We had a discussion a bit back about what if any affect sacking Fletcher and introducing a new man would bring to Argyle's fortunes. Time to review I think as we are quite a few games into the new tenure. I think it was fair to say that the majority were in favour of getting rid of Fletcher at any cost with a couple of people not necessarily agreeing with that as it would not have a lasting benefit. The argument being that most clubs who change manager have a bit of a form bounce at the outset but then it wears off and the team revert to being useless points gatherers once more. It did appear at the outset that there was going to be a bounce and it would follow that pattern. However, if you look at the overall results from Sheridan's reign commencing, it doesn't look like a bounce anymore. It looks like a sustained improvement in form and it hasn't really dipped throughout particularly. I would now say it proves Fletcher's novice status and not being up to the job and that changing to a proven mature manager was the right answer and what Argyle needed all along. I realise that the wheels can still come off and relegation is still haunting everyone of course. I will not get carried away with this improvement. But we do look a lot better in terms of not losing games we probably would have and not conceeding goals we used to.
Our defence seems to have tightened up just at the right time and with Reid scoring last night hopefully he and Banton will be banging them in at the other end ..... Reasons to be cheerful part one !!!!
There are a lot of improvements I see but the question is not what is better but is it all down to having a better experienced manager or would it have happened anyway.
I think the real difference is someone scoring no Banton and not much change but Sheridan brought him in so credit must go for that. The form of Cole recently has been a big plus too he has pulled off a few match winning saves for us in the last few weeks. As for team improvement we need to give it more time to judge we will need some changes over the summer there are a few positions were we are at best OK for this division. Be interesting to see who comes in to give us a real idea of Mr Brents commitment, if any, to the club. At least we are in with a chance of that being in the FL now but still a lot to do.
I for one was glad to see the change, pity it was not sooner as i do think we would have been safe already.. still along way to go and it will be up and down until the final day as y=there are so many in the mix to go out of the league. a lot of twists and turns yet.. I think we will stay up and its credit to Sheridan for that as with Fletcher we would have been gone by now?? Sorry Distant as i think you may dis agree!!
I think the the major improvement has been that the players look more confident and less worried about making a mistake - as with all sport it is 75% about attitude and belief i.e a positive mindset allows average players to succeed against less confident better players. Fast skillfull wingers, an obviously settled back 4/5 plus the overdue reintroduction of Cole have all been big positives. Midfield is still 'iffy' but all can do their bit on the day. Cox has quietly been a massive plus and allowed the others to be more positive. I think the improvement is 90% about Sheridan having a plan, instilling belief, and getting the players to do things his way. I would have loved Fletch to succeed and I suspect he may in the future but in hindsight he probably should have gone earlier and had he stayed i doubt I would be as optimistic as i am.
I think there is a general concensus on most chat sites that Fletcher was far too inexperienced for the task at Argyle. That required building a side and his contact book and know how just wasn't full enough. Sheridan on the other hand has been around the block a few times and it shows in his approach. He isn't asking the players to do the job in a given way but perhaps in their way which they can do. He isn't blaming anyone for mistakes because he expects mistakes to happen. He sets out a plan and changes that plan when it's needed but there are two plans to start with rather than one he can't change. I don't think there is anyone who wanted Fletcher to fail. There were plenty who were doubtful and plenty more who lost a lot of faith in him early on when it was going wrong. Brent has questions to answer in why he persevered with him for so long. Other clubs take action when it's going tits up but we did nothing for so long. Who was advising Brent? Not somebody with an ounce of sense that's for sure. If, and it's a big if still, we get out of the mire and hang on in the league then firstly Brent needs to keep hold of Sheridan and try listening to him perhaps on football matters rather than others. He also needs to let him build a side and get rid of some of the dross he inherited. If this doesn't happen then I can see this sorry state happening all over again next season.
With respect, if there is a bounce, it's usually in the first couple of games. If I had a pound for every time someone here had said "we're playing so-and-so on Saturday and they've appointed a new manager this week..." I'd be a wealthy man. We didn't see that, Sheridan started badly since when it's been more of a slow burn to get us back where we were when Fletcher left. The run of bad results for which Fletcher was sacked were't typical of his tenure: he kept us up last season and we didn't dip into the bottom two under Fletcher this season as far as I remember; we did that under Sheridan. If Fletcher had been able to bring in 6 players, who knows? So, it's impossible to say because you're comparing what Sheridan's done in fact compared to speculating what Fletcher might have done had he stayed. However, you can't argue with 7 points out of the last 9 and if Sheridan can keep that going through a difficult fixture list to keep us up, I'll be very happy. I'd suggest that if he does that, he'll only prove whether he's substantially better than Fletcher next season, not this.
Sheridan started with 2 wins and 2 draws.......that isn't starting badly........Fletcher could of only dreamed of so much success.
Ah yes, those stunning 0-0 home draws against Accrington and Dagenham & Redbridge, how could I forget....
Of course it could be described as new manager bounce when he first came notdistant but despite some turgid games which are infinately forgettable, the points keep coming. Don't give me that rubbish about "if Fletcher could have brought in 6 players". He was responsible for giving contracts to dross players from last term and he had brought in a fair few before he left. If he had remained he would no doubt have been given some funds to do something himself. Glad he wasn't because he wasted most of what he had previously and all I could see is more of the same. My point of post is that yes often there is a new manager syndrome but Sheridan has turned it into more than that now and is showing that you can get more out of a sows ear. I do not believe Fletcher would have turned the slide downwards around for one minute. Nice bloke maybe but manager for a place like Argyle definately not.
Sorry but I think that is unfair. Opinions off and look at what Fletcher brought in and when: Purse - Good or bad? Max - |Good or bad? Generally considered the major reason we survived last season. Now considering that everyone, including a blind man whose dog had run away, knew we needed a new strike force and then look what we signed closed season PCH- Second highest scorer in a team that failed to qualify from BS Griffiths- Proven scorer in lower league but looked over on many an occasion when he was much younger. So do we really think that was what Fletcher wanted or what the budget required? I think at the start of the season most of us thought it was not bad business but knew it was hopeful. Hopefully Lecointe would move up a level and we may be OK....now we know it did not work out that way. As for extended contracts as I have said before those were pretty much forced, without knowing who would come in could we really have gone into closed season with only Matt and Feeney on the books.... extremely risky. The best business we have done is bringing Wotts back (Sorry GAT) it is not coincidence that our form went to crap when he was injured and has improved in the last few games and looking back our fall from grace came when he left, the heart of the club left in his kit bag. That said it is all in the past I still believe that St. Banton of Home Park is the real difference to our team. Last game I saw was Wycombe and we should have won that by 3 if we had anything upfront, including me, and I thought we played them off the park. As Lyndhurst said the players look more confident, well that is down to the fact that they now have someone upfront who they believe will score instead of hope will score. If you have someone you expect to score playing it takes the pressure of the back 5 and lets the midfield be more creative. It takes the fear factor out of it. It is the if we do mess up we will get 2 back no problem factor. On top of that Cox has been a big influence in midfield, feedback from a friend who knows the game, no heroics but lets the rest of the guys play. Anyways fingers crossed it will keep working and we will not be visiting Braintree, Gatehead, Hyde next season.
I think Fletcher was desperate to keep his job mexijan which is why he would have agreed to any budget if he had to rather than argue the toss and tell it how it was. I don't think it was unfair on Fletcher or that he had to resign those players he could have ditched. If he was any sort of person with any sort of contacts he would not have worried he couldn't sign anyone and he wasted the budget he had. In my opinion of course.
Possibly so but I still think there was something in the timing of his sacking which was other than the results. As for Sheridan he has yet to do what Fletcher did for us last season but signs are looking better than a few weeks ago so fingers crossed and see what he can pull together in the closed season.
mexijan......Yes you are right to say that Darren Purse was one of the reasons we stayed up last year. But........Purse wasn't one of Fletcher's signings.........everyones friend Peter Ridsdale instigated that signing.....they had been together at Cardiff in 2009/10....Ridsdale as Chairman and Purse as a player. Ridsdale worked hard to get Purse to come to Home Park........who had recently signed for his childhood club of Millwall......Ridsdale persuaded him that he would have more influence at Plymouth in his latter playing years and offered him a good deal which he accepted. That deal of course became a problem later on and we know that we had to eventually ship him out to Port Vale......where he has been a regular in a promotion chasing team. Fletcher's football connections could be written down on the back of a stamp.....preferably a second class stamp......other than Bournemouth Fletcher knew no one in football Ridsdale had made Fletcher stand-in manager when he put Peter Reid out of his misery.......after Ridsdale had moved on James Brent was too hasty making Fletcher full-time manager....with out Fletcher having proving anything as stand-in manager. Stay up we did...but I and others will always claim that Fletcher put us in a downward spiral with the help of a rooky owner.
Seriously a downward spiral since Fletcher took over!!! We had 1 point from 27 with Reid in charge and he tripled that in the first game if anyone thinks that Fletcher performed badly last season then they need a check up with the head doctor, I thought Mexico was the drug capital of the world but it appears Plymouth has taken over. Plym not sure where you have been for the last few seasons but we had been in a downward spiral long before Carl Fletcher took over and in fact he was the first manager to turn that spiral...FACT. So if this guy was so bloody useless were the hell does that leave Reid, Sturrock and all (yep those guys were so inexperienced..NOT)... Wake up it is not the managers that got us here it is the bloody idiots who gambled on the World Cup bid. Something needed to change but to blame Fletcher for our clubs position now to be frank is just obscene. Considering when Sheridan came in are any of the signings his? Maybe you have special information that we do not but Fletcher signed Purse when he was manager(so his player) and he turned a team that was the most odds on favorite, in my lifetime, to go out of the league at that stage of the games.
If you remember, Fletcher twice said in public that he was having difficulty bringing in the players he wanted on the money he had available. The first time, he was sharply contradicted by Brent. The second time, which coincided with a bad run of results, he was sacked. As I said, looking for the positives, you can't argue with 7 points out of 9. The postponed game yesterday could be a good thing or bad. Maybe it will leave the squad fitter and sharper for Exeter. Maybe it'll break the momentum of better recent results. Time will tell but fingers crossed.
Yes Fletcher did say that publicly notdistant but who had spent most of the budget already? He did not anyone else and as you well know the budget was never going to be finite was it. I also agree to some extent with what you say mexijan. Fletcher did come in when we looked totally cooked and it has to be partly down to him that we stayed up that year. But what he failed to do which most others would have done was clear out some of the rubbish and get replacements in with his new season budget. He did not improve the team at all and that has to be down to him. Watching the matches under him it was also obvious that he only had one plan and way and could not see past this. Not helped in my opinion by the novice training staff he employed. That is Le Keeper and Nankypoo. He was past his sell by date a while before he was removed and any owner worth his salt would have seen that themselves before the masses got to clamouring for blood. The fault lay with all of them. Sheridan appears to have a plan B and seems to know what he is talking about. If this was last season we would be safe now. The reason we aren't is because the other teams are also winning games whereas last season the 2 that went down didn't. If Fletcher was still here I think we would be gone already. We will never know but we were heading that way and that was there for all to see.
