Gary Johnson, stick or twist?

notnow · Post by **notnow** » 26 Sep 2022, 08:59

It’s ridiculous to assume a change of leadership will resolve this. GJ is without doubt one of if not the best manager in this league. What he has achieved with the budget provided is amazing. It was very unfortunate following the exodus of our team who incidentally would have won the playoff final if it wasn’t for the poor decisions made by the officials and btw had Andrews not refused to leave the pitch giving the opposition a chance to regroup while we were on the ascendency, GJ would have achieved all our dreams. Just be careful what you wish for.

Wolborough · Post by **Wolborough** » 26 Sep 2022, 09:06

A manager with a strategic brain would have got Andrews off straight away. A good manager would not have blown away promotion either perhaps after sitting on top of the table for so long? We need to get real, it’s Gary time.

brucie · Post by **brucie** » 26 Sep 2022, 09:56

Andrews didnt cost us promotion though did he. Poor refereeing decisions did contribute as did our inability to take penalties.

Why is it so ridiculous to assume that a change of leadership night bring about an improvement? Clearly Johnson isnt the best manager in the league either.

Perhaps if Johnson turned up for training he could have set the team up to defend corners better. We were inept at doing that at Wrexham and that contributed to such a heavy defeat. Having a manager who just turns up for games is unsatisfactory. So is having your scout sat in the dugout at every away game. Surely he should be scouting players on a Saturday.

As for failing to achieve promotion - well we probably needed someone to have scored another 5 goals when Wright got injured and that may have got us promotion. Perhaps the answer was in the building and the manager didnt get the best out of Umerah or Waters. Might have been better than signing Rob Street.

Its really dangerous to assume that a run of fixtures against percieved weaker teams will get us the wins we need. We havnt won a home game yet. we are more or less outplayed by every opposition team irrespective of their quality. All the evidence points to us not winning this games.

culmstockgull · Post by **culmstockgull** » 26 Sep 2022, 10:09

There are some confusing postings on this supposed Johnson stay or go thread, a 4G pitch , well that takes out three of our most experienced players whose joints cannot be exposed to that environment, a new stadium,we are in a recession and building costs are at an all time high, not going to happen, making Johnson a director of football, we cannot afford it, and besides having Johnson poking his nose in every five minutes would give any new manager quite rightly, the raving hump. Training his replacement, again a non starter new management ,new ideas not vintage ideas.
There is no supporting evidence in stating that Johnson is the best manager in the league, might have been true 10 years ago but his belief in playing wing backs when you do not have the quality of players just makes him look foolish.
In his defence he has a budget that is undoubtedly smaller than last season, which makes his statement of the club fully backing him sound just plainly ridiculous , that and wanting a bigger squad, when a smaller squad of better quality players would have achieved a similar aim.

notnow · Post by **notnow** » 26 Sep 2022, 10:19

It doesn’t help that anyone over 25 who have family commitments want to come and play here due to location. Difficult.

Admiral · Post by **Admiral** » 26 Sep 2022, 11:23

Is there any truth in the statement that he doesn’t turn up for training? That’s very poor if true.

MellowYellow · Post by **MellowYellow** » 26 Sep 2022, 13:14

Admiral wrote: ↑26 Sep 2022, 11:23 Is there any truth in the statement that he doesn’t turn up for training? That’s very poor if true.

All the best managers from Premiership down spend time away from training sessions to evolve their strategy. Just getting in a loan player can involve a week of telephone calls.

Post by **Dave** » 26 Sep 2022, 15:50

In terms of Gary Johnson stick or twist? I personally would not want to answer that question until after Saturday's game. My own opinion is, that I'm desperate for Gary Johnson to succeed with TUFC why any of us would not want that.

But we simply cannot hide from this season's results and performances which have been far from acceptable, six defeats from our first ten games, and statistically battered in every match including our two wins, it's only been heroics from Halstead (stood alone defending him at times, so I told you so) and poor finishing from our opponents, that has helped us achieve any points at all.

I've seen over the weekend a lot of people pointing towards a lack of budget, seriously 'turn it up' how many of you, using that poxy excuse actually know what our budget is or how it compares to another club, I'd take a guess, none of you do. I know budgets aren't solely defined by crowds, but for the sake of an argument let's say they were, that would put us 8th out 24 in the budget league table, not 24th from 24, and we're bottom of the league on merit, not bad luck, we've been awful so far.

As for we can't attract players down here 'stop it' look over the last 10 years League 2/ National League and think of the quality of player we've had down here. I expressed an opinion back in the summer, if we couldn't attract the right players, maybe sign up a much smaller squad, giving us the finance and flexibility to supplement the squad through the loan market, and here we are once again about to throw a group of promising young players, who's only fault is, they need time, straight under a bus, just like last season.

Having said all of that, it's not out of the question we could gain 4-6 points from our next two games, in which making a change at that point, wouldn't make sense, however failure to beat Scunthorpe on Saturday, in my opinion would leave Gary Johnson's position as manager untenable, and I would expect the club to act, it's fast getting to the point, whereby the club cannot afford but to act, we are currently driving head long into oblivion with no way back this time.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I can assure you my head isn't stuck firmly up my arse as some are, I will not be happy clapping us back to the NLS.

There needs to be a culture change at our football, we need to stop this 'oh woe is I' nonsense, it's embarrassing, show some fight and passion for your club.

DevonBee · Post by **DevonBee** » 28 Sep 2022, 09:42

Wishing the Gaffer a very 'Happy Birthday for today

The deluder · Post by **The deluder** » 28 Sep 2022, 10:18

Looking forward to the trip to Taunton season. Also Tiverton if they go up.

Admiral · Post by **Admiral** » 28 Sep 2022, 12:54

Lose Saturday I expect Gary’s time is up, but it’s vital Plainmoor gets behind them for 90 minutes on Saturday.

yellowmonkey · Post by **yellowmonkey** » 28 Sep 2022, 19:55

I believe with all the football manageering talent here on this forum we have nothing to worry about, it will only be a short time before we can hire one of you technical experts. Sadly i know you have never had your day in the spotlight and have all never been asked to manage Premiership teams but that must be a severe oversight by the powers that be.

Post by **Dave** » 29 Sep 2022, 05:16

Did wonder how long it would take for the ' the armchair mangers who think they know better blah blah' post to be made. The best analogy I can use here, if you're a customer who walks into a professional restaurant, and you're served stale under cooked food, would the fact that you've never been a professional chef mean you wouldn't have the right to be frustrated and complain, you would not expect a member of staff, or another customer to say, you couldn't boil an egg so what would know about food anyway, you would expect to be served a professional standard product, and the fact you couldn't cook doesn't mean the customer would not know they'd just been served a shite product.

The fact that most of us are not ex-professional footballers or have never worked in the professional game, doesn't mean to say we don't have enough knowledge to see the product we're being served know isn't substandard, because is not even that good, it's currently 0 out 5 rated.

The fact that none of us could do better is irrelevant, we have the right to expect, demand better, we the right to expect to see a team that at the very least looks like it could win a game of football, of course we're not going to win every game, or even play well in every game, no, none of us expected to get anything from Wrexham, but in case no one noticed we lost 6.0 and they hit post twice, in case no one has noticed we're bottom of the league and winless at home.

That said, and just to repeat, I want to see our team get 6 pints from the next 2 games, I rather the not go through what is a timely and costly process of changing the manager, personally going away at the weekend, but I've delayed my trip so I can go to Saturday's game, I'll back to be at Tuesday game to do what I always will, support my team, but if we don't gain the required points from these upcoming fixtures, then I will not expect GJ to be our manager going into the following weekend, and if he is, that will demonstrate to me, the ownership have lost all interest.

Taelee73 · Post by **Taelee73** » 29 Sep 2022, 07:34

Unfortunately your restaurant analogy doesn't really work here, we can all comment on the food quality, but if you don't know what's happening behind those kitchen doors? And we're more back street cafe than 4 star hotel.
None of us know the budget this chef has to spend on his ingredients, maybe low quality is all he can afford. Certainly when he's gone for quality, but past their best, it generally hasn't worked. This chef may also only be able to get most of the ingredients locally, unlike most.
My belief is Johnson has gambled, he has seen our best players picked off and our experienced ones injured too often. As a consequence he has chosen lots of youngsters and given them decent length contracts, in the hope he can mould them into a team with longevity, and the security stop others taking them. I believe if we stick, then this season is unfortunately about survival/building, but next season we'll have a better but still youthful team, that could be successful in the longer period.

Willowgull · Post by **Willowgull** » 29 Sep 2022, 08:39

notnow wrote: ↑26 Sep 2022, 08:59 It’s ridiculous to assume a change of leadership will resolve this. GJ is without doubt one of if not the best manager in this league. What he has achieved with the budget provided is amazing. It was very unfortunate following the exodus of our team who incidentally would have won the playoff final if it wasn’t for the poor decisions made by the officials and btw had Andrews not refused to leave the pitch giving the opposition a chance to regroup while we were on the ascendency, GJ would have achieved all our dreams. Just be careful what you wish for.

Notnow. You say what GJ has achieved with the budget provided is amazing. Do you know what budget we are working with? I know that it won't be the same as Wrexham or indeed a few other teams but I think it certainly wouldn't be the lowest budget in the league.
To me recruitment is the real issue as it was last season. Simply, it hasn't been good enough and something needs to change. There are teams doing better who are working on tight budgets. Is GJ's brother earning his money?
GJ now has to work with and improve the players he has as would any new manager. Therefore, I would personally give Johnson the chance to rectify this. I doubt any other manager that we could bring in would do that better. I think this is a conversation for later in the season. Stick for now.

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