Lots of articles/posts over on the Fans' Forum about John Ward and whether he's the man for the job now and, if he went (upstairs?), who should take over. There's Darren Clarke and Marcus Stewart as the bridesmaids-in-waiting; and Alan Walsh doing a super job (under Tom Curtis) with the U18s. Personally I think it's academic anyway, as I can't see Higgs firing Ward unless we slip into the bottom two and show no signs of getting out. It is more likely that Ward, if he sees that it is beyond him, would walk. There was a time at City when he went to the board asking for help; and in came Benny! I think that now's not the time for change; we just have to 'batten down the hatches' and fight for a lower mid-table finish. But unless there are strong signs of a resurgence in this latter part of the season there is no argument for Ward staying in charge next season. He will have had his chance. As regards his successor I think it all depends on how well Clarke and Stewart get on; and I don't know the answer to that. Clarke is nominally the assistant, but with Stewart in charge of the Development Squad and the board's stated intent to bring youngsters through; they are both in with a shout. On match days both Clarke and Stewart have Ward's ear in the dugout, though Clarke is the more animated. There is also cost. Promoting Clarke and/or Stewart from within should be cheaper than bringing in someone from outside. If Ward 'went upstairs' he surely would not earn more than at present. His role though would have to be sharply defined, as involvement in any way with the first team would necessitate him and the team manager singing from the same hymn sheet! Ward though is a good PR man, and those who have met him or know him speak highly of him as a man. He is a 'good face' of Bristol Rovers. So ideally I'd like Ward to move upstairs, with minimal or no involvement with first team selection or tactics. If Clarke and Stewart can be a viable team I'd like that......and if it all goes pear-shaped Ward would be around to hold the fort..........until an outside appointment is made!
p49 for me i say keep ward in charge. i know this aint a view people will like! i just think ward saved us last season and we know he has it in him to do it again. the table dont lie and performances havent been good but you really need to assess this season in fine detail. take into consideration all the injuries at the start of the season along with financial constraints. due to this ward had to rely on inexperienced youth players! 1st game of the season our subs had just 3 1st team appearances between them and 2 of these appearances were the sub keeper connor gough! i doubt ward would have wanted to use as many youth players all at the same time but with the lack of funds to bring in experience and injured players no where ready to return, what else could ward do? so ward had to get the best out of the players he had available. he could have set up attacking and get slaughtered each week or set up defensive and try to make us hard to beat frustrating the opposition. sometimes this didnt work but sometimes it did - we have kept many clean sheets in doing this! believe it or not we have 1 of the better defensive records in our league! ward obviously hoped he thought we had the quality somewhere to steal a goal. you can see what he was trying to do playing counter attacking football. we just didnt have the quality/pace to play this style attacking football unfortunately which meant the ball just kept coming back at us to keep defending. ward has been very unlucky this season which hasnt been helped by himself making the few mistakes at the same time like the signing of bond instead of a winger and playing bond on the wing. waste of money which was funded by the money received in the jpt derby that was in sky. as players been returning from injury, we have been scoring more goals at home as we been more attack minded being the home side. we also have a good home record too. unfortunately ward insists playing defensive football away from home and trying to counter attack when possible. think this may be confusing the players! we are not winning or scoring enough away from home. our away form an issue. the players who ward wanted gone was in the treatment room from the start of the season. to get new players in the door he has had to wait until they were back to then be able to let them go like gill, paterson and kenneth. now they have gone ward has been able to bring in new players like mohammed, beardsley, gillespie and now gow who i think was on more wages than richards. these are all attack minded players and have a bit of pace about them. all just what we need. also higgs has confirmed another forward should be joining soon. therefore we should hopefully see big changes in tactics and more goals being scored away picking up points on our travels. there is only 9 points separating 8th place newport to 22nd place wycombe. its all very close. now we have attack minded players who have experience and a bit of quality along with some pace, i am predicting good things. a good run would see us rocket up the table within 4/5 games. im not saying play offs before anyone thinks that.... im not that deluded! i think we will be safe, we will end mid table or better meaning we can write off this season and hopefully prepare well for next season and give it a good proper go for promotion. if it dont work out next season then maybe ward move on or upstairs but i think we will be ok. gow is a very good player and i think we will sign him in the summer. expect to see a lot of changes in the summer and i think we will need wards experience with the amount of changes that will happen. our budget in the hands of inexperienced managers at this level like stewart/clarke would be a mistake. in ward i trust
I think the answer to some of the points raised on this thread are very much answered by the team sheet against Oxford. We have a gained several new players in the last few weeks and they will settle the style of play for the rest of the season. Most of the team now are seasoned professionals and they will settle down to play as a unit which best suits their combined comfort zone. Against Oxford there was still a preference to play high balls out of defence. There was a major problem that nearly every ball crossed into Oxford's box was comfortably headed out by their defence. I can't see that the newcomers are going to be comfortable with that approach. So unless Harrold can be shoe-horned into a new style of play, the attacking must be prioritised on the ground if we are to get out of this mess. So either Ward has already decided to change his team play dramatically or he is loosening the reins to give Darren Clarke a bit more elbow room to mould the tactics on the training ground. It was interesting to see Smithies frustration when he got himself into good attacking positions down the wing and the pass to him was very poor and the attack broke down. He will probably be a big influence in team talks over the next few days. One thing is for sure, all the other teams we play in the league will need to tear up their opinions on Rover's playing style and get down to some serious research to work out the best way to negate the new playing style.
I would keep Ward in charge. There have been a few deep rooted problems at Rovers for a few years now and I'm sure Ward's got the experience and commitment to move the club forward from a sound base.
I say keep JW. The start to the season was (once again) disastrous, but there were reasons (excuses?), but our form over the last 10 games reads W4 D3 L3, which is verging on play-off form. As people have said above, JW is generally well-liked and respected, he knows the league and the club, and changing managers doesn't often actually provide much benefit, as I think we've proved ourselves regularly over the last few years (Tony Pulis at Palace being a notable exception !!). I actually believe we will finish around 10th this season, which after the start we had will be a right result, and give us something to build on for next season - (that's what I hope anyway - we'll see !!). I think if results were to drop of again, and we end the season flirting with the dreaded drop then it will be a different story, but for the moment I really don't want to see a change or think it will help us.
I, along with P49, will be a dissenting voice. I feel that JW should be moved upstairs into a DoF role. Sure, he's made us difficult to beat but we just don't score enough goals and with some of the players we've got, we should be dominating teams at home, but we're not - it's always on a knife edge. We were punished against Accrington and we could have been punished against Cheltenham. With John's tactics we do not get enough men forward and we do not press other teams in their own half. Generally speaking, he's brought in some good players and without doubt he's a decent man who knows the lower leagues like the back of his hand. That's why he'd make a good DoF. But we are not a fluid attacking force because of his tactics. I can guarantee you that we will not gain promotion under John next season. It's time to bring in a young manager who can instil drive and attacking nous into the players - as P49 says either Stewart or Clarke should be given the opportunity. JW could be the Lenny figure.
I'm Pro-Ward, he's the right fit for this club in terms of the PR and the image . . we are a family club and we like to go about things the right way . . Ward has always been respectful when talking about opposing teams, and as far as I can tell we've not done any underhanded transfers or talked about other players that aren't ours, so for me I have a great sense of pride in the manager respresenting our clubs Now, in terms of football he's not got it right this year, but he did last year, which makes me think there's still some player issues revolving around the club. These players only seem to stand up when we're in trouble and i think these could be the players we're still stuck with from the Buckle & McGhee era. In terms of our club, both gate and turnover, we are massive for this league so should have no trouble attracting the right players to take us forward . . as we did O'Toole . . but until we can get the deadwood off the wage bill we can't pose a realistic challenge in the transfer market. In the summer I think Ward will have had a good 18 months to assess what needs to go, move on . . it's not always because they lack talent, i think with rovers more often than not it's about getting a player that fits in the club (again, like O'Toole). Give Ward the summer to finally generate his own team, give him a decent preseason list and I'm sure that next season we'll be back in the top half. I do not fear relegation, at no point have i ever imagined we would go down . . the players on the books for the most part have the ability to get us out of trouble, we have a manager that actually cares about the club and has saved us already in the past, and we have a fan base that inspite of all their frustration will, in times of strife, club together and make a solid 12th man
