Clarkson is apparently out of contract at the end of the season. According to the BBC he signed a 2 year deal with us in the summer of 2012 which covers the seasons 2012/13 and 2013/14. I dont recall a contract extension being offered so I guess he may well be leaving us this summer. Gow is out of contract with Exeter at the end of the season so I suspect he will end up joining us in the summer which I think would be a great signing, especially if Clarkson leaves. Clarkson is on high wages and dont seem to start games so I guessing Clarkson wont be offered a new deal if he currently is not in Wards 1st team plans. Gow would be the obvious replacement for Clarkson in my eyes. Should we be looking to keep Clarkson (and sign Gow) even though Clarkson is on high wages? Or Release Clarkson and use his wages to sign 2 or more players in positions needed as Gow would already be replacing him? What do you think?
I personally think we should release Clarkson and not bother with Gow. From what I have seen of him so far, he offers nothing more than Gill used to. I may retract this statement come the end of the season, but if I had to say now, I wouldn't bother with him.
I like Clarkson....I don't think we've used him well. He seems to always give 100%, though he can appear to tire; and he has a footballing brain and can score goals given the chance. Having said that I reckon we'll let him go as he's a high earner. As regards Gow, he comes with high praise from Exeter; and has shown signs of promise without actually setting the world on fire....though we are towards the bottom of the basement league so what do we have a right to expect?! I think we'll try to sign him...but others might be interested too!
Keep 'em both. Get rid of John Ward. He's made us more solid but for the most part, we're poor as an attacking force under him, despite having some very good players for this level. Even if we bring in yet more strikers, I really don't think that John can get us promoted next season.
Could we have John Ward to manage Rovers at home and get somebody else to manage us away? We'd probably be a lot higher up the table.
That's actually a very good idea we could start a trend we're normally paying 3 managers at a time anyway not sure would I would have in charge for the away games though maybe leave it to Stewart and Clarke
that made me chuckle ward gives too much respect to the home sides when we play away. he thinks/expects the home sides should be the dominant team. therefore when we play away he sets up his side to be too defensive. there has been many games this season where the home side has not been dominant but instead been there for the taking which we failed to do anything about where we just was not attacking enough. we need to be more attack minded away from home. yes some teams we play against away from home we will need to set up defensive but a lot of teams we shouldnt have anything to fear. we got a very good defensive record this season so we are pretty sound at the back and we do have the attacking threat in the team but we havent been able to use that attacking threat due to a lack of pace. just imagine if we were more attack minded away from home, im sure we would have won at least 3 other away games meaning adding 9 points to the table. 9 extra points would place us 8th on 43 points and 5 points from play offs with a game in hand. if only ward was more adventurous in away games. we were under him last season because we had to do so as we were at the bottom. i think ward believes where we are not bottom we dont need to go too attacking and can instead frustrate teams. just a guess!
Ward needs to go next season I am afraid, regardless of how we finish this season. We need a good balanced manager who plays players in correct positions and isn't afraid to have a go. Mind you I have been saying this for god knows how much long
last season under ward we were in automatic promotion form. this season we have the same players as last season apart from anyinsah, hitchcock & tounkara. apart from these players it is the same. our manager and players dont become bad overnight. i could be wrong as its obviously just an opinion but this season i believe ward would have stuck to his tactics that he used last season which got us in promotion form. however due to bad and long term injuries ward had to rely on youth who have no experienced. im not blaming the youth for our league position by the way however it would make sense for ward to adapt his tactics for this reason. he knew we didnt have the strength in depth or the pace to change things. so he made sure we were hard to score against meaning hard to beat and as a result we have a pretty good defensive record. however as a result it became hard to score too. away we have set up to play counter attacking football but to play this way we need pace which we just dont have. with the injuries, ward was unable to do anything about it due to the wage budget constraints. he had to wait for players to return before shipping players out. i dont blame ward for this. injuries and wage budget contraints is not wards fault. he has had to manage under these issues and although he has made some mistakes, ward has just been very unlucky this season. if we can keep players injury free over the summer / pre season, i think we will start the season well and could be in for a good season. depending on what players we are left with, ward has a pretty good record on getting decent players in the door and i do trust him in getting the players in the door to make us better. i think it would be a mistake in letting ward go. he knows what the players we will be left and what they can do. im sure he knows what players he wants to try and keep who will be out of contract. he would also know what areas we therefore need to build on. ward needs to be given a chance until november. if the start of next season is just as bad then get in a new manager around november who can assess the team and make the changes that is needed for the jan transfer window.
shouldnt get any stick for your opinion mate. end of the day were all gasheads and all want what is best for our club. we all may have different opinions on what we feel is the best but you shouldnt get stick for having a different opinion to someone else. this aint the OS forum where you get shot down for any comment
