DICKOV - WORST EVER MANAGER

[Sad-Rovers]

Has he?

[BillyStubbsTears]

If you're judging the management ability in absolute terms, then few outside the Richardson era were quite as spectacularly atrocious as Dave Mackay, and his even worse sidekick/successor Joe Kinnell Kinnear.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yes Sad.

[pib]

It's difficult to compare. Expectations have changed, the club is at a different stage of it's development, and the club is run quite differently now. It's a bit of a crude analysis to compare the two in my opinion.

Having said that, they were both backed very well by the board and they both underachieved in those periods. I think that's probably where the comparison comes in. I'll admit I had big doubts about O'Driscoll in his first year-and-a-bit in charge, but I felt a whole lot more optimistic about his ability to move the club in the right direction than I do about Dickov. He seemed to at least have SOME vision and SOME ideas.

[StocktonRover]

Does Weaver count as a manager? If so he must win hands down.

[NorthNorfolkRover]

How can you slate joe Kinnear managerial ability  BSTwhen he went on to manage successfully in the premier league with several clubs ?
He has a managerial cv Dickov will never have.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yep. O'Driscoll had a vision in those first 15 months. It involved his cast-iron certainty that Mark Wilson was better than Paul Green and that Lewis Guy was better than Paul Heffernan. He inherited a squad better than the current one, spent lavishly on it and for 15 months performed as badly, serving up some of the most turgid and sterile football I have ever seen along the way.

Like I've said several times this week, I would have cracked one off at Clock Corner if he'd been sacked in Autumn 2007. Fat lot I knew. In fact I knew about as much as those passing judgement on Dickov now.

[BillyStubbsTears]

NNR.

Kinnear was the number two to the biggest non-Richardson Number Two we've had as a manager in the past 40 years. Then when he took over, he did even worse. Between them, they managed to make a squad including Deane (for a while), Raven, Rankine, Brevett, Paul Holmes, Paul Dobson, Gerry Daly, Les Robinson and Stuart Beattie into near Div4 relegation fodder. That takes a special talent.

I don't care what Kinnear did afterwards. When he was with us he was dogshite. With that as a historical precedent, you cannot possibly judge what Dickov might do in future.

[Donnybax]

If you are basing your assessment on a manager's first 15 months in charge, then Dickov's done significantly better than O'Driscoll, all things considered.

well no, no he hasn't.

[pib]

Yep. O'Driscoll had a vision in those first 15 months. It involved his cast-iron certainty that Mark Wilson was better than Paul Green and that Lewis Guy was better than Paul Heffernan. He inherited a squad better than the current one, spent lavishly on it and for 15 months performed as badly, serving up some of the most turgid and sterile football I have ever seen along the way.

Like I've said several times this week, I would have cracked one off at Clock Corner if he'd been sacked in Autumn 2007. Fat lot I knew. In fact I knew about as much as those passing judgement on Dickov now.

I think you're being a bit flippant here. Just my opinion though, obviously.

Although O'Driscoll's ethos may not have been expressed brilliantly in his early months at the club, the ethos of performances over results, controlling the controllables, fastidious emphasis on detail (especially regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition), and all that other good stuff that came to be the mark of his tenure were there, if not in practice, then at least in theory even in those early days. Fan opposition in that period stemmed from a combination of a refusal of these beliefs when results didn't go to plan, or a lack of understanding of what SOD was trying to achieve.

It's not really about whether Mark Wilson was picked over Paul Green I don't think. And even if it was, you could argue that similar has happened under Dickov with players like De Val, and the misuse of Dean Furman as a deep-lying midfielder for the whole of last season. Albeit arguably more baffling in Dickov's case since we're talking about a players he signed rather than players he inherited.

What's Dickov's ethos? I'd be interested to know. It appears to me at the moment to be blow hot air in the media about how things will change seemingly without anything actually underpinning it, and haphazardly shoving different combinations of 11 players on to the pitch on a Saturday with no discernible plan, strategy, or sense of organisation, and hope for the best.

Then of course there are obvious details, such as the fact that O'Driscoll's first nine months in charge were largely with players he'd inherited having joined a month-and-a-half into the season (as opposed to Dickov being appointed in May and building his own team from the off). If you take O'Driscoll's performance starting from when he had full control (i.e. his first full season in charge) he actually began to nail it fairly quickly.

If Dickov delivers what he is expected to in line with the budget in the next 18 months or so then I'll eat my words. I can't see it though, unfortunately.

[turnbull for england]

How can you slate joe Kinnear managerial ability  BSTwhen he went on to manage successfully in the premier league with several clubs ?
He has a managerial cv Dickov will never have.

if Lewis Guy went on to play for England would he be the best forward we ever had?
 

[BillyStubbsTears]

pib

There's plenty of 20/20 vision and selective picking of circumstances going on there.

O'Driscoll may have come in 6 weeks into a season, but he also came into a club that had steadily and sensibly grown for 5 years, with an excellent squad at his disposal, and he was immediately given funds to improve that squad significantly.
Dickov came into a club that was in turmoil, with uncertain ownership and budget right up to the start if his first season. He had to cobble a squad together from nothing in a hurry. And then, damn me, he had to go through a slow-motion replay the following year.

I have to say though, I'm impressed with the folk who saw AT THE TIME what O'Driscoll was trying to do when he took us on a run of 45 points from 38 matches at this level in 2007 with a squad that was better than this one in every position. Because I'm f**ked if I could see it.

But as I say, I was categorically wrong. I wonder if those who hurl abuse at Dickov (not aiming this at you by the way) ever stop to think that they might be wrong this time?

[pib]

pib

There's plenty of 20/20 vision and selective picking of circumstances going on there.

O'Driscoll may have come in 6 weeks into a season, but he also came into a club that had steadily and sensibly grown for 5 years, with an excellent squad at his disposal, and he was immediately given funds to improve that squad significantly.
Dickov came into a club that was in turmoil, with uncertain ownership and budget right up to the start if his first season. He had to cobble a squad together from nothing in a hurry. And then, damn me, he had to go through a slow-motion replay the following year.

I have to say though, I'm impressed with the folk who saw AT THE TIME what O'Driscoll was trying to do when he took us on a run of 45 points from 38 matches at this level in 2007 with a squad that was better than this one in every position. Because I'm f***ed if I could see it.

But as I say, I was categorically wrong. I wonder if those who hurl abuse at Dickov (not aiming this at you by the way) ever stop to think that they might be wrong this time?

I did say it was a bit of a pointless comparison from the start for similar reasons to the ones I've highlighted in your post. It's like comparing apples and pears in many ways for me. It's difficult not to use hindsight when you try to compare the two. I'll admit I was massively frustrated with O'Driscoll in his opening year-and-a-bit in charge, and wouldn't have been too upset to have seen him sacked in Nov/Dec 2007, but I do remember feeling that in there somewhere was a manager who did have a clue what he was trying to do.

I'm mainly going with my gut from watching the performances and saying that it's difficult to see for me where the building blocks are for Dickov to take the club forward. As I said before, I'll be the first to hold my hands up if he keeps his job and proves me wrong.

[keith79]

some people on here would have given weaver more time with the backing he had

[BillyStubbsTears]

keith

Don't be daft. The only thing I'd have given Weaver time with was a 3 tonne, sex starved bull.