forevertufc wrote: 29 Apr 2018, 14:58
Not leaving us with a squad that, had cleary no medical checks done, so a goalkeeper signed who can't wave to his family with out getting injured, and a right back with a potentially fatal heart condition, which may have been found sooner, and so on, and on.
I've seen this said on this forum a few times recently, which seems to be how things pass into folklore. Are you actually suggesting that we've signed players without conducting a medical? That is quite a serious accusation, that I struggle to believe is true.
For a start a medical is quite a routine aspect of any signing. To not go through with one would be quite staggering, and what exactly would the motivation be for this? Maybe Nicholson was bored with Great Escapes and fancied a season not knowing who would be on the pitch?
What I think the situation may actually be, is that we've signed players more prone to injury than might be ideal. It is the case with all players at this level that they have some defect, or they would be playing in a higher division. Likewise, with our budget in recent years we weren't able to compete with other clubs on money and so were faced with what was left. Cox, Nicholson and now Owers have all faced the same thing - and have all done the same thing. Pretty much everyone we sign will be unproven, inexperienced or not wanted elsewhere. In the last few years we have tried young players and been bullied out of games. Last summer we signed more experienced players, but the flipside to that is that they are on the way down or have some other defect that puts them in our price range. We tried having a mix of these players with some younger players and some established players - but then the manager that signed them was sacked after four games and the replacement had his own ideas.
Davis was injured in pre-season, but once that cleared has played in every game since, so not injury prone at all. Back when Nicholson was sacked he was included in such lists, but was actually a very successful signing over the season, as indicated by Owers wanting to keep him.
Gosling, Anderson, Klukowski, Pittman etc have not been injured, just were not rated by Owers, which is a result of changing manager 4 games into the season.
Clarke was our Player of the Month in August, then picked up an injury and then his replacement in Dorel was excellent and held down the spot for the end for the rest of the season, ending Clarke's season.
Ryan Higgins was sent for medical checks on his heart after his sister was diagnosed with a serious genetic heart defect. Given that he was 23 and has been at Everton, Birmingham etc then I think it's fair to say his sister's diagnosis led to more specified tests than footballers are given in a standard medical, so it seems pretty callous to suggest Torquay United could have diagnosed this sooner if it's a condition he'd had since birth.
Is there actually any evidence that as a manager Kevin Nicholson was negligent in his responsibilities when signing players, or is it actually just that we are a poor club that sign players not in demand elsewhere? The former just seems like an absolute kop-out that I struggle to believe is true. We have a physio, medical team, and a general manager to oversee the footballing side of the club, but if you read this forum it was the manager that signed injured players, never gave them a medical and then only trained them with tyre flipping. The problem with this is that the medical staff would have needed to sign off on this, and then the general manager would need to presumably ignore the fact that basic things like medicals weren't being done. The players would then need to forget that they'd been professionals for up to 15 years and not keep themselves fit - what is the thinking there? Presumably 'no, the manager likes tyre flipping and so between signing in June and him being sacked in August I will lower my standards to such an extent that it is obvious that other sides are much fitter than us'?
If that were true, then we would have done well to get rid of such a bad egg in Kevin Nicholson. The trouble with that though is that the medical staff who didn't give medicals are still at the club now. The general manager who let the manger he was overseeing fail to carry out basic procedures is still at the club now. The players who had been fit for the rest of their careers, let themselves become unfit between June and August and then became much fitter again... are still at the club now, and have been offered new deals to stay here.
The manager we replaced this underperforming person with, was able to immediately rectify all these basic errors and improve things. Except, no wait, he wasn't able to improve upon any of this and actually did even worse than his predecessor, despite all these major flaws that led to him being sacked...
Let's face it, we are a poor side and you get what you pay for. In the last 3 years that has been peanuts, and if you pay peanuts... This won't change until our budget changes and we can compete with other clubs for in demand players. For all the talk of cash bids and £1m budgets, let's wait for that to materialise. Until then, we are faced with cast-offs that have some defect, losing a lot of games, and a manager that ultimately takes the stick for it. In the last few weeks I seem to have made a few posts that defend Nicholson, but I've never really tried to do that - it just seems that every topic ultimately comes back to the fact that since Thea Bristow left we've had no money, and that's reflected on the pitch and in the results. Given these restraints whoever is manager will be up against it, but to date Nicholson did better than Cox before him and Owers since, whilst doing far more than either off the pitch. That is why I think his tenure needs to be placed in context (as does Owers) and myths about unfit and injured players need to be challenged.
Tensions between them and the stewards were growing by the second, not for the first time this season ( once again, the one with the glasses couldn't keep his big mouth shut) almost leading to a full blown confrontation as it was, had Owers come over, think things would/could have got out of hand.
Not that I agree with all of it but nevertheless a well thought out and constructed posting