Has he got any good points?!! His transfer dealings are woeful - his only success is McDonald, the jury’s out on Jules, Lavery, Rose, Sadler, Holden, Facey and Pring, whereas Guthrie, Adebayo, Guffney and Sheron are no better than non-league standard.
His tactics are muddled at best, non-existent at worst. His constant tinkering ain’t working and is too complicated for basic, league 2 players to understand.
His PR and dealings with the media are boring and monotonous, and he sometimes comes across as arrogant: frankly, I don’t care how many coaching badges he’s got or what he did at Brizzle Rovers: what’s his win percentage at Walsall?
So in summary, no, I don’t see any positives. I can’t see any meaningful progress. He’s no better than Hutchings, Keates or Whitney. I don’t care if he goes - I can’t see him turning things around.
I just don’t know what to say anymore,as a group on UTS we’ve gone round and round on the subject of DC so many times that we’re in danger (god forbid) of getting boring,I’ll just go with the majority.
I felt his tenure was moribund in October but there were claims he’d get it right in January by clearing out the rubbish and signing better replacements.
Alas he signs players with more experience of latching onto their mothers teat than football league experience and then gives it all that.
How many coaching badges does he have again, I have forgotten in the last 6 minutes since he reminded us? I have 3 swimming badges from primary school but don’t tell everyone about it constantly and it also doesn’t mean I could swim the Channel. For all your ‘knowledge’ DC, you still evidently have a lot to learn in terms of application.
We can’t continue to sack every manager after a few months. He has to be given time.
Yes his transfer dealings have been gash and his tactics/selections are poor but when you have to rely on the signings of Sheron, Facey, Kiersey, Hardy, Gaffney and Adebayo you know that there is something fundamentally wrong with our transfer budget. A budget which should be capable of attracting the best of League 2.
Everyone wanted mid table this season to build on, we’ve got it. Can’t just start calling for his head after a few bad results. Judge him next season and if we are in same position get rid.
I do ponder if getting the sack isn’t part of Clarke’s master plan. 3 year deal, nice juicy pay off. Can lament and blame the playing budget together with the off field issues for his struggles and perhaps still escape with a good enough reputation for employment elsewhere, after a nice well paid holiday stint, obvs.
It’s the only reason I can come up with for some of his team selections and formations.
Personally I’d punish him by making him stay. As in, you ain’t getting the sack mate however bad it gets, start picking the best XI, get them organised and keep it simple enough for them to understand.
I’d say it’s a bit too early to be sacking Clarke - we have to give managers time but he’s clearly got it very wrong in the transfer market and that’s been our downfall this season
I get this he’s most likely got a crap budget to work with, but just sign players that fit into their proper positions ffs - a bit of structure, basic coaching and motivation is enough to do well in this poor league, not constant tinkering, playing players out of position, having 4 players for 1 position on 0 for another - genuinely baffles me for a coach that has all these badges??
If he fails to identify his own clear failures in the above in this summers window, alarm bells will already be ringing for me
I fear he’s not learning from his mistakes though, his arrogance clouds his judgement.
The tinkering is the main issue for me, and that’s part of why it went wrong at Bristol Rovers. Like I’ve said before he’s a bit of a mini Mourinho, what once worked brilliantly for him now no longer works, but he can’t see why he’s need to do something differently.
There is absolutely no point potting him. I don’t know what Keates’ compo arrangements are but it wouldn’t surprise me if we were still paying him something (maybe any gap between his Walsall wage and his Wrexham wage).
Despite a surge in my mood in the summer and a slight improvement following a few recent results, I’m back to where I was pre-season which is that for a myriad of reasons we will be a fourth and maybe even fifth tier team for a number of years as we pass the gallstone that is Bonser out of our system.
Everything we now see both on and off the park is as a result of many years of managed decline. The latest poor sap in the managerial seat is down wind of a lot of ■■■■. I believe Clarke could do better and I’m fairly incredulous as to how he has handled some situations this season. Last night was a shambles.
But we are now a very fourth division club with a very fourth division manager and a very fourth division team playing in front of very fourth division crowds. Any turnaround could take as long to manifest as the downturn did (I’d argue it was from January 2008 until May 2019 so eleven years). Clarke has picked up the consequence of that slow, painful rot.
If I were him, I’d pick up the “Walsall way” narrative that he began a few weeks ago. Jules, Bates, Perry et al need to be given a dozen or so games. They will make mistakes but the only way we can accelerate our recovery is to grow some third division quality players of our own because we patently can’t bring them in from elsewhere.
