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Heckingbottom - Honeymoon Over?

keasden

keasden

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Joined
Jun 19, 2004
Messages
2,768
As per the thread title, is the honeymoon period over for our new manager? It certainly is as far as I'm concerned.

His team selections now leave us all baffled and bewildered.

We set up far too defensively against poor teams at home.

We throw away leads of 2 and 3 goals.

We are conceding 3 goals with shocking regularity.

We threw the towel in against Arsenal with a shocking line-up despite a guaranteed full house and sky tv in attendance.

We keep playing Whiteman who is horrendously out of form.

We are playing our best player in KKH out of position to cover the predictable injury to Brady.

The managers only signing so far looks like a complete dud.

Hecky is starting to sound like his predecessor in his post match interviews.

Overall, nothing has improved since Lowe left. Yes we have had some good performances ie Burnley away and Sunderland at home but we are not picking up many points and are definitely in a relegation battle.

One of the most concerning aspects for me was a comment by a Sheff Utd fan I saw recently which said Heckingbottom was a nice bloke but his football was far too backwards and sideways and he was a chairmans dream as he was a complete YES man. Have we landed ourselves with Lowe II? Its just like the Riddler to get another yes man on board to give him a comfy life.
 
keasden said:
As per the thread title, is the honeymoon period over for our new manager? It certainly is as far as I'm concerned.

His team selections now leave us all baffled and bewildered.

We set up far too defensively against poor teams at home.

We throw away leads of 2 and 3 goals.

We are conceding 3 goals with shocking regularity.

We threw the towel in against Arsenal with a shocking line-up despite a guaranteed full house and sky tv in attendance.

We keep playing Whiteman who is horrendously out of form.

We are playing our best player in KKH out of position to cover the predictable injury to Brady.

The managers only signing so far looks like a complete dud.

Hecky is starting to sound like his predecessor in his post match interviews.

Overall, nothing has improved since Lowe left. Yes we have had some good performances ie Burnley away and Sunderland at home but we are not picking up many points and are definitely in a relegation battle.

One of the most concerning aspects for me was a comment by a Sheff Utd fan I saw recently which said Heckingbottom was a nice bloke but his football was far too backwards and sideways and he was a chairmans dream as he was a complete YES man. Have we landed ourselves with Lowe II? Its just like the Riddler to get another yes man on board to give him a comfy life.
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Can't disagree with a lot of that but Ridsdale, Hemmings are the targets who need to take the blame before anyone else imo.

Heckingbottom is hamstrung with the shit squad we have and not helped with Lowe leaving us in the shit after 1 game (well done Riddler for trying to convince him to stay!) The defence is the worst we've had since we got promoted to this division and we've definitely struggled only having Riis these past few months with Keane and Osmajic out.

I can't see where the results are going to come from to keep us up and a January window to bring in players to save out skin does not look promising either.

What's sad is I can see most of our fans giving the players / Heckingbottom abuse before Ridsdale and Hemmings any. It's as if they are excused of all the blame.
 
I'm not advocating giving the manager abuse, that should all be reserved for one person with the initials PR. My point was that Heckingottom seems to have been broken in record time and he may not be the saviour many of us initially thought.
 
keasden said:
I'm not advocating giving the manager abuse, that should all be reserved for one person with the initials PR. My point was that Heckingottom seems to have been broken in record time and he may not be the saviour many of us initially thought.
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Who thought he'd be a saviour?

Of the candidates being mooted at the time, Heckingbottom was the absolute 100% Steady Eddie, the safe pair of hands, the conservative option, the dull choice. Nothing remotely messianic about him.

His squad's a bag of shite - but we must remember, this is also Ryan Lowe's "ideal squad", it's what Craig said in 2022 just needed "two or three windows" to become "a squad that can compete at the top end of the Championship and ultimately deliver promotion". Well, here we are, four windows later, and it's such an "ideal squad" ready to "deliver promotion" that Lowe ran for the hills rather than face another season with it.

PH is now here to try and keep this promotion-ready squad in the division. Without major squad improvements, which we won't be getting, there's no way he can do that without abandoning the watchable-but-naive football of his "honeymoon" period, and grinding out the points with more grimly defensive setups instead.
 
I don't doubt he's a much better manager than Lowe but he's done himself no favours at all not changing the system and his team selections have been pretty shit to tbh but he can only work with what he's got needs time to bring his own players in (if he's aloud) 🤦‍♂️
 
IanBogie9 said:
The worrying thing for me was not seeing any anger from PH in his media, following the shambolic display v Derby.

It was time to lay down the law. He acted as though it was nothing out of the ordinary.
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I’d imagine that’s mccalls job . I wouldn’t be chucking the players under the bus in public . That will get us nowhere
 
Thracia said:
Who thought he'd be a saviour?

Of the candidates being mooted at the time, Heckingbottom was the absolute 100% Steady Eddie, the safe pair of hands, the conservative option, the dull choice. Nothing remotely messianic about him.

His squad's a bag of shite - but we must remember, this is also Ryan Lowe's "ideal squad", it's what Craig said in 2022 just needed "two or three windows" to become "a squad that can compete at the top end of the Championship and ultimately deliver promotion". Well, here we are, four windows later, and it's such an "ideal squad" ready to "deliver promotion" that Lowe ran for the hills rather than face another season with it.

PH is now here to try and keep this promotion-ready squad in the division. Without major squad improvements, which we won't be getting, there's no way he can do that without abandoning the watchable-but-naive football of his "honeymoon" period, and grinding out the points with more grimly defensive setups instead.
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Out of the candidates mooted, he was head and shoulders above anyone. The pair of them brought a great CV. Excellent experience without being an ancient dinosaur.

Sure, a bit of a reputation for a degree of conservatism in the way he approaches the game but you paint a (imo) ridiculously unfair negative picture of him/them.

The squad is, indeed, a bag of shite. And PH has not been helped by having some of our best quality players unavailable for long stretches. I agree that we’re unlikely to get the strengthening he desperately needs.
 
I agree with Terry dactyl. He's basically getting a full season from me (or at least until after the January window if we do make any signings). As others have said, he's had no preseason. Plus he's only really made one signing. Our squad is poor. Our defence is the reason we're having to set up so defensively. You can't push up and attack with them playing because they're so easily caught out by any bit of pace. We also don't have the depth at full back. We're forced into a back five out of necessity. We're also predictable because Storey-Lindsay-Hughes have been our backline for years but we can't even swap one of them out because Whatmough isn't good enough.

Our form has basically been a continuation from last season. Let's not forget that we started last season with a flukey run. After those first 7 games, we earned 44 points from 39 games. That's roughly 1.13 points per game. This season we're on 1 point per game as things stand. Considering the squad is getting older and the quality we lost over the summer, it makes sense that we're doing so badly.

Others have noted it too but we've been unfortunate with the injuries/suspensions. Frequent yellow cards can be expected depending on the style of play but you can't plan for one of your few scoring players suddenly biting someone. You can however plan for an injury prone player getting injured, leaving you having to play a RWB out of position. I can't begrudge Hecky for not being able to identify all the areas we need signings for considering how little time he had in the window but I can begrudge Ridsdale for having the whole summer (and beyond) to sign a LWB
 
Blaming the manager at this stage plays directly in to the hands of the Fat Controller. Nothing quite like making the manager the scapegoat to ensure another year of £400k plus expenses for Petey.

Yes the manager has made some questionable decisions. Yes he has picked some players regardless of current form. Yes some of the football has been dire. But this isn’t his squad, and Peter decides whether he single-handedly assembled it or if it was a committee decision depending on how well the season is going at that moment in time.

Get that odious cretin out of the club and then maybe Hecky won’t have one hand tied behind his back.
 
PH has had no pre season and add to that we lost Browne who was our player of the season with no ready made replacement and our most attacking threat in Millar..he took over a squad who are lacking massively in all areas and no budget..it will take years to put this right unless we get a load of money to spend from somewhere quick
 
bkfu76 said:
PH has had no pre season and add to that we lost Browne who was our player of the season with no ready made replacement and our most attacking threat in Millar..he took over a squad who are lacking massively in all areas and no budget..it will take years to put this right unless we get a load of money to spend from somewhere quick
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All of which can be laid squarely at the door of the previous manager, ably assisted by the bloke with white hair.

Heckingbottom would not have been my choice but he’s been dealt an incredibly terrible hand (which he should have been aware of), made worse by stupidity from probably the most expensive player in his squad.

The best we can hope for is staying up and clearing out players at the end of the season. Having said that, Whiteman’s reputation might still mean he’s attractive to somebody in January - after all, there’s even people who watch him week in and out who haven’t seen through him yet.
 
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