In just over a year in the job, Megson has certainly made us more competitive, moved us up the table and will probably lead us in to the play-offs. Despite this, I doubt that he will get us up automatically and neither is he building a team to be sucessful in the long term.
He does not seem capable of identifying good players, most worringly, given his reputation, in defence. We sold perhaps the best centre-half in the division this season, Michael Morrison, to the team now at the top of the league and loaned out another, Beevers to another of our rivals. Bizarrely, he realised the latter situation was assisting MK Dons so ended the loan but then the player gets nowhere near the first team. Reynolds plays a couple of games and does OK but then is dropped without ryhme or reason. Meanwhile, we have the worst defence in the top 6.
Team selection is inconsistent at best and scatter-gun at worst. Players are starting games one week and then out of the squad the next. We spend £100,000 on Mike Jones who is given about 100 minutes of football over 2 games before Megson decides he's not up to it and drops him in favour of whatever Championship reserve we've brought in on loan. Ryan Lowe is shunned, despite scoring the winnner in the previous game and it takes him months to get back in the team. At the same time, the places of Rob Jones, Chris O'Grady and David Prutton are set in stone, regardless of performance. He needs to trust the players and give them a chance over a number of games, like, dare I say it, Danny Wilson.
Many of our better players this term: Madine, Reda Johnson, Buxton, JJ (recently) weren't even brought to the club by Megson. He did bring in Marshall but you wonder if that was a bit of a panic move: he would've been available pre-season but we were only interested after losing 2 games on the bounce. Of his other buys only Semedo, Lines and Lowe look anything like.
In my opinion, we have been pinching results all season and are not a good side. Look at the teams around us: they have settled first XIs, score goals and play decent football. We, on the other hand, are patched together with loans, rely on set-pieces to score and rarely win games by more than 1 goal. The latter point doesn't matter if you do it every week but this isn't happening anymore so the manager's methods should be open to question.
Of course, we're still up there and the manager hasn't had a fortune to spend but it's the 3rd division and one of the worst in recent years at that. The fact that MK Dons and Stevenage have around the same points/games as us says it all.
Megson Isn't Working
posted on 28/2/12
'"but it's only the 3rd division.."
I think therein lies the issue!'
If you're suggesting I think we have some kind of right to get promotion 'cos we're a 'big' club then I have to say that isn't what I mean at all.
What I am saying is that being entrenched in the play-off places doesn't mean Megson is doing a good job, when you consider that a team like Stevenage can manage the same. We have a bigger budget, better support, are able to attract high-profile loan signings and many of our existing squad have played at a higher level.
I am not expecting us to win every game. What I do expect if for an ex-Premier League manager to be able to identify good players instead of selling them, to be able to organise a better defence than Walsall, Bournemouth, Tranmere or any of the other teams who concede less than us and to have a game-plan beyond relying on set-pieces or some brilliance from the one winger we field, be it Marshall, JJ or Antonio.
posted on 28/2/12
Why mention it then?? All it did was suggest exactly what you're claiming it didn't.
Of course being in the PO's means Megson is doing a good job. We don't have a budget in the top 2 of the division so on that basis (if you want to make the argument financial) then he's doing aswell as could be expected.
If you 'expected' automatic promotion then it's not Megson who 'isn't working'......
Yep, Stevenage are having an exceptional season but don't underestimate the amount of influence confidence & momentum can have on a football team. Just cos one team is doing over & above it doesn't mean our season isn't good enough.
If you think his gameplan is 'hope a winger produces some brilliance' then it's probably not worth having a discussion.
He's made mistakes, no doubt, but then who hasn't.
The odd player hasn't quite lived up to it but that is far, far outweighed by those that have & those that haven't are pretty much the ones who've been here a few weeks!
He probably needs to find a Plan B that is less desperate than we've shown when going behind recently despite being on top for large parts of the game.
Occasionally, I'd like to see him be a bit more forward thinking & little more flexible in formation/tactics but all of this is just personal opinion & is basically splitting hairs!
In the grand scheme, he's done a good job & even as someone who wasn't too taken with his appointment last season, the progress has been excellent.
posted on 28/2/12
U11819, The reality is we're a league 1 club at this present time; therefore we can only attract players of the calibre of league 1 - these tend to come from a mix of young players with little or no experience of a ' big club' and older players who have experience of playing for a big club at a higher level than league1.
The young players will not always get it right and are likely to have limited abilities in terms of strategic movement, formation, and playing at the top of their game in crunch matches.
Balance this with;
Older players who know what is required, have the experience of strategy, formation and playing under pressure whilst perhaps having lost a yard or two of pace or the ability to go full throttle for 90 minutes.
What do you end up with?
A league 1 club.
What Megson has achieved so far is a good demonstration of the alchemy that is needed to forge a team that can grind out results whilst continuing to develop on an upwards curve.
We are miles away from the Laws/Irvine eras. We have a club that has sorted out its backroom issues, at least for now. Megson is also being a very responsible manager in the way that he utilises his budget - which at the moment reflects our status as a league 1 club.
One day Milan will get the cheque book out - but he is a shrewd operator and wants to see a solid foundation for any future growth of our club.
It may not be pretty, it may not be delivering attractive football week in, week out, but it is working and we are in with a healthy chance of getting promoted to the Championship. Under Laws and Irvine it was a rollercoaster that was unpleasant for most of the ride. Under Megson's tenure, I look forward to Saturdays, and despite our delayed Christmas slump (the recent run of losses!) I think we are exactly where we should be, better than I anticipated at the the start of the season.
One thing Megson does know is how to get honesty and a strong work ethic from his players. I am fully behind him (I wasn't when he was initially appointed, if I'm honest) he is doing the job he is paid for, and doing it well, consistently and with the best interest of the club at heart.
UTO
posted on 28/2/12
Good post, Shib!
posted on 29/2/12
'The reality is we're a league 1 club at this present time; therefore we can only attract players of the calibre of league 1'
Surely true for every other club in the division? As for budgets, we all know Chalrton signed a fair few players but were we even in for any of them, aside from Danny Green? What about Flynn, Leiscinel or MacDonald at United?
'The odd player hasn't quite lived up to it but that is far, far outweighed by those that have'
At the risk of provoking another hectoring response... names?
Plus noone's addressed the fact that our defence is poor and Megson has let good players leave the club in favour of mediocrity. It took at 5-1 defeat to make him select Reda Johnson. And what about the decision not to allow Beevers to continue on loan at MK Dons and then not even put him on the bench: if he's not good enough for our 16, why not let them have him? Makes no sense. Reynolds did well when he played this season but he goes and we keep Julian Bennett instead.
I could accept the situation if there was some coherent approach to team selection and you could see a long-term plan but there isn't. Maybe the pressure he's under to get us up is making Megson bring in so many loans and make so many changes but it isn't helping. If he thinks someone like Mike Jones is worth signing then give him a run in the team or don't bring him in in the first place.
posted on 29/2/12
First, I can only apologise if me having a differing opinion & entering into the debate is seen as bullying.
I would say every signing has been relatively successful barring Bennett, Bostock & M Jones. One has struggled but still offers a decent option if required & the other 2 have been here 5 minutes & it would be unfair to ultimately judge them at this time.
Football is a constant work in progress & there will be blips upon the way. If you want to keep harping back to a freak result that happened 5 months ago then knock yourself out but I'd rather concentrate on how we reacted to it & that was excellent.
posted on 29/2/12
U11819, our budget is fairly restrictive so the speculation on whether Megson went in for the same players as Charlton, Blunts etc. during either summer or January windows is not something anyone can comment on reliably unless you are in Megson's backroom team.
Megson has been up front, bar giving names out of potential targets, with regard to target signings. We have a wage structure that has been set, we have a transfer budget which has been set. Mandaric won't deviate from the budget whilst we are in this division. He is playing a long game and rightly so. To make acquisitions in a scatter-gun manner and get overpriced signings on pay packets incongruent with league 1 would be madness at this point in our rebuilding process - a policy that has bitten many a club on the backside a fair few times. Not for me I'm afraid. The Uncle Dave Circus has left town and we head towards a new era. Other Legaue 1 rivals are perhaps in a better position to have the odd splash out on a marquee signing; we aren't there yet, but if we go up we will see a revision of budget and transfer kitty to match the division and increased revenues. Like I said, patience is a virtue.
I am not so sure that Megson is a reactive manager, certainly the Stevenage result was a stinker, any manager would react to a hammering. But I don't think Megson has got it wrong that much this season, he knows what is required. Maybe he isn't everyones cup of tea, and focussing on building a defence over an attacking force has irked some of us for sure. For me it is a practical approach to getting out of this league, so far it has worked.
The Beevers decision, says more about Megson's tactical nouse (a wider view than just straightforward team selection policy) when it comes to dealing with rivals. Personally, I rate Beevers and think he has a great future. Megson obviously feels that he is not as reliable as either Baath, Jones or Johnson so he gets benched and MK Dons don't have the luxury of a decent centre half - other posters pointed this one out to me and I actually agree with them now. It makes sense.
Megson has been very shrewd with loan signings, they have been his only real option. We do not have the reserves (financially) so to speak within our normal operational budget to take risks on long term signings - this will be down to the lack of guarantees of gaining promotion; the league table backs this up - we will no doubt improve our financial standing over the next two or three years, this is what Mandaric wants in order for him to sell us to a bigger fish. So permanent signings will come once we are settled in the championship. We may see the odd signing or two this summer but if we are still in League 1 then they won't be the big names that many of us crave for.
posted on 1/3/12
'I would say every signing has been relatively successful barring Bennett, Bostock & M Jones.'
Slightly different than your original assertion that the players who've lived up to it far far outwiegh those that have.. Anyway, for me you can add Rob Jones, Llera, Prutton and O'Grady to your list. Are they any better than Michael Morrison, Reynolds, Tommy Miller, LeFondre? I don't think so (not that I wanted to keep Miller but not much to choose between him and Prutton, in their positions).
posted on 1/3/12
We were never going to get ALF so why do you keep going on about it!
posted on 1/3/12
Massive Mike
I think £350k bid before Reading entered the fray and he'd have been our player; only reason they came sniffing was because he started the season well. Anyway, I'll shut up about it now