I'm sure we'll all go into this debate in detail in the coming weeks but for now I thought I'd just give a link to a website giving the odds: http://www.oddschecker.com/football/football-specials/portsmouth/next-permanent-manager As a side note, I had to look up who Hope Powell was when I saw the name on that list, but, you know, I kind of fancy the idea Pompey giving a female manager a chance at the professional level, but maybe that experiment would be better suited to a period when we're a bit more settled and the situation isn't quite as desperate.
I think You desperately need a old pro that still has a bit of quality in their play and wants to get into management. Maybe a striker like Dave Connolly or Kevin Phillips that would get you the goals to stay up or a David James, Jamie O'Hara type player.
Apparently we've already failed in an approach Neil Warnock: http://www.chichester.co.uk/sport/p...nock-bid-to-become-barker-successor-1-5965714 and that doesn't surprise me in the slightest. He was always a longshot given the fact that he's used to operating at a higher lever with more money.
England were terrible in the last European Championships under Hope Powell.... Though we did get to the final in the Championship before that. However, a female manager would be pretty cool. Andy Awford would be a terrible mistake though. Can we not learn? What happened to Paul Hart? What happened to Guy Whittingham? What happened to Tony Adams? Caretaker managers that came in, then were appointed permanently and were all sacked. Enough is enough!
As I said, I looked up Powell yesterday and she's got a pretty good record overall as England boss. 162 games, won 85, drew 32, lost 41. She took the under-19's women side to of the 2002 and 2003 Womens Championship and the quarter finals of FIFA's World Championship, got the senior side to the UEFA European Championship in 2001 and almost got to the semi-finals of that tournament in 2005 before finishing runner up in 2009, got to the quarter finals of the Womens World Cup in 2006 and 2011, and qualified for the 2013 European Championship. She also got the Great Britain squad to the quarter finals of the Olympics. Regardless, even though I do like the idea now is not the time to be experimenting like this. We'd need to be in a far more stable condition than we are now to even consider this. If I were Andy Awford I'd say "thanks for the interest but I dont want it on a perminant basis, I'm happy to step in as a stop-gap but I'd prefer to deal with the academy". I dont think he should get it next, I think we need someone with more lower league experiance who will be here for a few season so we can stabilize a bit. That said, I'm against promotions from within the club but I just dont think now is the time to do it.
Richard Money might be worth a look at. He's Head Coach at Cambridge United with a decent record and 10 years experience. He also used to play for us for a couple of years in the 1980s so knows the club. Chris Powell, just sacked by Charlton is another worth looking at.
Connolly has taken himself off on loan with a no-recall clause. I saw a lot of fans wanted him recalled back to work with Andy Awford. David James with or without Herman, I'd love to see here - but now is not the time unfortunately. If they could go off and cut their teeth on a conference side first might be better. But maybe one day?!?!
I think Hope Powell will eventually be someone who I can see a football league club taking a punt with. Her record with England was impressive but she also alienated a lot of her players in the end and they would not perform for her. I can't see Portsmouth taking the risk and, for that matter, I can't see any potential manager with ambition selecting Portsmouth. It would be a bad move for both. Although things are very tight at the bottom of your league, I can't see you staying up. Northampton are slowly picking up form and Portsmouth seem incapable of doing anything other than muster a few minutes of plucky performance within matches they will invariably lose. All my Portsmouth supporting friends at work seem resigned to the fact that relegation is a certainty and have bemoaned the quality of football served up this season. I watched ETSAC (Troyes) v Dijon in the French 2nd Division last week and was staggered at the inability to pass or for players to be aware of the position of their colleagues, the difficulty with which crosses were delivered with any accuracy and the shooting which was often woeful. There was even a penalty miss which was pretty shocking. The two goals scored by Troyes were well taken but seemed totally at odds with what had happened beforehand. After watching the match I wasn't surprised that I never encountered any Troyes supporters in the city and it wasn't difficult to understand why the 20,000 seat stadium was only 40% full. Dijon were even worse. When I described the match to colleague they explained that it was like watching Portsmouth - I would have to say that the quality of football served up last week was the equivalent of our fourth tier level. As a Saints fan there is a macabre fascination in seeing what has happened in Fratton Park and , for a team we would have anticipated gaining immediate promotion, you have surprised us totally. From a footballing point of view, I have often said that the fan-based ownership needed to work and the model Portsmouth had proposed could have provided inspiration for other clubs who struggled financially and who looked to take the ownership of the club away from individuals with no links to the community. From this point of view it is a shame that your experiment looks like failing. However, it seems to me that your board made a sentimental decision in keeping Whittingham in charge and then tacitly supporting his lax training regime before pressing the panic button and appointing Barker as manager when alarm bells should have already sounded following his tenure at Crawley. All through these problems I feel your support has been incredible yet the supporters have been let down by a board which is supposed to represent their ideals and which has proved woefully incapable of preventing the continued slide of a club which should be mainstay of the 2nd tier of English football at the very least. If things progress as they are, I hope that you don't follow the path of someone like Stockport County who have continued to sink in the non-league. Relegation will be catastrophic and not an easy situation to reverse. Portsmouth need to be thinking about getting a new board in place who can harness the potential that comes with 16 thousand regular supporters and putting in place the kind of processes that prevent future relegation battles and steer you towards successive promotions. I don't think taking a punt on Hope Powell is a viable option and a new board will need to demonstrate that they know what they are doing if they are to attract someone who can unlock the potential.
I think you are being a tad harsh, and impatient. The very last thing we need to do now is make changes at board level. It's not quite a year since we took over the club and there was no doubting the mess that it had been left in by the previous incumbents, and the administrator. There was virtually nothing left........ and the club has had to be rebuilt, from the inside out. Anyone who believed we would go up at the first attempt was, in my opinion, quite deluded. Staying in the league was the first target. As far as Guy goes, a large majority, not everyone though, felt he "deserved" to be given the job because of the way he had stuck by the club, despite the awful run we had been on the previous season. But he had a team of month-to-month has-beens so his record was overlooked, unfortunately. Barker's record wasn't that bad, and he'd been sacked after a falling out over budgets. He convinced the board that he was the man, and I think bringing Coppell with him was the clincher. To be honest I would have made the same choice if I'd been on the board. Coppell's experience was felt to be invaluable. What we have though is a very unbalanced squad, built up in a hurry with a very small budget and added to and added to, as funds were built up and as the season went on. Both Guy and Barker were guilty of putting square pegs in round holes. Barker turned out to be "the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time", he never clicked with the fans from the off and his style of football wasn't too much of a surprise after the warnings from the Crawley fans. I still hope we'll manage to stay up. The new board are on a very steep learning curve - and they have to be given time. Anyway I've always believed you can learn more from your mistakes than your successes.
Half of me wants to see Andy Awford really do well and get appointed as our new permanent manager. The other half wants him to keep us up this season, and remain Academy manager along with Paul Hardyman, as they are doing such a good job there, in bringing through the kids. Someone experienced would be good, but they probably wouldn't come cheap.
I haven't given any real thought to who next tbh....I think we need to see how AA does....and as has been alluded too he is doing a great job with the Academy and may not actually want it regardless of how he does. I think lets survive and then see. The board need to remain calm and not look at anything permanent or rash too soon. As 3rd eye says it's not been a year and actually as a financial entity we are doing well (and lets not forgot why we are where we are) and although the RB appointment was for me the least interesting possible appointment from the names mentioned they did it in good faith and the addition of SC must have helped. I saw Hope Powell play (great defensive midfielder with a great shot) and she managed England well for many years - I hope she gets a shot at league football at some point but I think when it comes to us choosing the next manager it needs to be done with plenty of thought and plenty of patience. Here's to survival and then a sit down over a big pot of coffee or tea, a packet of choc digestives and a good long discussion about the options and what is the right choice. PUP
I think the board have had a bit of a fright, 2 poor appointments in their first year and are probably doing a lot of soul searching. The next Manager will be appointed after a very thorough process I'd imagine. A big part of me hopes it isn't Andy Awford - he should stay with the Academy..... then come to the rescue if and when he's needed again in future.
I did say only HALF of me wanted it to happen, Lapras, but his stirling work in the Academy outweighs anything else in reality.
Let me point you to Eddie Howe. Bournemouth youth team coach, became caretaker manager in December 2008 and was made perminant manager in 2009, has since gone on to become arguably Bournemouth's greatest ever manager and enjoyed a relatively successful spell at Burnley. Point being, promotions from within can work and that Tony Adams, Paul Hart and Guy Whittingham didn't work out doesn't mean that we should rule out the possibility forever. I would love for Andy Awford to be our Eddie Howe but I dont think he should be our next manager. Portsmouth as a club is too desensitized to managerial changes and I doubt he'd get the backing he'd require to last all that long should we go through a bad patch - after all, Whittingham's legend status didn't save him did it? - so I'd favor bringing in a more experianced lower-league manager but I've no idea who that would be right now.
