Is Hargreaves fit for purpose?
Posted: 06 Jan 2015, 12:46
I'm still sticking by him and will do until he gets a chance to manage his team and then proves he's incapable. Right now this is a really tough job, it's always a tough job but it's probably the toughest it's ever been and to have us near the playoffs isn't totally awful. It's not great and I was hoping we'd be a bit more competitive but overall it's ok.
What I find the most disappointing and i'm sure you all do is the amount of points we've tossed away to seriously sh!t teams, close defeats or bad results against Bristol Rovers, Kidderminster or even FGR who are a strong side at this level is one thing, dropping points never mind losing to Telford, Alfreton, Braintree and Welling is completely unacceptable and the riot act should be read to our players and even as far as fines for poor performance as this has been a constant. These are semi professional poor sides who's only chance is to out fight us so for that to happen regularly shows the sort of character or complete lack of it within our club. Sadly as much as Greavsie has he can't cross the line for us and as much as he can try if people don't have that self respect for themselves then they can only be helped so far. We are likely to go to Grimsby or rovers and compete because we do have a handful of talented players but if they don't perform then the rest of our team lets us down.
This season has been horrible, I don't know about anyone else but I haven't enjoyed one minute of it, admittedly I've only been to a few games but I've listened to most of them and the empty lifeless grounds with 22 pitiful players on show most weeks and losing to sides as per mentioned above it's been horrible. We failed in the FA Cup and if we lose this Saturday it would probably just about sum our season up, Bromley have one of the biggest budgets in the division below and are going for promotion, while we should win they would probably slaughter the Alfreton's and Telford's of this world so it's not going to be a walk over.
Back to Hargreaves I'm judging him next year, he's trying desperately to balance the books, Hawley's gone, Benyon as well, once we get to the summer and he can get rid of Downes, Harding, Tonge and possibly a couple of others he may get the chance to actually form a team he can finally call his own then i'll judge him. Right now he's still got all these freeloaders in our club sucking the club dry and when he does get rid of one he's having to sign 3-4 players for the money equivalent of one he's letting go, when that's the case you get some good some bad and generally i think his signings have done ok. Most of them are a bit raw but I think Richards, MacDonalad, Ajala and big Duane have all had good first full seasons and you'd hope there's more to come from them in the future. Berry has been what we've missed for God knows how long and we just have to hope no one signs him so that we can keep him for next season.
We are also slowly thankfully starting to see the first young lads break through, this was always going to be a long process and I've said it before the worst thing Bateson ever did here was scrap the youth team because Torquay Utd can't buy players, never have done so we have to make our own or at least try to. Scrapping the youth team helped the club immediately financially but put us back 10-15 years and long term destroyed us financially. Once that ceased then it takes those 10 years to get the kids through to first team level, you restart it and your u16, u18 sides are full of the kids Plymouth, Exeter, Yeovil or the Bristol clubs didn't want, you get the rare diamond that may have slipped the net but these clubs know what's out there and would have pilfered all of any local talent that may have been around. This is why we've had none apart from Yeoman who has never been a first team regular here break through over this time and will be gone in a few months time. It's probably been going again for 7/8 years and it's now that our 17/18 year olds are starting to look as though they've got a chance although even our best one doesn't want to sign for us! Sad state of affairs but the reality of modern football.
This club desperately needs some new blood at boardroom level ideally new finance but where do they come from these days? Few ad far between especially at this level so until then Greavsie has to work with his hands tied and just do his best to continue to find young raw players like Ajala or Duane and try to improve them, as ever with these players they will throw the odd stinker out there but that's why they're playing for us.
Massive summer for us, expect a huge exodus from the club with all the high earners gone and possibly a couple we don't want to lose as well. Hargreaves for me is the best person to lead us through that change and put a young team out there again that hopefully has a bit more balls about them and more self respect than half of this lot do.
What I find the most disappointing and i'm sure you all do is the amount of points we've tossed away to seriously sh!t teams, close defeats or bad results against Bristol Rovers, Kidderminster or even FGR who are a strong side at this level is one thing, dropping points never mind losing to Telford, Alfreton, Braintree and Welling is completely unacceptable and the riot act should be read to our players and even as far as fines for poor performance as this has been a constant. These are semi professional poor sides who's only chance is to out fight us so for that to happen regularly shows the sort of character or complete lack of it within our club. Sadly as much as Greavsie has he can't cross the line for us and as much as he can try if people don't have that self respect for themselves then they can only be helped so far. We are likely to go to Grimsby or rovers and compete because we do have a handful of talented players but if they don't perform then the rest of our team lets us down.
This season has been horrible, I don't know about anyone else but I haven't enjoyed one minute of it, admittedly I've only been to a few games but I've listened to most of them and the empty lifeless grounds with 22 pitiful players on show most weeks and losing to sides as per mentioned above it's been horrible. We failed in the FA Cup and if we lose this Saturday it would probably just about sum our season up, Bromley have one of the biggest budgets in the division below and are going for promotion, while we should win they would probably slaughter the Alfreton's and Telford's of this world so it's not going to be a walk over.
Back to Hargreaves I'm judging him next year, he's trying desperately to balance the books, Hawley's gone, Benyon as well, once we get to the summer and he can get rid of Downes, Harding, Tonge and possibly a couple of others he may get the chance to actually form a team he can finally call his own then i'll judge him. Right now he's still got all these freeloaders in our club sucking the club dry and when he does get rid of one he's having to sign 3-4 players for the money equivalent of one he's letting go, when that's the case you get some good some bad and generally i think his signings have done ok. Most of them are a bit raw but I think Richards, MacDonalad, Ajala and big Duane have all had good first full seasons and you'd hope there's more to come from them in the future. Berry has been what we've missed for God knows how long and we just have to hope no one signs him so that we can keep him for next season.
We are also slowly thankfully starting to see the first young lads break through, this was always going to be a long process and I've said it before the worst thing Bateson ever did here was scrap the youth team because Torquay Utd can't buy players, never have done so we have to make our own or at least try to. Scrapping the youth team helped the club immediately financially but put us back 10-15 years and long term destroyed us financially. Once that ceased then it takes those 10 years to get the kids through to first team level, you restart it and your u16, u18 sides are full of the kids Plymouth, Exeter, Yeovil or the Bristol clubs didn't want, you get the rare diamond that may have slipped the net but these clubs know what's out there and would have pilfered all of any local talent that may have been around. This is why we've had none apart from Yeoman who has never been a first team regular here break through over this time and will be gone in a few months time. It's probably been going again for 7/8 years and it's now that our 17/18 year olds are starting to look as though they've got a chance although even our best one doesn't want to sign for us! Sad state of affairs but the reality of modern football.
This club desperately needs some new blood at boardroom level ideally new finance but where do they come from these days? Few ad far between especially at this level so until then Greavsie has to work with his hands tied and just do his best to continue to find young raw players like Ajala or Duane and try to improve them, as ever with these players they will throw the odd stinker out there but that's why they're playing for us.
Massive summer for us, expect a huge exodus from the club with all the high earners gone and possibly a couple we don't want to lose as well. Hargreaves for me is the best person to lead us through that change and put a young team out there again that hopefully has a bit more balls about them and more self respect than half of this lot do.
