I 100% think Dodds could be removed if we fail to get promotion.
Someone in half jest mentioned Loyalty in the modern game is dead. I would argue there’s going to be more loyalty shown to players with Head Coaches seen as a replaceable commodity.
Theres literally more value in any player than there is in a head coach or manager. Its going to be a case of “get these players working or we’ll find someone that will”.
Edit: I also think they would replacement him if a “better” option suddenly becomes available even if we did get promotion.
I have to say I think this has been done to death. But…
None of us can ever know whether promotion would have been achieved this season if MB had stayed in post. We will never know. My instinct for what it is worth is no.
None of us can fully know what happened behind the scenes but it is entirely reasonable for the new owners to wish to change the model to a data driven head coach model in order to achieve longer term success and entirely reasonable for MB to not fancy that model. As it happened he had just had a very good run and got interviews and eventually an offer from a bigger club in a role he was perhaps more comfortable with. I wish him well. Time will tell whether he succeeds at Luton. If he starts next season, he has a good chance of doing well there I would have thought.
It appears that Lomtadze wants to invest significant money in growing the club. Undoubtedly mistakes have and will be made on that journey. I hope its successful and that the torrent of abuse to his staff doesnt make him reconsider. his path feels better than the realistic alternative facing us.
It’s easy to forget we created nothing from open play against Bolton until they chased the game in stoppage time. And even that required a ridiculous defensive error from them.
Ask yourself this: had Bolton opened the scoring from a set piece or deflected shot would we have had it in us to draw level, let alone win? I can’t see how we would have as we have had nothing about our attacking play at all since Dodds took over.
That’s why I thought hat the whole “perfect away performance” review was born more of desperation to cling on to some positives and outcome bias than a genuine thought it was a really positive display.
A perfect away performance - for me anyway - involves sucking an opponent in before hitting them with fast breaks. A good example of this was Stockport vs Wycombe earlier in the season where we gave up possession, but created great chances while restricting them to nothing attacking-wise.
Or how Charlton played against us at Adams Park where they similarly held us at arms length easily while being clinical and creating very good chances even when giving up possession.
That said, agree we played with a little more energy and attacking intent against Orient, but overall we were worse than them and still created absolutely nothing. Why isn’t Mike talking about that.
Don’t talk in generalities about play in possession not being good enough when a child can see we commit almost no one forward and are leaving Kone completely isolated. Does he recognise that having 8 men behind the ball against three attackers when you’re chasing the game with ten mins is not helpful? If not then why are those the instructions? Why never change shape when it’s not been working for at least 6 weeks? Also, the clinging to lucky results and a clean sheet record when it’s totally unsustainable reeks of a man well aware he’s performing badly but needing to convince himself - let alone us - that he’s got it in him to turn it around.
These kinds of things are what make me have no faith he’s the solution.
Thanks to the ignore function, this thread just looks like @Commoner arguing with the voices in his head. I have every one of the people you’re trying to reason with on ignore precisely because none of them can be reasoned with.
We will never know but had he stayed, in the enviroment that had been created, I suspect we may not have been promoted because they did not support him, did not back him and didn’t really want him here.
Had they properly supported and backed him, e.g. tried to sign Morley permanently, kept his staff, perhaps made an earlier contract offer , let him be a final decision maker on signings, then maybe we might have got promoted. One thing is for sure, it wouldn’t have caused him to leave and the football would be a damn lot more exciting than it has been recently.
Your final paragraph, I’m not sure we’ve seen torrents of abuse, certainly not on here and at the games. There has been some booing by a small minority and some idiotic statements on twitter/facebook, it is hardly a torrent.
Only time will tell if ML has our 1st team at heart or something else.
“One thing is for sure, it wouldn’t have caused him to leave and the football would be a damn lot more exciting than it has been recently.”
And that sentence is 100% the reason why it’ll take a lot for Dodds to convince me. Everything he’s said in interviews has made me believe he only cares about clean sheets, solidity and 1-0 wins.
And that’s just mind-numbing football to watch. Win or lose, I’d find it hard to give up my entire Saturday to travel from Vauxhall when I have a young son to maybe see a 1-0 on an xG of 0.48 from 1 shot on target (from a corner.or free kick)
Whereas early season Blooms stuff you couldn’t drag me away from. Even when we weren’t winning it was a joy to watch.
I thought that “offer” was £100k to bring him back on loan for the rest of the season. I’m not aware we made an offer for a permanent deal, I have been informed we did not, because the data said we shouldn’t.
MD has shown us the way once, away at Rotherham and you could argue at home to Shrewsbury.
If he can adjust, find a balance and is not wedded to defence then I’m happy to back him for a bit longer. It doesn’t need to be Gormania or MB 2024 but it needs to be better than 90% of his time with us so far (regardless of the 7 wins and 21 pts he’s achieved).
Not sure that is accurate @Floyd. ML invested significant amounts of money in the first team last summer and again in January. Not the actions of someone who is not interested in the first team.
I disagree, I think we have started a number of games positively. Not scored and then retreated into our shells. Rotherham and Shrewsbury were the two games that when we changed the tempo, we kept our foot on the gas for the remainder of the game.
It’s a mindset thing, stop worrying about what could happen and let’s see what might happen! I think that’s one of the key changes MB made over Xmas 2023. MD could still do the same, I just want him to get there now because we’ve got a play off to win, rather than Xmas 2025!
As I say, we will never know what would have happened if MB had stayed. We also don’t know if we tried to sign Morley permanently or whether Bolton - at the time a promotion rival and wondering whether to change their manager - were interested in selling at a reasonable price.
I would describe the last few days on this forum as torrents of abuse. I imagine Facebook is even worse??