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 Michael Appleton

tonyw said:
Woah there - I'm not Karl Robinson's biggest fan but even I can see that, before he arrived, Clotet and co. had taken Appleton's squad and replaced Dunkley, Sercombe, Skarz, Maguire, Lundstram and Marvin Johnson with Xemi, Tiendalli, Obika, Van Kessel, Pekalski and Mike Williamson (and James Henry, to be fair, so they at least got one right).

KR messed up plenty, but you can't really blame him for decimating Appleton's legacy - it was already mostly on the scrap heap before he arrived!
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I'd say Mous was a better example of a replacement for Dunkley, he was excellent for us. Skarz was replaced by Ricardinho who was clearly good enough for that level even if he was slowing down and Jack Payne was pretty good for us. Before KR joined we also added Dickie and Brannagan so despite so mental signings as you listed the back half of that season we could still field a midfield of Brannagan, Ledson and Rothwell with Henry and Hall (when fit) wide and a backline of Todd Kane, Nelson, Mous and Ricardinho with Dickie as back up in front of pre shouder injury, prime Eastwood. Some may have been on the way out and there were the likes of Tiendalli and Williamson stinking out the place but that team still had a fair bit of talent and had no business being down the bottom end of League One.

On Appleton, I loved out time under him once he got going and we consistently played some of the best football we've seen at the Kassam but he was given a hell of a squad to work with and only made the autos on the final day despite having the best team in the division. Great cup runs though and he deserves to be remembered fondly as one of only a handful of managers in the last 30 years to win promotion but I wonder how much was a product of how well run we were off the pitch at the time with Ashton running the day to day and Mark Thomas looking after recruitment until Pep got his hands on it. I remember feeling like we were on an almsot unstoppable upwards trajectory until Eales' divorce, there's been plenty of chat around how well run the likes of Brentford and Brighton are and we felt like a lower league version of that.
 
unification said:
I agree. It's an oft made point that we somehow didn't win the title that season as a result of our 'keepers. Neither Slocombe or Buchel would get anywhere near our top 10 GKs of all time but neither were dreadful. Buchel made one of the best saves I've seen live away at Barnet and Slocombe was top class in the win against Swansea in the FA Cup for instance.

The only game I can recall where 'keeper errors actually led to us losing points was Mansfield at home. Otherwise, any other goalkeeper errors (Buchel away at Wimbledon, Slocombe away at Stevenage) were largely countered by us scoring enough goals to win the game instead.

I put the title going to Northampton that year down to two things:

1. Our home form - Six defeats and seven draws at home didn't help. We scored 37 goals at home and 47 away. We travelled really well but didn't quite match that with the home form.
2. Northampton's absurd consistency - After game 22 on 19th December, Northampton did not lose a single match until the end of the season. They went 24 matches unbeaten including a spell of 10 wins in a row amongst a spell of 15 wins in 16 matches. They may have scored fewer goals than us, let in more and not been the best team that season (hehe), but they were relentless.
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I think our team had a lot of youngsters on the way up whereas they were more seasoned pros, we came higher than them the next season in league one, we sold more players on for good money, we did better in the cups and laid the foundations to push on higher in the football league, whereas they were a team built for one season.

Given what has happened after you would be a bit foolish to swap positions with them really, they were a team built around Wilder and his personality, crumbled afterwards and can't seem to get established in league one.
 
unification said:
I put the title going to Northampton that year down to two things:

1. Our home form - Six defeats and seven draws at home didn't help. We scored 37 goals at home and 47 away. We travelled really well but didn't quite match that with the home form.
2. Northampton's absurd consistency - After game 22 on 19th December, Northampton did not lose a single match until the end of the season. They went 24 matches unbeaten including a spell of 10 wins in a row amongst a spell of 15 wins in 16 matches. They may have scored fewer goals than us, let in more and not been the best team that season (hehe), but they were relentless.
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And 3. Luck

They were a fully committed, well organized side with a great manager. But they played in 23 games decided by a single goal in 2015/16 and won 20 of them.
However "Clutch" and discliplined you are, there's no way that can happen without getting some fortuitous bounces of the ball and/or some helpful reffing.
 
tonyw said:
And 3. Luck

They were a fully committed, well organized side with a great manager. But they played in 23 games decided by a single goal in 2015/16 and won 20 of them.
However "Clutch" and discliplined you are, there's no way that can happen without getting some fortuitous bounces of the ball and/or some helpful reffing.
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The home game against is a case in point.

A dubious penalty converted by Marc Richards, I believe.
 
MJB said:
I know he's well before Appleton's time, but Matt Murphy was within both the "amazing" and "b*****s" player threshold.
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Well if we are broadening the parameters of the game, then there are certainly many players who fall into the "should have been amazing (for the level) but were actually b*****s" category.

Lewis Haldane, anyone?
 
Emilio said:
Well if we are broadening the parameters of the game, then there are certainly many players who fall into the "should have been amazing (for the level) but were actually b*****s" category.

Lewis Haldane, anyone?
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Joel Legister - Looked a proper athlete in a league full of tubby defenders and glacial midfielders. Couldn’t beat a man not offer anything useful.

Jon Obika - Looked like he could be good at everything but in reality wasn’t good at anything.

Ben Futcher - 6’7’’ but couldn’t jump. Maybe he thought he didn’t need to?

Isaac Buckley-Ricketts/Ashley Smith-Brown - The double barrelled duo had all the pedigree and none of the talent.

Courtney Pitt - Once scouted by Barcelona but ended up being the first piece of evidence that Graham Rix was an utterly inept manager.

Dan Crowley - Fancy dan who MApp didn’t take to.

Ben Woodburn - By no means bad but he was regularly outshone by ‘lesser’ players with more lower league experience than him.
 
unification said:
Jon Obika - Looked like he could be good at everything but in reality wasn’t good at anything.
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I have to disagree vociferously with this as he was fantastic at step overs. Once he got into a rhythm then multiple step overs could follow to mesmerise the defender into falling asleep*.

Everything else, I absolutely agree.


*I can only assume they have as he occasionally beat an opposition player.
 
MJB said:
I know he's well before Appleton's time, but Matt Murphy was within both the "amazing" and "b*****s" player threshold.
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Hugely underrated - scored over 1 goal in every 3 games he started for us from midfield - can you imagine the plaudits a player would get today if they scored over 15 goals this Season from that position?
 
Wallop said:
Hugely underrated - scored over 1 goal in every 3 games he started for us from midfield - can you imagine the plaudits a player would get today if they scored over 15 goals this Season from that position?
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I think he got 18 or 19 one year. But equally he could look hopeless and didn't have much of a career before or after us.
 
werthersoriginal said:
I think he got 18 or 19 one year. But equally he could look hopeless and didn't have much of a career before or after us.
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17 in 1999/00. And he scored at Championship level for us and had a decent goalscoring record at L1 level for us.

Think he got tainted by our fall down the FL, even though the club was starting to implode. Even though he was part of our rise back up to the Championship.
 
It’s a long time ago now but, and we had been spoilt with some of the talent we had seen in just the few years before in the likes of Joey, Magilton, Windass, Simpson etc, I remember him as a good finisher coming from deep but not a lot else to his game? The goals did a lot of making up for that for me but some wanted more than that and it wasn’t really his game, he was a deep lying poacher.
 
Marked Ox said:
I have to disagree vociferously with this as he was fantastic at step overs. Once he got into a rhythm then multiple step overs could follow to mesmerise the defender into falling asleep*.

Everything else, I absolutely agree.


*I can only assume they have as he occasionally beat an opposition player.
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I don't think Jon Obika did a proper step over tbh. It was more like a roll of the ball under the foot. I kept thinking he was better than he was. He looked the part and ran around a bit. Same with Pat Hoban- I really wanted him to be good, but he never was.
 
Northernyellow said:
I don't think Jon Obika did a proper step over tbh. It was more like a roll of the ball under the foot. I kept thinking he was better than he was. He looked the part and ran around a bit. Same with Pat Hoban- I really wanted him to be good, but he never was.
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I don't think that Appleton and his recruitment team were particularly good at identifying strikers. Although Appleton had left before Obika was signed, I think the signing was decided upon before Clotet was appointed, especially looking at the signings that followed.
 
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