| Well done Paul Cook! 17:31 - Mar 23 with 12546 views | Chrisd |
Chesterfield back in the EFL after 6 seasons. I still believe he started the change at our club, he had to make those tough decisions to start our climb upwards. Look at the players he brought in, some of those players still having an impact at the top of the Championship. |  |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:23 - Mar 25 with 1169 views | _clive_baker_ |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 06:28 - Mar 25 by textbackup |
He was a massive pisshead that got barred from multiple pubs.
He and the scouse mafia spent most evenings absolutely trollied.
That said, whenever I met him he was nice to chat with.
Got rid of the dead wood at the club, started our journey to where we are now.
Neither like or dislike him. |
To be fair to Cook I always quite rated it, it was just a shame it was at our expense. Fair play to him, he employed loads of his mates, they lived together in Town and spent their evenings on the lash.
Cook's issue is he's of an old school and he wont change. He's a good bloke, you would have a pint with him, but he's got a small club mentality, which is OK at a small club. However when you've got serious and highly engaged owners and CEO's with serious plans, that wont wash. Chesterfield is a good fit for him, a club he had success at before, community club, funded by a few successful locals etc. Refreshing in many respects and a far cry from the glutton of the Premier League. I can see why it suits him and the team he's got around him. It's a far cry from what was expected of him at Ipswich though.
Cook's spoken openly, I think I'm right in saying he objected to Ashton driven initiatives like the extent to which the performance analysts and data side was forced up him. He's absolute chalk & cheese compared with McKenna who would no doubt embrace all of that given his schooling.
Cook's entirely unsuited to the 'modern game' in the top 2 (arguably half of the 3rd) tier in English football. But he's going to be effective at a level. In his defence, the remit he signed up at Ipswich to looked markedly different a very short time later thanks to the change of ownership. I dare say had Cook known what was coming he might've thought twice about whether it was the right job for him. |  | | |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:42 - Mar 25 with 1119 views | patrickswell |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:02 - Mar 25 by Mach_foreignBlue |
Two excellent pros who took us down without a fight and carried a cosy life in League One. ... oh yeah I need the tissues ! It was never their fault as they did give everything for this club. Never their fault, never ! It was Cooks/Lamberts/Hursts fault.
Yes you need a therapy over Cook. |
And if Chambers and Skuse had sold on the better players we still had at the end of 2017/18,
if they had signed the players who helped get us relegated and continue to bumble along in mid-table in League One,
if they had been responsible for setting the team up and the style of play,
if they had been the ones coming in to pick fights with the players already here or constantly harking back to past glories they had as a player,
if they had been responsible for club infrastructure and hollowing everything out at all levels of the club…
and if, as is the point of this thread…they had been given control to oversee changing an underperforming playing squad with a budget that was the envy of at least 95% of the other clubs in
the division and instead served up results which saw us no better off than we had been in our previous two seasons in League One, then they’d deserve the levels of venom you consistently display towards them.
Chambers and Skuse were a part of the only good times that Ipswich enjoyed during a 12 years of pretty grisly decline. They had a ringside seat to that decline, but there was some champagne among the gruel. And for that they’ll always be feted.
Paul Cook bungled a wonderful opportunity here. He could inspire neither of the sides he held control over. He performed at the same standard as his unlamented predecessors and has been massively outstripped by his successor.
People want to laud him for the clear out of Summer 2021, fine. It needed to be done. But someone else would have done it if he hadn’t and they may well have made a better job of managing the transition than he did. And his failure to do that is why he should never be thought of as anything particularly special here. [Post edited 25 Mar 2024 10:51]
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:43 - Mar 25 with 1108 views | textbackup |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:23 - Mar 25 by _clive_baker_ |
To be fair to Cook I always quite rated it, it was just a shame it was at our expense. Fair play to him, he employed loads of his mates, they lived together in Town and spent their evenings on the lash.
Cook's issue is he's of an old school and he wont change. He's a good bloke, you would have a pint with him, but he's got a small club mentality, which is OK at a small club. However when you've got serious and highly engaged owners and CEO's with serious plans, that wont wash. Chesterfield is a good fit for him, a club he had success at before, community club, funded by a few successful locals etc. Refreshing in many respects and a far cry from the glutton of the Premier League. I can see why it suits him and the team he's got around him. It's a far cry from what was expected of him at Ipswich though.
Cook's spoken openly, I think I'm right in saying he objected to Ashton driven initiatives like the extent to which the performance analysts and data side was forced up him. He's absolute chalk & cheese compared with McKenna who would no doubt embrace all of that given his schooling.
Cook's entirely unsuited to the 'modern game' in the top 2 (arguably half of the 3rd) tier in English football. But he's going to be effective at a level. In his defence, the remit he signed up at Ipswich to looked markedly different a very short time later thanks to the change of ownership. I dare say had Cook known what was coming he might've thought twice about whether it was the right job for him. |
Great post, and sums it up perfectly |  |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 11:04 - Mar 25 with 1056 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:06 - Mar 25 by Dyland |
So is 4 months long enough or not?
You seem confused dear boy :) |
4 months isn't really long enough for a mere mortal. I can't think of a single example of a manager having a completely new team and getting them gelled and playing winning football in 4 months.
However, 4 months is better than zero! At least they're not strangers by then and are getting more of a feel for where their teammates will be, their strengths/weaknesses, getting to grips with various plays the manager wants etc. All this stuff takes time and repetition (usually).
What McKenna has done in his tenure has been extraordinary and unprecedented. Literally record breaking. |  |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 11:06 - Mar 25 with 1053 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:10 - Mar 25 by Herbivore |
He also inherited Woolfenden, and we still had Downes at that point as well. But yes, I take the point that the squad McKenna inherited had more potential upside, albeit we didn't really have a striker who fitted his system or a left back who could actually play football. |
Woolfenden has come on leaps and bounds. He was a lot rawer back then, but yes certainly had potential. Downes, whilst a very good player, wanted out by then. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 11:21 - Mar 25 with 1023 views | Herbivore |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 11:06 - Mar 25 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Woolfenden has come on leaps and bounds. He was a lot rawer back then, but yes certainly had potential. Downes, whilst a very good player, wanted out by then. |
Even at the time a lot of fans were baffled at the treatment of Woolfenden and the insanity of playing Nsiala ahead of him. Woolfenden had played a decent amount of League 1 football and attracted interest from higher up the pyramid, Cook's attitude towards him was bizarre. Whether Downes leaving was inevitable is hard to say with 100% certainty, but I can't imagine the way Cook handled his first few months here did anything to persuade Downes to stay and give us another season. |  |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 11:29 - Mar 25 with 1022 views | jayessess |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 11:06 - Mar 25 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Woolfenden has come on leaps and bounds. He was a lot rawer back then, but yes certainly had potential. Downes, whilst a very good player, wanted out by then. |
Not sure I buy the idea that Woolfenden was super raw under Cook. He looked a million dollars under McKenna inside about 2 weeks. |  |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 11:51 - Mar 25 with 983 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 11:29 - Mar 25 by jayessess |
Not sure I buy the idea that Woolfenden was super raw under Cook. He looked a million dollars under McKenna inside about 2 weeks. |
I didn't say he was super raw. I said he was rawer. By virtue of his age as much as anything, and I can understand a manager not wanting to risk such a vital position on a youngster, even if I didn't agree with it myself.
But we're getting sidetracked on one player here. The fact is it was a pretty much new team and no-one has yet given me an example of a brand new team gelling and playing winning football inside 4 months. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:04 - Mar 25 with 961 views | itfcjoe |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 09:16 - Mar 25 by Mach_foreignBlue |
'Yet Cook is given a pass for not being able to drag anything out of that side over a very easy run in'
Cook is given a free pass because Skuse/Chambers culture was the biggest cancer of the dressing room. The player-power. They both wanted things their own way. [Post edited 25 Mar 2024 9:16]
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You realise Skuse played 1 game that season? |  |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:06 - Mar 25 with 957 views | itfcjoe |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:02 - Mar 25 by Mach_foreignBlue |
Two excellent pros who took us down without a fight and carried a cosy life in League One. ... oh yeah I need the tissues ! It was never their fault as they did give everything for this club. Never their fault, never ! It was Cooks/Lamberts/Hursts fault.
Yes you need a therapy over Cook. |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:12 - Mar 25 with 942 views | CBMTOBWMMBG |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 11:51 - Mar 25 by The_Flashing_Smile |
I didn't say he was super raw. I said he was rawer. By virtue of his age as much as anything, and I can understand a manager not wanting to risk such a vital position on a youngster, even if I didn't agree with it myself.
But we're getting sidetracked on one player here. The fact is it was a pretty much new team and no-one has yet given me an example of a brand new team gelling and playing winning football inside 4 months. |
It's a fair challenge. I can't think of any team that did this. Must be very rare to even try.
Though surely it is very rare precisely because changing the whole team is so risky.
But if you are Mr Demolition and throw them all under the bus, well, then you have little choice... | | | |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:13 - Mar 25 with 938 views | itfcjoe |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:23 - Mar 25 by _clive_baker_ |
To be fair to Cook I always quite rated it, it was just a shame it was at our expense. Fair play to him, he employed loads of his mates, they lived together in Town and spent their evenings on the lash.
Cook's issue is he's of an old school and he wont change. He's a good bloke, you would have a pint with him, but he's got a small club mentality, which is OK at a small club. However when you've got serious and highly engaged owners and CEO's with serious plans, that wont wash. Chesterfield is a good fit for him, a club he had success at before, community club, funded by a few successful locals etc. Refreshing in many respects and a far cry from the glutton of the Premier League. I can see why it suits him and the team he's got around him. It's a far cry from what was expected of him at Ipswich though.
Cook's spoken openly, I think I'm right in saying he objected to Ashton driven initiatives like the extent to which the performance analysts and data side was forced up him. He's absolute chalk & cheese compared with McKenna who would no doubt embrace all of that given his schooling.
Cook's entirely unsuited to the 'modern game' in the top 2 (arguably half of the 3rd) tier in English football. But he's going to be effective at a level. In his defence, the remit he signed up at Ipswich to looked markedly different a very short time later thanks to the change of ownership. I dare say had Cook known what was coming he might've thought twice about whether it was the right job for him. |
There does feel like there is a real divide growing between managers who can work at a certain type of club (which includes us now) and managers that can't and Cook falls into the latter camp. The only manager who seems to be able to get jobs that they aren't suited for is Chris Wilder who obviously had a lot of success but each passing week looks more and more the wrong man at each of his last 3 jobs now and doesn't look like it suits him any more.
Whatever the thoughts of the players who were released, the way it was done over the back end of that season was totally careless and caused us issues going forwards - if Ashton was in place he'd never have been able to get away with talking about them the way he did when in a number of cases we needed to try and get fees for these boys; and we p155ed off a number of the players staying as well which meant contract offers were turned down (in hindsight that turned into a good thing).
He's a good lower league manager, and I'm very glad now that we aren't a lower league club as that is what we had become under Evans when you look at infrastructure and the like. I can't say I particularly wish him well, or ill, but am glad to see Dyer, Dobra and Clements doing well as I do wish them all genuine well | |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:24 - Mar 25 with 898 views | Churchman |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 08:30 - Mar 25 by The_Flashing_Smile |
The only thing I disagree with there is that we'll never know... and we don't need to worry about it frankly, I care more about the success of ITFC than fairness to Paul Cook!
However, I maintain 4 months isn't a fair enough amount of time to gel a completely new team, for most normal people.
Oh, and on the "chose to go about it in the way he did" point - he didn't know he'd get sacked 4 months after completely changing the team (and Evans had a history of giving managers time). I suspect he wouldn't have been quite so radical had he known he was on borrowed time! |
Indeed, we will never know. Things that you read about rarely resemble what actually happened in my very limited experience of seeing stuff that appeared in the media.
In a normal working world you’d be right re the time to be effective in a job. But football isn’t a normal world by any stretch. In the time Cook had, it was sufficient to judge whether he was the right man for what the club wanted to do and how they wanted to go about doing it.
As for the team it was all so haphazard. Nothing appeared measured from player recruitment to coaches appointment, to how he conducted himself at press conferences.
In terms of your last paragraph, surely you plan what you are going to do and communicate what you expect (setting expectations - bullsh£t bingo!), then deliver it. Review, amend, replan etc. Maybe that’s just me, but there was nothing I could see like that with Cook’s approach. You certainly don’t plan and do on the basis you might get fired in a few months. There lies certainty of failure.
The interesting one is who wanted him out and at what point was the decision made. We’ll never know, but I suspect Cook was in trouble almost from the start but the fact that he was allowed to crack on with recruiting the world and bomb squad says not.
I said at the time give him to the end of October. We had the odd good result about then so ok, November. But by then, it really felt time was up. In fact, those who reckoned he should have gone when GC20 came in/end of that season were right and I was wrong.
In conclusion, in Ashton’s/Board’s position, I’d have fired him. Anyone who’s ever had to do that knows it is not nice, but sometimes it has to be done, sadly. |  | | |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:28 - Mar 25 with 886 views | chicoazul |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 09:36 - Mar 25 by Mach_foreignBlue |
Gonna be yet another day of your rants about Cook?
Perhaps you should seek a help. |
Look what you’ve done Herbs. You’ve summoned him. |  |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:36 - Mar 25 with 861 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:12 - Mar 25 by CBMTOBWMMBG |
It's a fair challenge. I can't think of any team that did this. Must be very rare to even try.
Though surely it is very rare precisely because changing the whole team is so risky.
But if you are Mr Demolition and throw them all under the bus, well, then you have little choice... |
As I've already mentioned, I doubt he'd have been so extreme if he knew he'd only get 4 months to bring them together as a winning team! | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:39 - Mar 25 with 857 views | patrickswell |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:24 - Mar 25 by Churchman |
Indeed, we will never know. Things that you read about rarely resemble what actually happened in my very limited experience of seeing stuff that appeared in the media.
In a normal working world you’d be right re the time to be effective in a job. But football isn’t a normal world by any stretch. In the time Cook had, it was sufficient to judge whether he was the right man for what the club wanted to do and how they wanted to go about doing it.
As for the team it was all so haphazard. Nothing appeared measured from player recruitment to coaches appointment, to how he conducted himself at press conferences.
In terms of your last paragraph, surely you plan what you are going to do and communicate what you expect (setting expectations - bullsh£t bingo!), then deliver it. Review, amend, replan etc. Maybe that’s just me, but there was nothing I could see like that with Cook’s approach. You certainly don’t plan and do on the basis you might get fired in a few months. There lies certainty of failure.
The interesting one is who wanted him out and at what point was the decision made. We’ll never know, but I suspect Cook was in trouble almost from the start but the fact that he was allowed to crack on with recruiting the world and bomb squad says not.
I said at the time give him to the end of October. We had the odd good result about then so ok, November. But by then, it really felt time was up. In fact, those who reckoned he should have gone when GC20 came in/end of that season were right and I was wrong.
In conclusion, in Ashton’s/Board’s position, I’d have fired him. Anyone who’s ever had to do that knows it is not nice, but sometimes it has to be done, sadly. |
I think given Cook’s previous record as a manager and the state of the squad which finished the 20/21 season, it made sense to give Cook the opportunity to reshape the squad. If nothing else, 16 games certainly gave Cook adequate time to assess who he wanted and who he didn’t want.
With the money that was spent for the level we were playing at though, having to wait until September 18 for a first league win in a third tier season - a week after shipping 5 goals at home - was always going to mean Cook was on thin ice. There’s a reason why, as McKenna’s side have carried all before them over the last year and a half, why we haven’t seen Mark Ashton running around the perimeter of a pitch and high-fiving the fans, and that’s because he’s not had to feel the over-riding emotion that was all over his face when he did that at Sincil Bank: intense relief. Finally! We were up and running.
But we weren’t though. And as Town fans, we’d seen the movie before where a takeover happens, money gets spent and we find ourselves stuck in the bottom 8 or lower. It was bad enough when Keane and Jewell did that in the Championship; no way could it be endured in League One. [Post edited 25 Mar 2024 12:41]
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:40 - Mar 25 with 854 views | itfcjoe |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:12 - Mar 25 by CBMTOBWMMBG |
It's a fair challenge. I can't think of any team that did this. Must be very rare to even try.
Though surely it is very rare precisely because changing the whole team is so risky.
But if you are Mr Demolition and throw them all under the bus, well, then you have little choice... |
It's far from uncommon in L1 and L2, especially with a big budget
Steve Evans at Stevenage last year - Brought In (including loans) 23 players over a season, SOld/Released 22 players - they went from 21st the season before, to finish 2nd and are currently in play off zone in league above.
There are teams every season who have a massive turnover of players each year in bottom 2 tiers, we just think it's strange because we have been in top 2 tiers forever | |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:44 - Mar 25 with 836 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:24 - Mar 25 by Churchman |
Indeed, we will never know. Things that you read about rarely resemble what actually happened in my very limited experience of seeing stuff that appeared in the media.
In a normal working world you’d be right re the time to be effective in a job. But football isn’t a normal world by any stretch. In the time Cook had, it was sufficient to judge whether he was the right man for what the club wanted to do and how they wanted to go about doing it.
As for the team it was all so haphazard. Nothing appeared measured from player recruitment to coaches appointment, to how he conducted himself at press conferences.
In terms of your last paragraph, surely you plan what you are going to do and communicate what you expect (setting expectations - bullsh£t bingo!), then deliver it. Review, amend, replan etc. Maybe that’s just me, but there was nothing I could see like that with Cook’s approach. You certainly don’t plan and do on the basis you might get fired in a few months. There lies certainty of failure.
The interesting one is who wanted him out and at what point was the decision made. We’ll never know, but I suspect Cook was in trouble almost from the start but the fact that he was allowed to crack on with recruiting the world and bomb squad says not.
I said at the time give him to the end of October. We had the odd good result about then so ok, November. But by then, it really felt time was up. In fact, those who reckoned he should have gone when GC20 came in/end of that season were right and I was wrong.
In conclusion, in Ashton’s/Board’s position, I’d have fired him. Anyone who’s ever had to do that knows it is not nice, but sometimes it has to be done, sadly. |
"the time Cook had, it was sufficient to judge"
Not for me. And I've put out the challenge to name a single manager who has gelled a new team in 4 months.
It worked out in the end of course, but we were more than a little fortunate there. No way we knew we were getting a once-in-a-generation brilliant manager - the odds were on us getting another bog-standard (at best) one, given what had gone before multiple times. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:49 - Mar 25 with 819 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:40 - Mar 25 by itfcjoe |
It's far from uncommon in L1 and L2, especially with a big budget
Steve Evans at Stevenage last year - Brought In (including loans) 23 players over a season, SOld/Released 22 players - they went from 21st the season before, to finish 2nd and are currently in play off zone in league above.
There are teams every season who have a massive turnover of players each year in bottom 2 tiers, we just think it's strange because we have been in top 2 tiers forever |
Sure, the lower down the leagues you go. I'd say it's pretty rare to have so much change in League 1, but happy to be shown an example. Certainly not top-end League 1 sides. Stevenage were in League 2, and it was across the season, not in one window. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:53 - Mar 25 with 812 views | itfcjoe |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:49 - Mar 25 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Sure, the lower down the leagues you go. I'd say it's pretty rare to have so much change in League 1, but happy to be shown an example. Certainly not top-end League 1 sides. Stevenage were in League 2, and it was across the season, not in one window. |
But this will be the problem, I could find an exact replica of it and it will be slightly different so won't count! | |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:55 - Mar 25 with 801 views | Herbivore |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:49 - Mar 25 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Sure, the lower down the leagues you go. I'd say it's pretty rare to have so much change in League 1, but happy to be shown an example. Certainly not top-end League 1 sides. Stevenage were in League 2, and it was across the season, not in one window. |
Wigan had very similar turnover of players to us in 2021/22. They got promoted. | |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 13:01 - Mar 25 with 792 views | jayessess |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 12:55 - Mar 25 by Herbivore |
Wigan had very similar turnover of players to us in 2021/22. They got promoted. |
Blackpool's promotion season too.
Lincoln City also managed the play-offs with huge player turnover one year we were in that league. | |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 13:08 - Mar 25 with 769 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 13:01 - Mar 25 by jayessess |
Blackpool's promotion season too.
Lincoln City also managed the play-offs with huge player turnover one year we were in that league. |
Fair enough, you and Herbs have found a couple, so it does happen. Pretty rare though. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 13:10 - Mar 25 with 752 views | Herbivore |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 13:08 - Mar 25 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Fair enough, you and Herbs have found a couple, so it does happen. Pretty rare though. |
Between us we've mentioned three sides that were in League 1 at the same time as us. That's just off the top of our heads as well. It's really not that rare at League 1 and League 2 level. | |
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| Well done Paul Cook! on 13:34 - Mar 25 with 724 views | ibbleobble |
| Well done Paul Cook! on 10:43 - Mar 25 by textbackup |
Great post, and sums it up perfectly |
Yep, agree entirely. The best and most sensible summary without prejudice or labelling either way. An uppie going out. | | | |
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