Guy Branston Pickle

Just yet another forgettable season supporting Oldham Athletic. We'll sack the manager, sign 20 new players, they won't gel, we'll sack the next manager after 6 months, finish 11th, and the cycle will continue again. Yippee

I assume he benefitted from wingers/full backs that could cross a ball and a midfield that wasn't 40 yards behind him at all times too?

Do you not think he's doing this? Is he just letting them have carte blanche in training and then slagging them off after the fact? I reckon he's coached enough successful sides to know when players aren't up to it. Some of you seem to think he should be taking them out for ice cream after games

Being told you aren't performing well enough should be good motivation, yes. Would you argue against that assessment? What should he be doing, rubbing their heads and tell them they're doing a great job? And let's not pretend Oldham fans need an excuse to get on a managers back

Surely any professional would want to prove that they are good enough, because they certainly haven’t this season. The ones who aren't prepared to do that can fuck off for the easy life somewhere like Kings Lynn.

If that's true, which it probably isn't, then surely we should be sacking each and every one of them for a total lack of professionalism?

Players stock always rises when they aren't playing. Tollitt and Willoughby were crap and People would be complaining about them playing if they were getting gametime. See also Alex Reid

Not an isolated incident by a long, long way

If they were just booing at the end of games I'd understand, but some of the vitriol and abuse of players and managers I've heard the last couple of years goes way beyond criticism. Shelton was getting booed whilst being subbed on during games that we were winning not that long ago, as an example. Top support that.

Fair enough that's a good point, entitled was the wrong word. I'm sick of hearing how we've got the best support in the league when the actions don't reflect that though.

I haven’t been since York away, think we were 6th in the league at the time and our fans couldn't wait to slag off our own players and get on their backs. For a support that regularly slaps itself self on the back, it was shocking. Feel like I'm surrounded by knobheads at every game

Tells you more about our dreadful entitled fans that. Best "support" in the league

But you have more options in summer as more players are free agents or clubs are prepared to let them go, and you have time to work them into your plans. In January, you're mostly signing players that have had long term injuries (Conlon) or no game time (Walker, Dallas, Sachdev) and then have barely anytime to integrate them in, they basically have to hit the ground running. You shouldn't have to sign a "clutch" of players in January if recruitment is good in summer

I could say the same for you

I don't know about that. Stones was excellent and we were unlucky he got injured. Garner got some important goals when he came in. Conlon has been disappointing but has had some good games. Dallas and Walker, fair enough. But again, that's the risk you take recruiting in January. It was poor recruitment last summer that put us in that position in the first place.

Agreed. There's plenty to criticise Mellon for but I think blaming the recruitment on him is unfair, January recruitment is always difficult as you're essentially getting players who can't make the cut elsewhere/are inexperienced/coming back from injury unless you're prepared to pay daft transfer fees. That's not a bad thing if you only need one or two players to bulk the squad up but we needed 4/5/6 players to come in and hit the ground running, which just isn't realistic. Hopefully he can get it right over the summer with more/better options

Maybe a bit unfair on Altrincham that

Is it not arrogant to think Parkinson would want to come here anyway? It's a sideways step at best. He could probably get a job at a league 2 side with fans who won't hound him out after a few months

Can't wait to read this thread in a year's time when the young and upcoming manager is on a bad run and people are calling him useless and calling for an experienced manager

If our other players missed 3/4 of the season we'd be bottom now

Sacking manager after manager (35 since 1997) is an amazing strategy and continues to work wonders for the club

This doesn't fix anything though, does it? So then if he doesn't demonstrate that, yet another manager has to inherit the same squad, and then the cycle starts again?

We did stick with Unsworth, he was given a summer to recruit his own players etc. It was a mistake, but he was given that opportunity. Mellon should be offered the same. Changing managers again will just keep taking us backwards. How many managers do we need to go through for people to start getting this? I'm not saying we should just blindly back him btw. The drop in form has been concerning, and if we don't hit the ground running next season then his position should be in jeopardy. But unless there's a ready made, nailed on success waiting to replace him I don't see what we gain by getting rid tbh

Yep. So it's pointless going in for someone like Parkinson. It'll never work here. I understand why people are frustrated with Mellon. But his track record is good, and he deserves a summer to fix it.