To me the ratings are purely academic but three individuals stand out. Peter Taylor started the unbelievable resurgence at City. Phil Brown achieved the hitherto undreamed of promotion to the top flight. Steve Bruce continued that trend and was by far the highest achiever.
I'll give you the second paragraph but not the first and third 'Out of his depth' is pretty much how Slutsky described his own circumstance, he admitted that he wasn't prepared, that he lacked the knowledge and he ignored his entourage's advice. So it's contextual. If you think the thread is "pointless" then what's the point of any debate/review? Why go on a bloody forum then?
Adkins win record is phenomenal.. A leg-end in the making!!!!!!!!!!. Slutsky 2.5 Silva 7.5 Phelan 4 Bruce 8.5 Barmby 6 Pearson 5.5 Dowie 3.25 Brown 8 Parkinson 3.5 Taylor 8.25
I can't be bothered going through them all. Phil Brown 10/10 He gave me my first every day out at Wembley, he got us to the promised land something that had never happened before and gave us some of the best away days of our lives. His time at the club was amazing and should never be forgotten. It seems fun to take the mick of him, and run down his achievements but he achieved so much on the pitch which was taken over by what happened off it. Duffen got carried away, but Brown should be a club legend. Any other football club would hold him in the highest regard, we seem to take the piss out of him.
Only our nu fans do, to be fair. The armchair manager types who get ribbed by their mates who support other clubs.
Based on the things that I value, and on more than simply win ratios, here's mine: Slutsky 2.5 - Never stood a chance but didn't help himself with a series of bizarre team selections and substitutions. If the ranking was based solely on hook-a-duck skills, however, he'd get a 9.5. Silva 8 - A staggeringly good manager. Turned us around ludicrously quickly in spite of having to sell our leading scorer/assist maker and a central midfielder who was to play for England in a few weeks time. We should have been relegated without trace. That we made a decent fist of avoiding relegation was a hugely impressive feat. Phelan 3 - Those opening three league games aside, he just looked as Slutsky had. In truth, probably isn't a manager. Bruce 8.25 - A 10 for his first two seasons, a 5 for the season after that, and a seven for the season after that. We should never have been relegated with that squad, and the meek Euro capitulation was hard to stomach. Finishing fourth with that squad the season after, and having us endure that second leg against Derby, made going up seem a bit of an empty achievement to me. Steve Bruce was wonderful for us, I don't deny that, but he had resources no other manager in our history could have dreamt of. Resources that should have seen us take residence on the lower reaches of the Premier League. Barmby 6 - Difficult to say really. Had no support from the Allams, but did bring back Brady when nobody wanted him after that stupid sending off against Southampton, which led to us making a mint off him. Also brought in Joshua King when no one else saw anything in him. Look at how he's doing now. The other players he wanted to bring in - Tomlin, Marshall, Hammill - would have been very good at Championship level too. Had we not suffered those injuries to Chester and Hobbs who knows what we might have done that half-season. Seeing us field Sonny Bradley and Liam Cooper together was scary but we had no cover in the squad. He did better than many - Assem Allam included - often admit. But it can't be denied that we upgraded in bringing in Steve Bruce. Pearson 7.5 - We were a wreck when NP took over. The way he turned the club around in that first six months was an incredible achievement. I think that under most managers we'd have been in a relegation battle. He made some unpopular decisions, and I hated the way that Ash was treated in the end, but ultimately he rebuilt what was a shell of a club and gave us the foundations that Steve Bruce was to build on. He might have been a nob, but a manager isn't judged on his radio interviews. Dowie 2 - Bab. Brown 9.5 - Doesn't matter how things ended up under him. He took us from a team heading for relegation to League 1 to a team joint top of the Premier League in the space of less than two years. That's almost Clough-esque. The wheels came off, and the half-time team talk affected things more than I think many realise. But he'd broken so many shackles that had impeded the club for more than a century by that point, that to not hold him up as the greatest manager in our history is almost churlish. I love Phil Brown. And I'm fully aware of his faults. Football just doesn't get better than our 2008, though. Parkinson 3 - One point each for the signings of Turner, Ricketts and Marney. A good man, a very nice man, who was the wrong man at the wrong time for City. Taylor 9 - A brilliant manager for us. AP was so close to scaling everything down, but Peter Taylor did what Little and Molby had totally failed to do in resurrecting Hull City as a (sort of) force in English football, which we had only fleetingly been since the early 70s. He delivered days like Yeovil, the Sheffield Wednesday 4-2, the two wins against Tranmere, the 4-0 at Bournemouth. Even in the much-maligned consolidation season back in the Championship there was the likes of the 1-0 win against Leeds. He and Colin Murphy were so important for us, and were nowhere near as negative as some now claim. Also, briefly from my time supporting the club (working backwards): Molby 2 - A point each the Elliott and Ashbee signings. An egotistical prick who couldn't man-manage to save his life. Little 6.5 - That first play-off run with the likes of Big Kev, Rodney Rowe and co was terrific. Couldn't cope with the money though, and assembled a squad totally unsuitable for fourth-tier football. A lovely bloke though. Joyce 9 - The most important manager in our history. Hateley 1 - Utterly dreadful. Woeful. Dolan 3.5 - Whisper it quietly, but Dolan was actually a pretty good manager for the second and third seasons back in the third tier. We were skint but watching City for those two seasons was pretty enjoyable. I don't lay too much blame at his feet for the first relegation either. That said, the relegation and next season in the fourth tier were utterly abysmal. Ternant 4 - Spent a lot, but when he first took over he was terrific. We were going places we never won - Sunderland, Wolves, etc... - and winning. All went to sh*t, obviously, but showed there was something there. A nob. however. Appleton 1.5 - An atrocious appointment. An atrocious manager by that point. Gray 6 - Did pretty well. That period that led to the Liverpool FA Cup game was utterly joyous. Was a bit crazy to sack him to bring Appleton back. Horton 8 - A great manager for us, and on those resources did well to have us in the top half Division Two for so long. His signings were terrific, and his sacking marked the start of our demise, even if we were in something of a rut. Was great to see him help the club get to the Premier League.
Reading this back I forget what a wonderful time I have had supporting Hull for last 20 years, shame it’s gone all sour. Ultimately avoidable.
He was out of his depth, fact. That's not to say he is a bad manager, he simply wasn't prepared for English football, the Championship, dealing with a relegated team and working with difficult owners. His tactics and substitutions didn't work and he couldn't keep his team focused for the full 90 minutes. He might go on to be a very good manager in this country, put him in charge of team challenging for promotion with supportive owners and he might flourish. But for this club, in this situation he was out of his depth.
I agree with a lot of that but feel sorry for Bruce. Yes he had more resources than any other manager in our history, but all 20 clubs in the Premier League could say that. Surviving in the Premier League is not about how much money you have to spend otherwise it would be easy to predict the league. Bruce spent a bit of money but we have made a fortune on some of his signings and more than recouped the money he invested. I agree with a lot of what you say but blaming Bruce because he had a lot of resources is wrong as every other manager did, and people forget that. I think Bruce scoring 0.25 more than Silva is unfair in my eyes as he gave me the FA Cup final and some brilliant days. Silva gave us six months then ****ed off as soon as he could. Would I of done the same? Yes but to rate him in the same category as Bruce is wrong. I reckon in 15-20 years time we will look back and realise how good we really had it under Bruce. I think your view of Brown is too low, that many is a god in my household.
Fair points, and I tried to establish at the top that they were based on things that I valued. I didn't want to go on too much (honest) but with Bruce, his constant defence of the Allams did rankle with me quite a lot which, if I'm being honest, probably influenced that grading. I generally felt that for the latter half of his tenure we saw a lot of his failings exposed - we were out-thought tactically too easily and looked under-motivated too frequently, particularly in that final season. We had a squad that should have stayed up quite comfortably that season. Aston Villa were completely broken, Sunderland and Newcastle no less of a car crash than they were in the next few seasons, clubs such as West Brom and Palace simply well run and well managed but with not too dissimilar resources to us and, I'd argue, slightly weaker squads at that point. The season afterwards saw an improvement for the first half, but the second half was listless for the most part. From February onwards we had three great performances - Bristol City, a post-season friendly against Rotherham and the 3-0 destruction of Derby - but just looked so underwhelming despite having the best squad in the league. It's maybe wrong to ever expect promotion from the Championship, but we just looked like we were going through the motions for a lot of it. Maybe Bruce's relationship with Ehab was a factor in that but I can't banish it from my mind. I don't deny we had it good, but I would just put a little asterisk next to the latter half of that era. I agree that Silva getting a similar score is perhaps a bit weird too. I've just not seen a manager do so much in such a short space of time with (relatively speaking) so little. I'd never claim that Silva is close to Bruce on the mark he made on Hull City, and Marco is perhaps the hardest to grade of all the managers as we've not had someone manage for such a short space of time so well (it's usually the opposite). So I stand by what I wrote, though I do fully accept your criticisms.
Dowie's only win was against a severely weakened Fulham team as they rested players for a mid-week Europa cup semi final. If they'd have turned up with a full strength team we'd have lost that game as well.
I remember when they announced Peter Taylors arrival I thought this is it, the beginning of an era for Hull City and he did not disappoint me. Loved the Phil Brown era, wow he got us to the promised land he should be held in the highest of regards. Steve Bruce, loved him and for me he was the number one manager for us, his after match interviews was always as I had seen the the game if it was poor he said it was poor top bloke who in my opinion was treated poorly by the owners I hope he goes on to get Aston Villa promoted what a cv he will have. Now it's up Mr positivity I've always liked him from his Wireless interviews on radio Humberside from his Scunthorpe days, COME ON ADKINS
