key thing for me was that we couldn't defend under Cook, at all - almost every game appeared to have some kind of atrocious error within; the MK, Wimbledon, Bolton and Sunderland games all spring immediately to mind as games where we absolutely gifted the opposition points and goals.
Mad to think that he was starting Nsiala ahead of Woolf.
Plus I thought Scott Fraser was going to be about 20 times better than he actually was; that was the signing I thought would propel us up; shows what I know.
Clearly Cook had (has?) some coaching talent; 4 goals at Fratton Park and Wycombe show that, but his 'people' skills seemed pretty much non-existent; Hladky, Woolf and Pigott disposed of relatively quickly and unceremoniously. (Pigott was appalling, I suppose).
He was a lemon, all told. |  | | |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:00 - Dec 5 with 2072 views | _clive_baker_ |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 21:49 - Dec 4 by patrickswell |
Recruitment is the only thing that Cook can be given credit for. I’m surprised no one’s mentioned what an abysmal communicator he was too in comparison to McKenna. Ask McKenna a question, you get detail, insight and nuance. Ask Cook a question and you got “You don’t need me to tell you what happened tonight.”
If he was like that with players, I can only assume that Leam Richardson was a hell of an interpreter in terms of getting Cook’s messages/ideas across. |
Had more voices than McKenna to be fair.
I don't think anyone is comparing the 2 tbh, they're night and day. Cook failed here, a dreadfully slow start to the season and while things threatened to pick up a bit, never to the extent you ever felt like we were going to find the sort of form that would take us up.
The most stark contrast is probably the people he decided to surround himself with, hiring his mates from Liverpool and sitting in the pub drinking all night wasn't something that found favour with Ashton. Roberts / Jeffers and co, couldn't be any further from the standards McKenna has set.
Signed some good players, that's really where the credit stops for me. Oh and his multiple voices in his post match press conferences, that was funny. |  | | |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:05 - Dec 5 with 2063 views | Herbivore |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:00 - Dec 5 by _clive_baker_ |
Had more voices than McKenna to be fair.
I don't think anyone is comparing the 2 tbh, they're night and day. Cook failed here, a dreadfully slow start to the season and while things threatened to pick up a bit, never to the extent you ever felt like we were going to find the sort of form that would take us up.
The most stark contrast is probably the people he decided to surround himself with, hiring his mates from Liverpool and sitting in the pub drinking all night wasn't something that found favour with Ashton. Roberts / Jeffers and co, couldn't be any further from the standards McKenna has set.
Signed some good players, that's really where the credit stops for me. Oh and his multiple voices in his post match press conferences, that was funny. |
Yep. And for all the lauding of his transfer dealings, for every Chaplin or Morsy there was a Piggot or Fraser. For every Walton or Burgess, there was a Penney or Carroll. For every Burns there was a Harper. It was pretty scattergun and half the players he signed were moved on pretty quickly and it wasn't until McKenna came in and signed a proper left back and a decent centre forward in the summer that we really looked like proper promotion contenders. Like everything Cook did it all felt pretty brainless. | |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:14 - Dec 5 with 2043 views | tractorboy1978 |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:05 - Dec 5 by Herbivore |
Yep. And for all the lauding of his transfer dealings, for every Chaplin or Morsy there was a Piggot or Fraser. For every Walton or Burgess, there was a Penney or Carroll. For every Burns there was a Harper. It was pretty scattergun and half the players he signed were moved on pretty quickly and it wasn't until McKenna came in and signed a proper left back and a decent centre forward in the summer that we really looked like proper promotion contenders. Like everything Cook did it all felt pretty brainless. |
In fairness to Cook though, I am pretty sure several of the 19 that came in were not his signings. Chaplin, Evans, Morsy, Walton clearly were. The biggest shocker of them all was Harper and that one has Ashton written all over it.
Harper is a good barometer of the change under McKenna to be fair. Every player now is signed with particular attributes in mind and a defined role. Cook clearly had no idea what Harper was from the day he signed. Tried disastrously playing him as a holding midfielder and that was a significant reason we started the season so badly. [Post edited 5 Dec 2023 9:46]
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:26 - Dec 5 with 2027 views | TheBoyBlue |
I think Cook would've got us up eventually, possibly even last season as well. His career seems to show he slowly builds a team.
However, I don't believe he would've done it in the style we did and I'm also pretty certain we wouldn't be doing as well in the Championship as we are now. [Post edited 5 Dec 2023 12:18]
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:28 - Dec 5 with 2016 views | _clive_baker_ |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:05 - Dec 5 by Herbivore |
Yep. And for all the lauding of his transfer dealings, for every Chaplin or Morsy there was a Piggot or Fraser. For every Walton or Burgess, there was a Penney or Carroll. For every Burns there was a Harper. It was pretty scattergun and half the players he signed were moved on pretty quickly and it wasn't until McKenna came in and signed a proper left back and a decent centre forward in the summer that we really looked like proper promotion contenders. Like everything Cook did it all felt pretty brainless. |
I would agree with that, although when you're signing so many players you're never going to have a 100% hit rate. At the time there were reasons to believe Fraser was a good buy given the season he had just had. Pigott to some extent on a free was worth a punt having scored a lot for Wimbledon, and was one people weren't too critical of at the time either. Carroll and Penney were among the worst players I've seen in a Town shirt for a long time, but as free transfers they were fairly low risk. Where he spent money they've generally proven to be value. Burns was £300k I think, Morsy was peanuts relatively speaking for what he's done. Hladky now looks a bargain at £250k, Chaplin certainly does at £750k. Burgess too. On balance I would say he bought well to be fair to him, especially when paying out fees. His crime seemingly wasn't identifying the playing personnel, but the management team he built and his and his teams' inability to get a tune out of the players. | | | |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:32 - Dec 5 with 2010 views | Herbivore |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:14 - Dec 5 by tractorboy1978 |
In fairness to Cook though, I am pretty sure several of the 19 that came in were not his signings. Chaplin, Evans, Morsy, Walton clearly were. The biggest shocker of them all was Harper and that one has Ashton written all over it.
Harper is a good barometer of the change under McKenna to be fair. Every player now is signed with particular attributes in mind and a defined role. Cook clearly had no idea what Harper was from the day he signed. Tried disastrously playing him as a holding midfielder and that was a significant reason we started the season so badly. [Post edited 5 Dec 2023 9:46]
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Even if they weren't his singings, as you allude to he should have had some idea of the type of player he wanted and insisted on signing players that fitted those attributes. For all the signings, he left us pretty unbalanced really. No good left backs. A load of number 10s but nobody completely comfortable in that inside left role (where Harness and Broadhead have since come in). I'm not convinced he gets that much credit for going back and signing some of the best players to have played for him before. I'm glad he did it and they must have liked him, but it doesn't take much acumen to do that, just deep pockets and the right contacts in your phone. [Post edited 5 Dec 2023 9:33]
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:40 - Dec 5 with 1997 views | itfcjoe |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:05 - Dec 5 by Herbivore |
Yep. And for all the lauding of his transfer dealings, for every Chaplin or Morsy there was a Piggot or Fraser. For every Walton or Burgess, there was a Penney or Carroll. For every Burns there was a Harper. It was pretty scattergun and half the players he signed were moved on pretty quickly and it wasn't until McKenna came in and signed a proper left back and a decent centre forward in the summer that we really looked like proper promotion contenders. Like everything Cook did it all felt pretty brainless. |
For every Cameron Burgess and Vaclav Hladky, there was a Cameron Burgess and Vaclav Hladky who he had already replaced and would have got shot off if he could after a few months......rather than coach them to be the excellent players they have been for us!
That summer was a mess, we signed some good players, signed some bad players, no one really knew what they were doing but we were fortunate that we had a load of money in a totally depressed covid market so could punch above our weight with attracting players.
I'd say probably half were good players, half weren't.....some of the good players were clearly Cook and his contacts - Walton, Morsy, some were clearly Ashton and his contacts - Burns, some were somewhere in the middle but whichever way it's sliced there were failures and successes in each segment as was to be expected.
i don't personally think Cook deserves much credit for it, I think any manager with that sort of budget would sign 'good players' when you are paying Champ money in L1 and all the Champ clubs are skint. McKenna has badly showed him up and fact he is back in the National League is telling [Post edited 5 Dec 2023 9:41]
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:42 - Dec 5 with 1987 views | tractorboy1978 |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:32 - Dec 5 by Herbivore |
Even if they weren't his singings, as you allude to he should have had some idea of the type of player he wanted and insisted on signing players that fitted those attributes. For all the signings, he left us pretty unbalanced really. No good left backs. A load of number 10s but nobody completely comfortable in that inside left role (where Harness and Broadhead have since come in). I'm not convinced he gets that much credit for going back and signing some of the best players to have played for him before. I'm glad he did it and they must have liked him, but it doesn't take much acumen to do that, just deep pockets and the right contacts in your phone. [Post edited 5 Dec 2023 9:33]
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That summer was chaos really wasn't it and was abundantly clear Cook never really fitted the model or the structure we wanted here. We seemingly had two different recruitment pots - Cooks and Ashtons and sometimes they were at odds with each other. The Jacobs/Edwards saga was a pretty good indication of that. | | | |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 11:33 - Dec 5 with 1925 views | Radlett_blue |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:42 - Dec 5 by tractorboy1978 |
That summer was chaos really wasn't it and was abundantly clear Cook never really fitted the model or the structure we wanted here. We seemingly had two different recruitment pots - Cooks and Ashtons and sometimes they were at odds with each other. The Jacobs/Edwards saga was a pretty good indication of that. |
another dreadful example of Evans's mismanagement of the club - appointing a new manager while he was on the cusp of selling Town! |  |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 11:42 - Dec 5 with 1922 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 08:30 - Dec 5 by Herbivore |
The point is if anything performances were getting worse under Cook after 5 months so the gelling excuse looks weak. Unless the magic gelling point is precisely 5 months and one week and it all would have miraculously come good if we'd just given him another fortnight, but that doesn't really seem a plausible argument. McKenna took a team that was playing like a bunch of strangers and turned them into a well oiled machine almost immediately. That's down to his ability as a coach and manager, not because they reached some magic gelling point. |
I'm not denying how brilliantly McKenna's been since he came in, but the players did all know each others strengths and weaknesses, patterns of play etc. by the time he arrived. Which they obviously didn't when Cook brought them all in.
I'm not saying another fortnight and they'd have clicked, but I did think Cook was jettisoned too early (without the benefit of hindsight of what came next), particularly given how much he changed the team overnight. McKenna's methods have been super fast - unprecedentedly so. That doesn't detract from my belief that managers (more mortal ones) usually need a certain amount of time. Cook only had one transfer window, if I remember rightly. Or only one meaningful one.
If we'd jettisoned Cook and got in someone akin to Hurst, that would've been a disaster. We got lucky in that regard, plus of course Ashton's diligence. But even he couldn't have known it would've gone this well with the new man.
Equally Cook might NEVER have got a tune out of them - perhaps he was just good at buying good players, not managing them into a team - I just personally don't think he was given enough time to find out (which is the nature of football these days, I appreciate). | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 11:52 - Dec 5 with 1910 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 09:40 - Dec 5 by itfcjoe |
For every Cameron Burgess and Vaclav Hladky, there was a Cameron Burgess and Vaclav Hladky who he had already replaced and would have got shot off if he could after a few months......rather than coach them to be the excellent players they have been for us!
That summer was a mess, we signed some good players, signed some bad players, no one really knew what they were doing but we were fortunate that we had a load of money in a totally depressed covid market so could punch above our weight with attracting players.
I'd say probably half were good players, half weren't.....some of the good players were clearly Cook and his contacts - Walton, Morsy, some were clearly Ashton and his contacts - Burns, some were somewhere in the middle but whichever way it's sliced there were failures and successes in each segment as was to be expected.
i don't personally think Cook deserves much credit for it, I think any manager with that sort of budget would sign 'good players' when you are paying Champ money in L1 and all the Champ clubs are skint. McKenna has badly showed him up and fact he is back in the National League is telling [Post edited 5 Dec 2023 9:41]
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I think your opinion is coloured by the way he treated Chambers (which I agree was poor). You were never going to say a good word about him after that. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 11:59 - Dec 5 with 1901 views | itfcjoe |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 11:52 - Dec 5 by The_Flashing_Smile |
I think your opinion is coloured by the way he treated Chambers (which I agree was poor). You were never going to say a good word about him after that. |
It's always forgotten that i was already getting criticised for what I thought of him before I'd spoken to LC about what had happened - there's no way we should have missed the top 6 after he was appointed, we were basically in there and had an incredibly easy run in which he totally stuffed up and then blamed all the players for rather than himself | |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 12:01 - Dec 5 with 1895 views | Herbivore |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 11:42 - Dec 5 by The_Flashing_Smile |
I'm not denying how brilliantly McKenna's been since he came in, but the players did all know each others strengths and weaknesses, patterns of play etc. by the time he arrived. Which they obviously didn't when Cook brought them all in.
I'm not saying another fortnight and they'd have clicked, but I did think Cook was jettisoned too early (without the benefit of hindsight of what came next), particularly given how much he changed the team overnight. McKenna's methods have been super fast - unprecedentedly so. That doesn't detract from my belief that managers (more mortal ones) usually need a certain amount of time. Cook only had one transfer window, if I remember rightly. Or only one meaningful one.
If we'd jettisoned Cook and got in someone akin to Hurst, that would've been a disaster. We got lucky in that regard, plus of course Ashton's diligence. But even he couldn't have known it would've gone this well with the new man.
Equally Cook might NEVER have got a tune out of them - perhaps he was just good at buying good players, not managing them into a team - I just personally don't think he was given enough time to find out (which is the nature of football these days, I appreciate). |
If we'd seen signs things were improving I'd be more inclined to agree with you but instead performances had dipped again (after a brief period where we looked better) and he was throwing players under the bus (again) and his only solution seemed to be to get rid of more players and bring more in. It wasn't looking remotely like he had a clue what he was doing if we're honest, he surrounded himself with his mates, who were mostly inexperienced coaches but seasoned drinkers. His approach to signings didn't look particularly data driven or underpinned by a clear plan or philosophy. It was hard to discern a style of play on the pitch. He thought Nsiala was a better option at CB than Woolfenden. It was just a bit of a car crash. We let Hurst go after less time and although Cook wasn't THAT bad, relative to what was expected of him and how well he was backed, he wasn't a million miles away. For me he's easily in our three worst managers, along with two other Pauls. I'm sick of Pauls. | |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 12:04 - Dec 5 with 1888 views | hype313 |
He's found his level. |  |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 12:06 - Dec 5 with 1887 views | Dyland |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 11:52 - Dec 5 by The_Flashing_Smile |
I think your opinion is coloured by the way he treated Chambers (which I agree was poor). You were never going to say a good word about him after that. |
Whilst that is almost certainly true, he's still correct.
As others have said, Cook got in some gems who wanted to play for him again, but he had the money to do so. The player purchasing was a bit spray and pray, even if we have some to thank him for. The big bum note for Cook wasn't his treatment of some of the old guard (that will be subjective, of course) but rather his tinpot management team. He's a proper old school manager, and whilst I've nothing against him I've also not really got much to praise him for either. |  |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 12:07 - Dec 5 with 1885 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 11:59 - Dec 5 by itfcjoe |
It's always forgotten that i was already getting criticised for what I thought of him before I'd spoken to LC about what had happened - there's no way we should have missed the top 6 after he was appointed, we were basically in there and had an incredibly easy run in which he totally stuffed up and then blamed all the players for rather than himself |
I'm pretty sure the players weren't good enough, and you can see that from where they've ended up since. But hey, it's all water under the bridge. If we all knew what McKenna was about to bring we'd have all been happy to jettison Cook, myself included.
I might be wrong but I've always been of the belief that managers need time to implement their style, particularly when a complete rebuild is needed. What McKenna has done has tipped that theory into a cocked hat, but I don't think we've EVER seen a manager hit the ground running as well as McKenna has. He seems to be a one off. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 12:14 - Dec 5 with 1875 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| 2 years ago today, Paul Cook sacked on 12:01 - Dec 5 by Herbivore |
If we'd seen signs things were improving I'd be more inclined to agree with you but instead performances had dipped again (after a brief period where we looked better) and he was throwing players under the bus (again) and his only solution seemed to be to get rid of more players and bring more in. It wasn't looking remotely like he had a clue what he was doing if we're honest, he surrounded himself with his mates, who were mostly inexperienced coaches but seasoned drinkers. His approach to signings didn't look particularly data driven or underpinned by a clear plan or philosophy. It was hard to discern a style of play on the pitch. He thought Nsiala was a better option at CB than Woolfenden. It was just a bit of a car crash. We let Hurst go after less time and although Cook wasn't THAT bad, relative to what was expected of him and how well he was backed, he wasn't a million miles away. For me he's easily in our three worst managers, along with two other Pauls. I'm sick of Pauls. |
Blimey, you wouldn't even have Roy Keane in our worst 3 managers?! He's been very lucky there IMO!
I don't know - I saw signs, but perhaps I was clinging to that period where we had an upturn too much. There's no doubt he made some odd appointments in the coaching department. I quite liked Nsiala and I'm not sure at the time Woolfy was playing any better (although, again, you could look at coaching here rather than merely blaming the player).
My thinking is probably also swayed by what he'd achieved previously. On paper he seemed the best appointment of the Evans era - I think on TWTD we welcomed the appointment to a man at the time. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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