Manager/Coach Des Buckingham

m said:

Seriously, where has all this 'great squad' nonsense come from?

The defence is barely top half of league 1, and the midfield has regulalrly been getting dominated for several seasons.

That's before we mention the non-functioning forwards.

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on an individual basis, player by player, it often makes great reading seeing the team sheet.

the problem, is how they have been playing particularly since Des

As anyone seen or heard of Chris Hackett since his appointment? I saw him come out of hibernation for 5 minutes in a recent home game but that’s it.

m said:

Seriously, where has all this 'great squad' nonsense come from?

The defence is barely top half of league 1, and the midfield has regulalrly been getting dominated for several seasons.

That's before we mention the non-functioning forwards.

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Surely it's better than 18th though?
Because on PPG that's how 'well' we've done since Buckingham took over.

We've not just slipped a bit, we've fallen off a cliff. If we had achieved even the 10th (yes, tenth) best form since Buckingham took over, we'd still be 2nd.

Let that sink in.

m said:

Seriously, where has all this 'great squad' nonsense come from?

The defence is barely top half of league 1, and the midfield has regulalrly been getting dominated for several seasons.

That's before we mention the non-functioning forwards.

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I think we always overate the players we have, assuming most fans do, it then makes a convenient stick to beat a manager you want out with.

I don’t think anyone is queuing up to sign the defence we put out yesterday, Negru, Brown and Long are between average and below average for the division, they looked it yesterday. We still don’t have a strong holding centre midfielder, considering how many people on here claim to be experts on league one football and knew so much about Matete he must have a physical twin brother who is a holding midfielder because that’s not how this one plays at all.

It’s not a promotion team/squad, we over performed, on the other hand we are now underperforming and most worryingly look an unorganised mess, enough in the squad to at least look like a mid table league one side (which we probably are) but Buckingham has us playing as a relegation battling.

In short, we have an average league one squad that has cost a lot of money to put together, managed by a below average manager who has cost a lot of money to employ and has a long contract. All a big disappointment after a bright start.

holdsteady said:

I think we always overate the players we have, assuming most fans do, it then makes a convenient stick to beat a manager you want out with.

I don’t think anyone is queuing up to sign the defence we put out yesterday, Negru, Brown and Long are between average and below average for the division, they looked it yesterday. We still don’t have a strong holding centre midfielder, considering how many people on here claim to be experts on league one football and knew so much about Matete he must have a physical twin brother who is a holding midfielder because that’s not how this one plays at all.

It’s not a promotion team/squad, we over performed, on the other hand we are now underperforming and most worryingly look an unorganised mess, enough in the squad to at least look like a mid table league one side (which we probably are) but Buckingham has us playing as a relegation battling.

In short, we have an average league one squad that has cost a lot of money to put together, managed by a below average manager who has cost a lot of money to employ and has a long contract. All a big disappointment after a bright start.

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Matete.

He’s been out with a serious injury for a year.

He’s gonna take a while to get to the previous levels he set.

billyturleyscurlywurly said:

Matete.

He’s been out with a serious injury for a year.

He’s gonna take a while to get to the previous levels he set.

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Probably, but I don’t think he is a physical holding midfielder. One of the big problems of having Brannagan and him as a midfield two yesterday was quite often they both went chasing and charging all over the place left a huge gap in front of the centre backs which Orient exploited.

Play those two as the centre midfield against Pompey and Bolton and we will get turned over at least once, someone has to actually hold.

holdsteady said:

I think we always overate the players we have, assuming most fans do, it then makes a convenient stick to beat a manager you want out with.

I don’t think anyone is queuing up to sign the defence we put out yesterday, Negru, Brown and Long are between average and below average for the division, they looked it yesterday. We still don’t have a strong holding centre midfielder, considering how many people on here claim to be experts on league one football and knew so much about Matete he must have a physical twin brother who is a holding midfielder because that’s not how this one plays at all.

It’s not a promotion team/squad, we over performed, on the other hand we are now underperforming and most worryingly look an unorganised mess, enough in the squad to at least look like a mid table league one side (which we probably are) but Buckingham has us playing as a relegation battling.

In short, we have an average league one squad that has cost a lot of money to put together, managed by a below average manager who has cost a lot of money to employ and has a long contract. All a big disappointment after a bright start.

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The manager should be a big part of the conversation when discussing the players. It's a pointless exercise going over each one but across the squad there are only a couple of exceptions to looking an absolute shadow of themselves compared with Manning's time here. Perhaps at their natural ability, you wouldn't have clubs queueing up for them. But managers get recognised for punching above their weight and for that to happen you need players bursting through their perceived ceiling. He had 5 or 6 in that category in a very short time. you're quite right to look at them now and see them as bang average or worse in most cases but its very difficult to work out who had them playing true to their ability and who had coached them to the level we see/saw from them.

holdsteady said:

I think we always overate the players we have, assuming most fans do, it then makes a convenient stick to beat a manager you want out with.

I don’t think anyone is queuing up to sign the defence we put out yesterday, Negru, Brown and Long are between average and below average for the division, they looked it yesterday. We still don’t have a strong holding centre midfielder, considering how many people on here claim to be experts on league one football and knew so much about Matete he must have a physical twin brother who is a holding midfielder because that’s not how this one plays at all.

It’s not a promotion team/squad, we over performed, on the other hand we are now underperforming and most worryingly look an unorganised mess, enough in the squad to at least look like a mid table league one side (which we probably are) but Buckingham has us playing as a relegation battling.

In short, we have an average league one squad that has cost a lot of money to put together, managed by a below average manager who has cost a lot of money to employ and has a long contract. All a big disappointment after a bright start.

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It may take more windows than we thought to turn this squad around.
We need to start shifting the dead wood this summer.
The money from the high earners and injury prone players needs to be used more wisely.
We need to start recruiting technically astute players that are robust and have a physical presence about them.
These are the type of players that will give us a chance of promotion from this league.
Whether that's with the current head coach or someone else time will tell.

billyturleyscurlywurly said:

Matete.

He’s been out with a serious injury for a year.

He’s gonna take a while to get to the previous levels he set.

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And there in lies our issue of the last transfer window

Swaby39 said:

They were blessed that Manning was not only prepared to do that but also highly effective at it. All the more hilarious that I’m doing so he was thrust in to the shop window and they rather pathetically cried foul that this bloke that they’d put out there to market the club had actually also managed to market himself quite well and attract a bigger fish so quickly.

Manning took all the highs and lows in his stride and faced the music of the relegation battle and the promotion pressure that mounted in an almost inch perfect way. He deflected virtually all attention away from the club’s problems that he would’ve known were there and redirected it in to what was shaping up to be a very effective football team. He fronted up virtually anything he was asked but did so while keeping an incredibly committed group - nobody was downing tools on Manning for making Josh Murphy an absolute last resort and Sonny Perkins invisible. They understood and respected the regime and that smacked you in the face every time you watched the team - it was almost military organisation.

They were absolutely blessed to have him and failure to recognise that and tie down their long term futures - at least long enough to see how we could’ve done this season - will go down as one of Tim Williams’ biggest failings at the club to those with only an outsider perspective (I.e. not a fly on the wall to witness what I’m sure are worse things).

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The best/worst part is that he and Ferguson actually did the hard bit and then totally cocked it up in terms of the execution. They didn’t go for the easy option in Appleton, which would’ve made them popular with a good chunk of fans, although they didn’t go for Manning either to start with. McCann was supposedly at the front of the queue and turned it down, because at the final stages of the process the club insisted on a break clause in the event of relegation and he wouldn’t have it, hence him going from TBA to Manning being appointed out of nowhere inside 48 hours.

Manning accepted the terms, but in the process The Chuckles left themselves totally exposed in the event that he was a success because he only had a rolling deal. No security; pay us a year’s salary and he’s yours. They also let him sack off existing staff and build his own team, even though they had no leverage and no way of stopping the whole lot walking away. It was actually breathtaking how badly they failed to safeguard the club’s own position. On a spreadsheet it probably looked like great business - cheap outlay with easy routes out of it failed - but in real terms it was an absolute disaster class in asset protection in the event it went well. It was pure arrogance and naivety on a massive scale.

To go from getting Manning for free and giving him a deal that was geared towards the club easily being able to dispose of him if he flopped, to paying a relative fortune for Buckingham and giving him a deal geared towards the idea of him achieving nothing but success - while also letting the guy they didn’t trust to tie down rip up the staff, yet refusing to support the guy they gave a 3.5 year contract to in the most basic fashion - is quite incredible. They did absolutely everything wrong.

Thomas/Brock/Jones said:

New rules mean that only one member of the coaching/ management team are allowed in the technical area at any time so that's not quite correct.

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I’m well aware of those rules, but they are generally not observed by the opposition at our ground- I often see assistants entering the forbidden zone to gee up there players .

Maybe Des is too nice .

Jster said:

Appleton's record after 19 games - 5 wins, 6 draws, 8 losses. That's one point less than Des, I wasn't here then, but out of interest, what was the mood here re Appleton at that stage?

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The thing is, with MApp, he'd inherited a really shite squad, but you could see he had a way he wanted the team to play, and once he got to the January transfer window, and brought in a few players of his own, we started to improve dramatically, and finished the season strongly, before he then strengthened the squad even more over the summer, with some superb signings.

I don't see this with Des, as he's inherited a half decent squad, that was 2nd in the league, but he immediately seemed out of his depth, and our performances have continued to get worse and worse, and even after a January window, where he brought in a number of his own players, and we've now got arguably an even better squad than we had under Manning, we've continued to look very poor, with no signs of improvement at any point.

That's what's concerning me more than the results to be honest, it's how poor we've looked under Des, with seemingly no meaningful tactics, no direction, and no cohesion or clarity in any of our play. That's down to the manager and his coaches, and Des still looks out of his depth I'm afraid.

For me, he gets until the end of the season, but if there's no clear sign of improvement between now and then, then I'd want the club to start looking at alternative options, before the next transfer window opens...

SirAndyOfCrosby said:

Surely it's better than 18th though?
Because on PPG that's how 'well' we've done since Buckingham took over.

We've not just slipped a bit, we've fallen off a cliff. If we had achieved even the 10th (yes, tenth) best form since Buckingham took over, we'd still be 2nd.

Let that sink in.

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It is better than 18th, comfortably.

And that's why it will finish above 18th, comfortably.

SirAndyOfCrosby said:

Surely it's better than 18th though?
Because on PPG that's how 'well' we've done since Buckingham took over.

We've not just slipped a bit, we've fallen off a cliff. If we had achieved even the 10th (yes, tenth) best form since Buckingham took over, we'd still be 2nd.

Let that sink in.

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When you put it like that it really does go to show just how bad of a job he's doing.

RyanioBirdio said:

The best/worst part is that he and Ferguson actually did the hard bit and then totally cocked it up in terms of the execution. They didn’t go for the easy option in Appleton, which would’ve made them popular with a good chunk of fans, although they didn’t go for Manning either to start with. McCann was supposedly at the front of the queue and turned it down, because at the final stages of the process the club insisted on a break clause in the event of relegation and he wouldn’t have it, hence him going from TBA to Manning being appointed out of nowhere inside 48 hours.

Manning accepted the terms, but in the process The Chuckles left themselves totally exposed in the event that he was a success because he only had a rolling deal. No security; pay us a year’s salary and he’s yours. They also let him sack off existing staff and build his own team, even though they had no leverage and no way of stopping the whole lot walking away. It was actually breathtaking how badly they failed to safeguard the club’s own position. On a spreadsheet it probably looked like great business - cheap outlay with easy routes out of it failed - but in real terms it was an absolute disaster class in asset protection in the event it went well. It was pure arrogance and naivety on a massive scale.

To go from getting Manning for free and giving him a deal that was geared towards the club easily being able to dispose of him if he flopped, to paying a relative fortune for Buckingham and giving him a deal geared towards the idea of him achieving nothing but success - while also letting the guy they didn’t trust to tie down rip up the staff, yet refusing to support the guy they gave a 3.5 year contract to in the most basic fashion - is quite incredible. They did absolutely everything wrong.

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Add to that the failure to sack Robinson in the autumn of last season when the majority of fans could clearly see Robinson had completely lost the plot and was far more in interested in the women’s team than the team he was actually supposed to be managing.

With an ideal interim manager on the staff, namely John Mousiniho ready and waiting to be given a chance. This isn’t hindsight, many were saying this at the time.

It’s a catalogue of avoidable failures.

Tim maybe a good accountant, I don’t know, but he for sure isn’t a good CEO.

Mad Dog said:

The thing is, with MApp, he'd inherited a really shite squad, but you could see he had a way he wanted the team to play, and once he got to the January transfer window, and brought in a few players of his own, we started to improve dramatically, and finished the season strongly, before he then strengthened the squad even more over the summer, with some superb signings.

I don't see this with Des, as he's inherited a half decent squad, that was 2nd in the league, but he immediately seemed out of his depth, and our performances have continued to get worse and worse, and even after a January window, where he brought in a number of his own players, and we've now got arguably an even better squad than we had under Manning, we've continued to look very poor, with no signs of improvement at any point.

That's what's concerning me more than the results to be honest, it's how poor we've looked under Des, with seemingly no meaningful tactics, no direction, and no cohesion or clarity in any of our play. That's down to the manager and his coaches, and Des still looks out of his depth I'm afraid.

For me, he gets until the end of the season, but if there's no clear sign of improvement between now and then, then I'd want the club to start looking at alternative options, before the next transfer window opens...

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What Appleton also had was someone football savvy behind the scenes in Mark Ashton.

After his poor start, Appleton was taken into a meeting where he was asked to explain what was going on and how he was going to turn it around. To his credit, he obviously convinced people he knew the way forward and over time he was able to back that up with great football and the results on the pitch. But once he'd been given the opportunity to show what he wanted to do, he was also backed to do it.

Appleton was brilliant for us and he also did a good job at Lincoln, but fans of Blackpool and Charlton will look at him as a failure of an appointment. To me, that shows the importance of having the right people in the right structure behind the scenes as well. If I think back to 2016 then it would be inconceivable to me that Appleton was going to be anything other than a huge success in management.

Obviously this isn't to say that Buckingham is the second coming of Appleton. It's more the point that at a crossroads moment of Appleton's time here, we had people above him who knew what to do. As a result, Appleton will be remembered as a massive success, but it could've been so different.

holdsteady said:

Probably, but I don’t think he is a physical holding midfielder. One of the big problems of having Brannagan and him as a midfield two yesterday was quite often they both went chasing and charging all over the place left a huge gap in front of the centre backs which Orient exploited.

Play those two as the centre midfield against Pompey and Bolton and we will get turned over at least once, someone has to actually hold.

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Matete was one of, if not the best holding midfield players in L1 in the past 2 years .
Not sure anybody in Sunderland or Plymouth would disagree with that.

Foley said:

Matete was one of, if not the best holding midfield players in L1 in the past 2 years .
Not sure anybody in Sunderland or Plymouth would disagree with that.

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Another good player that Des has managed to make s**t.

Foley said:

Matete was one of, if not the best holding midfield players in L1 in the past 2 years .
Not sure anybody in Sunderland or Plymouth would disagree with that.

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Was he a holding midfielder? He hasn't played like that here.

Hopefully its just rustiness, because he has been pretty bad so far, although with only 11 games left we may never see the best of him.

I've generally taken a swerve of this thread. It's reactionary and an evident chance for the 'I told you so''s to stick more knives in. On Monday, we can better reflect on things.

Consider why Buckingham was appointed - he is a continuity candidate. He could come in and continue what Manning had started here and his CV suggests that would be the case. He sounds like Manning in the language that he uses and approaches that he deploys. He's young, has been coaching since 2004 and has had increasingly more challenging roles each time he has moved on and hasn't had a single blip along the way. He was appointed as a manager of Mumbai City - one of 12 CFG men's teams - and has achieved titles and ACL qualification with them. 10 years and 6 months of his experience was also gained in professional football in England too. I don't buy that he doesn't have experience from here. Kieran McKenna (Ipswich) and Michael Skubala (Lincoln) have less experience than DB at EFL level. His appointment makes a lot of sense.

I heard on RadOx and on here that 'he's got to go!' To what end though? To roll the dice and hope AN Other is better and takes us into the playoffs? As Jerome said on WATG, do we want to be that team? He's here and will be until into 2023-24 unless something catastrophic happens. Just because we were 2nd for a time, it never meant we were going to stay there nor had a divine right to hold that place. Does a defence of Long, Negru, Brown and Leigh say automatic promotion? It doesn't to me. We've seen that there are at least five teams better than us this season and some of them were seen when Manning was here.

However, things now have to be improved under DB. I don't think we're promotion fodder and never were with too much of KR's carnage of a final year impacting this side (huge sums of money tied up in Browne and Henry who don't play, and Murphy and Bodin who don't play enough) so this season was always about big improvement from 2022-23 and then a good summer this year to made a better game of it. That said, DB has had a good January, plenty of those who were injured are back and it looks far more like his team yet we we aren't seeing a great deal of change. Play is ponderous and results mediocre to poor. It is getting harder to make excuses from a playing perspective.

Some of those excuses definitely extend to those above DB. There are separate threads on that. The Assistant Manager episode is an embarrassment and I feel for DB in having to face the media and make up a flimsy excuse for why it didn't happen.

And if anyone wants Appleton, give your head a wobble. His career in management looks done. Too many slow starts, too many poor jobs and he's achieved just as much as Karl Robinson has. That ship has sailed.