Goodbye GJ?

[Scott Brehaut]

Is it time for us to discuss whether we should be replacing the manager?

Our form is that of relegation - yes I know we’re third in the league, but we are only going one way at the moment and have suffered some embarrassing defeats recently.

The team looks like it’s lacking motivation, Gary seems to blame everybody but himself, the players he brings in on loan either don’t play or are crap and for some reason he can’t seem to turn it around.

I get that we have injuries and that they have decimated our team but a manager of such stature should be able to do something to halt the slide, yet he seems bereft of ideas.

The age old question is, I guess, if we got rid who would we replace him with. Who is out there who could do better. The answer is, probably, nobody, but it doesn’t alter the fact that there are serious issues right now and serious concerns amongst supporters.
How long do we give him before we say enough is enough?

[culmstockgull]

What would we achieve by losing Johnson, are we in a relegation position, NO, who is available at this time of the season who has not been sacked themselves for not winning games. Aaron Downes is a clone of Johnson so he would be no improvement. I think, possibly this may be Johnson's final season anyway unless by some miracle we get promoted, he is the wrong side of 65 with previous heart issues. Other than taking Torquay back to the league ,which arguably would be his greatest achievement he has done pretty much everything as a manager.

[happytorq]

respectfully but most vociferously must say No here - getting rid of GJ would be idiotic.

Any team in the division would love to have Johnson as their manager, based on what he has done to get teams out of it on multiple occasions. Least season, (in a curtailed season, admittedly) we finished 14th, the season after getting promoted from the NLS. That sort of finish is decent for freshly-promoted team. I don't know if anybody really had any expectations that we would be winning the division this time around. Playoffs would always be an acceptable result.

The problem - if you can call it that - is almost that we started too well. We were outclassing teams in the first 3 months of the season. Hammering Yeovil 6-1, murdering Hartlepool at their gaff. Suddenly you look at the table and you're 11, 12 point clear (ok, teams had games in hand) and of course it's natural to think we can sustain that.

We have not. Injuries of course haven't helped, but even ignoring that the team has underperformed since the start of the year. And it's Johnson's job to arrest that slide. it is my hope/expectation that the result against Maidenhead was rock bottom for the season, and that we improve enough to have some momentum going into (hopefully) playoffs.

The question you have to ask yourself when considering a change of manager is "will somebody else be able to quickly improve results?" and I don't see how they can. We're not likely to be able to bring anybody in, both because of Covid and budget, so we're stuck with the players that we have. I don't think a new guy would be any better than Johnson.

I don't think it's likely that we'll be sustaining a title challenge. Sutton should slip up at some point, but they just keep churning out results and getting further away. Our aim now has to be finishing second and giving ourselves an advantage in the playoffs; for that to happen we need to return to an even keel and start playing better, getting results. if our squad is anywhere near healthy at that time, we'd have an excellent chance of going up - because again, for those first 3 months, this was easily the best side in the division.

[MellowYellow]

Everyone experiences recurring thoughts that create dissatisfaction at some point in time. Normally, based on interpretation of events, they nonetheless don’t always represent what’s true. See your thoughts of saying 'goodbye to Johnson' for what they are:- sheer folly

[davethegull2]

Ridiculous. Utter stupidity.

[standupsitdown]

A ridiculous suggestion.

[Kingsgull83]

The question is if we replace GJ who would you get in instead?
I seriously doubt we would attract someone with the same experience of GJ.

Would you of taken this position at the start of the season? It only take a couple of wins and we will be back on track with our best players still to return.

Cameron, Moxey, Nemane, Wright and Whitfield are all starters and no team would function the same without their 3 strongest players.
There is still a long way to go, hopefully we get all these guys back and put a run together and will be inform for the playoffs or better still challenge for the title.

In Gary we trust

[brucie]

Its a bit of a stupid thread given that we are third in the league.

At the end of the day Johnson can only put a team out with what he's got available, and at the moment we are simply not good enough, so I'm not sure what he's supposed to do really.

I think if Sutton had our injuries they wouldn't be top either. Its not just the players being injured, its also that they are not as effective after a long spell on the sidelines, For example Wynter - who was class before he got injured, but has struggled since. Personally I can't see much improvement coming but you have to be realistic. Even if there was to be a change of manager it would come at the end of the season, not now.

On the subject of Sutton they have had an extraordinary amount of fortune. Not withstanding their pitch is a huge advantage, they hardly get an injury.
They also seem to get the benefit of the decisions in every game they play - it really is unbelievable.

Take their 2-1 win against Yeovil. They were gifted the first goal by a ludicrous error but for most of the game Yeovil had the better chances. Beautymans late winner looked about two yards offside.

Their winner against Chesterfield looked a blatant foul causing their defender to misdirect his header backwards and Wilson scores from that.

Will we beat Kings Lynn? - I wouldn't bet on it actually though,

[Dazza]

I totally agree with Brucie here. It's so easy to carp and call for heads. What are these people on ? - it certainly doesn't relate to memory retention. There is every likelihood if that actually occurred - and heads did roll - we would simply create Owers 2 and the same result - relegation and the creation of Bath City 2. I remain convinced that if it weren't for Johnson, mid table in National South that would have been our destiny - season after season. That's not picking out Owers either. There were four people in a row who proceded him who were at a similar level of lack of success.

[PlainmoorB0b]

Though our unraveling has been reminiscent of the surrendering of a ten point lead in the 90/91 season we did eventually go up vis the play-offs after beating Blackpool at Wembley. Dave Smith did lose his job on that occasion. We suffered terrible injuries and in-fighting along the way with Uzell, an on fire Paul Smith and an unsettled Tynan among others missing in action. That team had nothing like the ravaging from injuries we’ve had this year though. To suggest GJ should go is insanity...I’ll bet that nobody was wishing he’d gone after the collapse last year when we were smashing teams for fun before Christmas... our injuries have completely torpedoed our pattern of play and you just cannot expect to replace the quality we’ve seen on the injury table. As mentioned above, even those who have returned are far from fully recovered and so we are, in effect, seven damn good first teamers down. It’s rubbish but if we weren’t in the midst of a national lockdown the possibilities for better quality replacements would be much improved. Our policy on risky recruitment of injury prone players probably needs looking at as its cost us two seasons running now, but if Davis, Moxey, Little, Wright etc were not the age they were or susceptible to injury it’s unlikely they’d be here. Wynter, Cameron, Nemane and Whitfield are just bad, bad luck. We ride it out and suffer but if we start talking of getting shot of GJ then we deserved everything we got with the willing but hapless Hargreaves and Nicholson and the dour Owers. Blimey did we learn nothing from hounding out Ling for Knill!??

[North Curry House]

Though our unraveling has been reminiscent of the surrendering of a ten point lead in the 90/91 season we did eventually go up vis the play-offs after beating Blackpool at Wembley. Dave Smith did lose his job on that occasion. We suffered terrible injuries and in-fighting along the way with Uzell, an on fire Paul Smith and an unsettled Tynan among others missing in action. That team had nothing like the ravaging from injuries we’ve had this year though. To suggest GJ should go is insanity...I’ll bet that nobody was wishing he’d gone after the collapse last year when we were smashing teams for fun before Christmas... our injuries have completely torpedoed our pattern of play and you just cannot expect to replace the quality we’ve seen on the injury table. As mentioned above, even those who have returned are far from fully recovered and so we are, in effect, seven damn good first teamers down. It’s rubbish but if we weren’t in the midst of a national lockdown the possibilities for better quality replacements would be much improved. Our policy on risky recruitment of injury prone players probably needs looking at as its cost us two seasons running now, but if Davis, Moxey, Little, Wright etc were not the age they were or susceptible to injury it’s unlikely they’d be here. Wynter, Cameron, Nemane and Whitfield are just bad, bad luck. We ride it out and suffer but if we start talking of getting shot of GJ then we deserved everything we got with the willing but hapless Hargreaves and Nicholson and the dour Owers. Blimey did we learn nothing from hounding out Ling for Knill!??

Someone talking a lot of sense.

[PlainmoorB0b]

Thinking about it, we lost Phil Lloyd and Peter Whiston through injury that winter alongside Paul Smith and John Uzzell plus the errant Tommy Tynan - so the parallels are pretty valid!

[Southampton Gull]

Good fishing, Scott

[Scott Brehaut]

Good fishing, Scott

[notnow]

Please.....what a ridiculous suggestion.