Time to go for Evatt?

No win in 6 games and closer to the bottom 2 than the top of the table so is it time for Evatt to go?

If you think so, then who would you want to replace him? My choice would be the Cowley brothers.

If you think he should stay then what does he need to change to get this very disjointed team playing well?

I think he needs to be given the full season, and hopefully finish it with a few better players than are on show at present.
He's clearly frustrated, and with good reason, but I don't think pulling the trigger now would be the answer.
As for Cowley, he was sacked by Huddersfield and is currently working with his brother at the University of Lincoln.
Not sure he, or they, are the answer.

Definitely time to go.

I can't see any signs of encouragement so what is the point of keeping him on? Can you imagine what would happen to this club if we fell out of the Football League?

Go now, get Jamie Vermiglio in.

Natasha Whittam wrote:Definitely time to go.

I can't see any signs of encouragement so what is the point of keeping him on? Can you imagine what would happen to this club if we fell out of the Football League?

Go now, get Jamie Vermiglio in.

The players he has got they should be top 7 at least, we have conceded more goals in the 1st 15 minutes of games than any other team in the league, we take 7 or 8 passes in our own half inviting pressure and forcing Doyle to come and look for the ball, this is all down to his poor tactics, Doyle is a 30 goal a season striker at this level but has no one at the side of him, he needs to be sacked Sunday morning but he will speak to the owner and blame someone else like the referee that is a distraction getting sent off and reporting the ref to the fa, couple of month back he put all the blame on the director of football and brought some time poor manager and should have gone before the salford game

Keep him and back him, but I want to see a few changes.

I preferred us with three at the back, we looked more secure than we do now - I don’t trust Delaney or Baptiste in a 2 and actually the centre backs pushing on when in possession gave us an extra threat. 

Gnahoua has to start now, he wasted a great chance to equalise today but he’s got more energy than Isgrove/Delf combined. Go back to 3-5-2 and start him alongside Doyle.

We need proper width, Jackson provided a good outball and Santos and Sarc kept looking for that diagonal - but he’s restricted at full back and we don’t hVe an out all in Jones. So let’s get two wing backs in and back this system to the end of the season. I’d rather watch us try and plays entertaining  football and see if we can make that work than go back to long ball and holing out for clean sheets.

blue66 wrote:The players he has got they should be top 7 at least, we have conceded more goals in the 1st 15 minutes of games than any other team in the league, we take 7 or 8 passes in our own half inviting pressure and forcing Doyle to come and look for the ball, this is all down to his poor tactics, Doyle is a 30 goal a season striker at this level but has no one at the side of him, he needs to be sacked Sunday morning but he will speak to the owner and blame someone else like the referee that is a distraction getting sent off and reporting the ref to the fa, couple of month back he put all the blame on the director of football and brought some time poor manager and should have gone before the salford game

Hi mate, great first post!

I can't see him being sacked now though for a number of reasons, namely even though we have played badly most of the season I don't think we will get relegated this season and as we clearly aren't going to be in with a chance of promotion then there isn't much urgency to do anything right now,

Linked to that, we are near the end of the transfer window so whoever came in would only inherit the players we have now, half of which will be leaving at the end of the season anyway when their contracts are up.

Then on top of that we clearly don't have the money to buy out the contracts of managers (and their staff) who are currently in jobs at other clubs we may want, so if we are to sack him its probably better to wait for FV to identify who they do want to replace him with as and when they become available (out of work and cheap in other words),

I'd stick with him personally, hopefully he's had a bit of a short, sharp, learning curve this season - and hopefully learnt greatly from it.  Don't forget he was Manager of the Month in November - just two months back!

Clearly somebody made a massive mistake by having no plan B if Crellin failed and we've not had a left sided midfield or defence all season either.  I don't know where the blame lays for that but simply sorting out those to obvious faults will make us stronger and maybe that will begin to show in the second half of the season - hopefully anyway.

If we do pot him then I suggest it will be towards the end of the season, when we've lined up his replacement, and they can then have the summer and pre-season to identify and bring in players who he wants to hopefully take us forward for that point on.

We need to see progress... granted, he was dealt a bad deck but at least we had a team.  Now his two top picks are injured.  Perhaps he has not been lucky.  Glad to see him throw a tantrum today... he should do that with the players.  They wouldn't be playing half heartedly for BSA.  Shore up the defense please and start to show progress... it only takes a three-game winning streak to move up to a playoff position... but unless the team shows fight, we will be back here next season.  At least we will be back.

I saw Evatts interview after the game and he sounded deluded to me. Saying we were the better team and it's all the ref's fault. The pressure is getting to him but does he have the experience to turn this around?

Our recent managers have all had the same pickle to deal with - that is, no money - embargo - and one financial crisis after the other - can only bring in cast off's and loan players.
Now the embargo is up in May I believe - so we need another season to get some decent players in and maybe longer than that.
So firing Ian is a no from me for the moment.

I understand the frustration as a lot of fans have ridiculous expectations for this year, perhaps because of the pre-season hype - but personally I'm just glad we exist and that we really don't look like getting relegated again.

Evatt was brought in to create a team playing the brand of football that served him so well at Barrow and it's an entertaining style I'd like to see if he can pull it off.
What's clear is that if you're going to play expansive possession-based football you need the right players to do it and let's be honest - we haven't.
Given that Evatt only recently got control of the transfer budget I reckon the experiment is really only just beginning and I'd like to see how his own signings perform in his system. So far, Johnson looks competent and has the control required. Not sure about the winger yet but Lee, with his eye for the forward pass makes sense when he's up to match speed. We haven't even seen John yet.
Losing Kioso was a blow seeing as we now looking threatening on the left at last, only to lose our main threat on the right.
Seems to me that due to injuries, players leaving, other people's signings or for whatever reason Evatt just hasn't got the balance right yet and that is the frustrating thing as we are not a million miles off being decent so I spend my dosh every week in the hope that this time it will come together - only to be disappointed again.
Despite that, I'd like to see the experiment through - ideally when Evatt has had a full summer window to make it work. We chop and change far too much and at least the Evatt experiment has a huge upside in that if he does pull it off we'll have a great team playing good football to watch. Much better than panicking or pandering to delusion expectations and bringing in another false Messiah like we did with Mugson - be careful what you wish for!

Another pertinent aspect is that I'd be surprised if we could even afford to can Evatt - I'd prefer to see the money on the pitch and I'm prepared to suffer the growing pains, even if it takes a year or two.

Once we are out of the embargo, rather than getting the scraps of the out of contracts players, we hopefully will be able buy players we actually want.  I don’t think we should get rid of Evatt, we are still building the foundations.  I would have thought they’d be done by now but hey ho

Norpig wrote:I saw Evatts interview after the game and he sounded deluded to me. Saying we were the better team and it's all the ref's fault. The pressure is getting to him but does he have the experience to turn this around?

Harsh to call him deluded IMO. I’d say it was quite even but we made stupid mistakes. We had a spell in the second half when we looked a cut above but it was short lived - as always.

The ref was poor but Delaney had a shocker (regardless if it was a sending off or not) and I’d hope behind closed doors Evatt’s planning to drop him.

People seem to be under the impression we are at a financial disadvantage compared to other clubs in this league.

But who has spent big apart from Salford?

Isn't it a fact we were able to sign League 2's leading goalscorer on a 3 year contract (oh dear) and the captain of promoted Plymouth?

The manager has been backed, all these players are here because he brought them to the club. What have people seen from this manager to suggest he's going to suddenly bring in better players to push us up the league?

It looks like wishful thinking to me.

Don’t know the truth but some would argue Phoenix had a larger say in recruitment. Very hit and miss so far whoever’s responsible - but that’s hardly a surprise when you have to recruit an entire squad in one transfer window. Who we can get rid of is almost as important as who comes in right now.

Natasha Whittam wrote:People seem to be under the impression we are at a financial disadvantage compared to other clubs in this league.

But who has spent big apart from Salford?

Isn't it a fact we were able to sign League 2's leading goalscorer on a 3 year contract (oh dear) and the captain of promoted Plymouth?

The manager has been backed, all these players are here because he brought them to the club. What have people seen from this manager to suggest he's going to suddenly bring in better players to push us up the league?

It looks like wishful thinking to me.

Spot on, lets not forget the wages of lee, delfonso, Declan John, Baptise, plus a few others i will stick my neck out and say we have prob one of the highest wage bills in the division and i believe a change of manager we would still hit the top 7 minimum, the players are short of confidence and have no faith in their manager thats why it is all tippy tappy in our own half a new manager brings new ideas and tactics which helps breed confidence, just look at mansfield 4 games ago they where 3 points below us and we had a game in hand and clough has signed no one

This is our problem in a nutshell. Evatt issues his instructions, and the team respond. But not without some positional problems.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Don’t know the truth but some would argue Phoenix had a larger say in recruitment. Very hit and miss so far whoever’s responsible - but that’s hardly a surprise when you have to recruit an entire squad in one transfer window. Who we can get rid of is almost as important as who comes in right now.

Fair enough about Phoenix, but out of the players signed by the manager (and Phoenix) how many could you class as a success?

I'd say none of them.

And the Crelin situation still astounds me.

blue66 wrote:Spot on, lets not forget the wages of lee, delfonso, Declan John, Baptise, plus a few others i will stick my neck out and say we have prob one of the highest wage bills in the division and i believe a change of manager we would still hit the top 7 minimum, the players are short of confidence and have no faith in their manager thats why it is all tippy tappy in our own half a new manager brings new ideas and tactics which helps breed confidence, just look at mansfield 4 games ago they where 3 points below us and we had a game in hand and clough has signed no one

Very true about Clough. A manager should be able to improve the players he has, I've not seen much of that at Bolton for a very, very long time.

We're here for a reason. When BSA left, we gave the job to little Sammy Lee. The seeds were sown.

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I wanted it to work for Evatt, I really did, but it's not happening, if anything we seem to be going backwards. however after calming down after the Tranmere debacle, I'm for giving him to the end of the season, if we can get Kioso back, and John fit, we will have PROPER wingbacks, go back to 3-5-2, and I think we'll be hard to beat, Evatt's ability will be judged from the second half of the season, IF we show a massive improvement, then stick, IF we are still ambling on towards a relegation scrap, then like sluffy says get rid towards the end