Was Pep our worst ever manager?

[Corporate_Clive]

Got to agree with Tim (for once) here. And I would add that it would have been tricky for anyone to take over a side that had just lost - or was about to lose - its most potent threat (Johnson) and midfield kingpin and dressing room leader (Lundstram) for fees that were then not reinvested, apparently because the same inflated market that brought in 3 million plus for those guys also applied to cheaper players. Not many clubs at our level could see 4 million come in and zero reinvested without subsequently feeling the pinch on the pitch.
I strongly suspect that Pep got the job by convincing Darryl that he was the man who could assemble a top 7 side all from free transfers. Thus enabling DE to have cake and eat it.
But....... But.. ..... from the moment I saw the Blackpool away game I knew that we had an incompetent manager on our hands. And, when I heard his post match interview that day, I realised that he was also dangerously delusional. From that game on, we have averaged 1 point per game.
That this happened at around the time when his ideas and strategy should have been bedding down (in a positive way) just shows how poor he was. To coax relegation form from a top 10 budget, notwithstanding the issues with Eales, must place him somewhere in the pantheon of OUFC crapness. But, at the same time, leaving with the club in mid-table is not in the same category as what Patto managed, Talbot or Rix. League 1 (unlike the Conference and League 2) is always going to be competitive for a club of our type, so you would need to do a Kemp to compare to the aforementioned disaster areas.

DE stated @ FF it was a top 4 budget.

 

[Corporate_Clive]

Got to agree with Tim (for once) here. And I would add that it would have been tricky for anyone to take over a side that had just lost - or was about to lose - its most potent threat (Johnson) and midfield kingpin and dressing room leader (Lundstram) for fees that were then not reinvested, apparently because the same inflated market that brought in 3 million plus for those guys also applied to cheaper players. Not many clubs at our level could see 4 million come in and zero reinvested without subsequently feeling the pinch on the pitch.
I strongly suspect that Pep got the job by convincing Darryl that he was the man who could assemble a top 7 side all from free transfers. Thus enabling DE to have cake and eat it.
But....... But.. ..... from the moment I saw the Blackpool away game I knew that we had an incompetent manager on our hands. And, when I heard his post match interview that day, I realised that he was also dangerously delusional. From that game on, we have averaged 1 point per game.
That this happened at around the time when his ideas and strategy should have been bedding down (in a positive way) just shows how poor he was. To coax relegation form from a top 10 budget, notwithstanding the issues with Eales, must place him somewhere in the pantheon of OUFC crapness. But, at the same time, leaving with the club in mid-table is not in the same category as what Patto managed, Talbot or Rix. League 1 (unlike the Conference and League 2) is always going to be competitive for a club of our type, so you would need to do a Kemp to compare to the aforementioned disaster areas.

I 100% agree Sir.

 

[mooro]

Smith took over, failed to keep us up, and then set what I think was a conference record for matches unbeaten before the wheels truly fell-off and we dropped off top spot and lost to Exeter in the play-offs.

Given the unbeaten run, and that we finished in the top 4 the next season, I don't think that stint warrants mention in this conversation.

Had someone kept us up (and I think Patto would have on that occasion), the next period in our history need never have happened....!!
Saying that, I'm not pitching him for worst, just mentioning in dispatches

 

[unification]

That's interesting when Jim took over we had seen better results under Patterson whether that would have lasted who knows (Patterson himself proved a failure later on). The fact is that the whole club was a complete shambles by this point. Kassam had all but wrecked us, then that season cashed in on some good players (Davies) and appointed Talbot who was clueless and was unable to sign a decent striker (Sabin anyone). The squad before and after the takeover was mostly poor or worse. Jim tried to change things around too fast and i think underestimated just how pants we were, a more steady approach like Patterson employed was probably better. The only good thing Jim did at this time was sign Ntoya who showed us what a real striker looked like.

Yes we were relegated but we were also a basket case waiting to happen. It is one thing for a manager to take over a wreck and fail to quickly fix it, but something much worse for a manager to take something half decent a totally wreck it (Rix or indeed Pep). Overall I think Jim's second spell wasn't great and certainly got off to a poor start but not the worst we have had.

I’ll stick up for Talbot in some respects. Whilst I don’t want to totally absolve him of blame (his striker search was ridiculous – all the eggs in one basket over the criminally minded Onandi Lowe and then woeful loanees to fill the gaps in Andy Campbell and *shudder* Neville Roach), there was at least a semblance of a plan on the pitch and his post-match interviews at least acknowledged he knew what the problems were but was powerless to do anything about them due to FK’s cost-cutting. Compare that with Rix who offered a contract to anything that moved (Danny Morgan signed based on a trial against Stevenage Reserves where Rix left at half time!) and tried about five different formations each match as though he was coaching Chelsea still. Talbot was possibly over-celebrated due to his success at Rushden & Diamonds, but I figure his failure was more down to circumstances than being a genuinely poor manager.

All his team needed was tweaking to turn them into a mid-table side that would have avoided relegation. Patto was in the process of doing that but Smith went in too hard. A new left back to replace the past-it Matt Robinson (Warren Goodhind was a loanee that we should have signed), a CB to replace the disinterested Jon Ashton and a focal point striker in Tcham N’Toya would have seen us alright. Instead, the likes of Guatelli, Horsted, Tim Sills etc joined and it disrupted everything. Added to that for every point we earned, Torquay and Stockport seemed to earn three, relegation only looked likely after we lost to Northampton.

I’d love to speak to someone who was a close witness to all of that demise to find out really what happened c. 2004-2006. I bet barely a third of it ever came out to the press. It was a truly messy time for Oxford even if the Diaz era lifted the gloom for a few months.