I know it would never happen but perhaps all contracts should be like that and a rubbish job to me is getting the club relegated.
I do see what youāre saying, but Keates hasnāt got a club relegated so he couldnāt be sackedā¦ The catch being youād want to sack him before relegation to save the club. As I say, tough to write into a contract.
Problem with Keates is he was an idol appointment from the club , one to basically bring back the feel good factor.
But when you break it down it was a disaster in the making , young manager , no league managerial experience, no experience of managing a small budget and no real history of player development- something the club rely on heavily .
To question why he is failing is ridiculous when you weigh up the facts. For me he was always 3-4 years away from having the experience to manage a club from top to bottom.
I donāt blame Dean for this but I do blame the club for Such a short sighted appointment.
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In fairness, weāve appointed managers with less first team experience than Keates had. Some of them were successful.
Ye but they usually come around once a decade if we are lucky. Itās what we put up in between us the problem.
You mean rarely are they successfulā¦
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But I can see why he was given a shot based on his experience. Theres no doubt some āhero statusā was a factor but do you believe that to be 100%?
I very much agree with your point but, to be fair, most of the fans were over the moon he was appointed and the expectation was weād kick on from there, not go backwards. Wrong appointment at the wrong time again. As Iāve said before, my opinion is we should have limped through to the end of the season under Whitney and, based on 8 points from 9 games being the requirement, weād have stayed up, then we should have looked for a proper appointment at the end of the season with the main focus being on getting someone who would once again bring an ethos and philosophy to the club, to the way we play and to the way we conduct ourselves, in the way that Smith did (although it didnāt have to be the same philosophy)
In ānormal circumstancesā you can only be dismissed on a performance basis if thereās clear āmeasurablesā in place on which to base that decision - if that (in our case) is relegation they technically, he hasnāt failed (yet!)
Itās all irrelevant anyway because we simply donāt know on what basis (measurable performance or not) DK was recruitedā¦
agree , but as we both know those overmoon with his appointment tend to be those who are now calling for his head.
It was down to the club to see past the hysteria and sentiment and appoint based on skill set.
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To be fair DK had served some kind of managerial apprenticeship at Wrexham, where he had gone into a club that was pretty much in dis-array, clearly organised the defence, was then ruthless with his personnel changes close season and got them challenging at the right end of the league the following season. I think thatās what most people expected DK to do here, but for some reason it hasnāt worked. The defence is now a worse problem than for many a year, and as soon as we lost a few games this season he seemed to panic. The train of thought that because certain players, particularly defenders were still on contract was a restriction to his plans had a certain logic, but that has now gone completely out of the window with the number of defenders heās signed. It just looks like a complete mess now. Canāt help but think that the Russell Martin signing was a monumental clanger, particularly from the coaching stand-point. Our defence was crud to start with, we then bring in some big-shot who is even worse, and heās telling everyone else what to do and what theyāre doing wrong, recipe for disaster. His arrival at MKdongs has had a similar effect on their results! Coincidence?
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Correct, Christopher
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Absolutely Geordie. Russell Martin was Keatesās big moment. His āmajor coupā. His signing was meant to be the moment when Keates demonstrated that he had a decent network in the game and could bring proven quality to help us build towards that Championship ambition.
It was a disaster. It was also apparent that it was the Plan. And since discovering that Walsall is a fair old drive from Brighton together with the fact that the reviews coming from Rangers were spot on, Keates has looked completely lost. Heās now fumbling around for a formula. Other than deciding that Morris and Kinsella arenāt part of that formula but Liam Roberts definitely is, we lurch from muddle to muddle.
Tonight is crucial. It shouldnāt be but it is. I really hope that the players already know who is playing, in what position they start and can therefore work it out before half-time during the actual game. This could mitigate the chances of the manager having to embarrassingly muse upon another āslow startā as though, like he sounded after Blackpool, it had absolutely nothing to do with him.
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Do we know that he doesnāt tell the players the line up for the game in advance usually? That would seem an extremely strange way to manage. Apart from maybe waiting on a signing for a specific position which obviously isnāt the case normally.
We donāt know. But what we have are some facts based upon what Keates tells us together with some good old rumour mungering ranging from bloke down the pub to players mums.
Based upon these and some not so cryptic clues players post on Social Media, it looks like the players get told the day before a game. So either Friday or Monday.
So after Saturdayās result I suspect Keates had the team for tonight picked on Sunday and then communicated yesterday.
The pickle he has created for himself is that for thirteen players this will mean absolutely no involvement. Iām not sure what this then does to Morale and mood around the place.
It then gives the players who are involved a couple of hours to prepare properly together as well as being given their individual briefs.
The chopping, changing, indecision and fiddling makes this an incredibly intense and ultimately confusing time. Throw in the recent zonal versus man-marking at set pieces and seven months into the season it feels like weāre just lurching from game to game with a thousand ideas that translate into no ideas at all.
Thereās clearly confusion and I agree, the zonal marking thing doesnāt help. Iāve never seen a zone score a goal, and chopping and changing doesnāt help either.
But Iād like to rule out blatant incompetency, like not giving the players enough time to prepare (i.e. naming the team more than a few hours before kick off) until thereās something a bit more concrete to prove it. The day before a game is more than enough time for a professional footballer to prepare himself to play. I know we pay peanuts but if I was on 100 - 150K a year Iād like to think I was good enough at my job to be told 24 hours in advance I was going to have to do my job at some point.
As for players missing out, thatās what having a full squad does. People have complained about it being threadbare for years 
As some have said, a 3rd option of āKeep but sign a proven assistantā would have been good.
Not ready to see Keates go yet. Heās got himself into a bit of a spin but nothing that we havenāt seen before and corrected. He and the team need to take a breath and get their heads screwed on. Amusingly weāve gone from a threadbare squad with no plan B, to a large squad and too many plans. I think a bit of consistency would work wonders and an experienced head to act as a rudder for Keates is probably an ideal solution.
Just one of those tough spells atm where confidence is low and weāre not getting the rub of the green. Doesnāt sound like weāre getting beaten by great teams. Weāre just the worst of a bad bunch at the moment. I donāt think itāll take much for something to start clicking and things start going our way again.
UTS!
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i like it
Ferry cross the Mersey.
The only problem is all that fit that criteria have jobs at clubs that realise the importance of all those qualities and are paid accordingly ā¦a lot more than we will