Tom Cleverley - Head Coach

I’m good with this…best of luck Tom.

 

At the risk of making myself look very stupid, we looked the archetypal mid-table Champo team under Ismael, and even gave him a new deal after a poor start results-wise, but only canned him once relegation began to look a faint possibility, after which time the play-offs were well and truly gone, will we have greater ambition next season with a (likely) poorer squad?

 

Delighted to have got the job, although I had booked a trip to the Maldives in September... I can probably still go!

 

Fair enough, no issue with that.

Just not sure how it equates to 'We know Pozzos want to sell.'
It's more, you have heard that they want to sell

 

He's more credible than Xisco was and some of this lot tried to justify that appointment

 

It's not his style to slah off his players, he's all about positivity. We'll find out what he really thinks during the transfer window - if he has a say, that is.

 

Gino Pozzos clap clap
Cleverley assembled army clap clap!

Get this started next game!

 

Maybe. Or we've gone for somebody who knows the players and knows the league, a radical departure from Gino's usual policy. And who didn't want a radical departure? Maybe it'll work, maybe not.

 

I think it's more likely that they will be looking to appoint some U18 coaches and a new Women's manager - in order to allow them to confirm the current structure is full time with the mens squad.

 

No mate. It’s Mariappa or Laporte.

 

No danger at all. If we aren’t in the top 6 with the squad he has now, and will have at his disposal, he will deserve to be hung drawn and quartered. We can all see this. Hopefully he is the “one good manager” who gets us back to our rightful place alongside Brighton.

 

We’ve had one for months.

 

I was looking today at AB’s end of season in 2005 when he was parachuted in from seemingly nowhere to replace Lewington. It’s the most obvious example I can think of a manager coming in for the last few games of the season and then staying for the next (Javi, Sannino etc all arrived earlier and had more time)

7 matches in charge. 2 wins. 4 defeats. 7 points.

Nothing at all to suggest he’d be the person to get us anywhere even close to promotion 12 months later, let alone actually winning promotion.

We weren’t exactly flush back then either, but we spent wisely in the summer and something just gelled.

Now of course it might not be fair to draw parallels with our situation now. We have a past his sell by date owner, little money, associate ourselves with a dodgy agent and seem to get a lot wrong.

And most of us fans feel disillusioned.

But maybe, just maybe, if the cards fall right and Tom shows more of the coaching promise he’s undoubtedly shown so far against more experienced managers and better sides, and we do recruit a few diamonds (which we have done at times in the past during our Italian ownership, however hard it suits us to re-write history) and things fall into place, then who knows what might happen? I’d not expect promotion, no way, but I’d certainly hope for an upturn next season at least.

The darkest hour is usually the one just before the dawn (even if actually that’s not strictly true).

 

Has this **** been sacked yet?

 

Good luck Tom. Nice bloke trying to sort a nasty situation. Hopefully Pozzo expectation next year isn’t dumb

 

Well said.... Exactly

 

I'm chuffed with this.
We've got ourselves a young manager that's had a lot of experience in the Prem, had Sir Alex as a manager, seen how a team should gel, and so far seems to understand how to "do the best you can with what you've got" and finally, to understand what his players are capable of.
I would jump at the chance of 7th next season with a decent season and giving fans more to cheer about.
My only real concern is for Tom but even if he's gets dumped in December by GP I'm sure his future will be OK.

 

It won't matter a jot if the recruitment is crap though. Boothroyd was provided with the perfect squad to be better than the sum of its parts, full of hard men that could play too (as well as a generational talent from the academy in Ashley Young). Just what you need for grinding out a result up north in the cold when you're not playing well.

If we continue to sign "nice" footballers who melt at the first sign of any adversity then the head coach is pretty much an irrelevance.

Having said that, good luck Tom!

 

@Steve Leo Beleck Thank you for your kind and considered reply to my post. It’s nice to hear from you.

I agree, and you will note I did say ‘if we do recruit a few diamonds’.

I will personally be very very disappointed (although not surprised) if we sign players (or continue with any current players) whose attitude, standards and commitment don’t match those demonstrated by TC as a player, or indeed as a fledgling Cosch.

 

So it's "Call Me Tom" Cleverly then. Our descent into mediocrity is complete.

Another inexperienced, thick yes man with the same style of management as the abject failure Munoz.

What could possibly go right?

 

Phase 1 complete

 

At least they proved to a decent job with the resources at their disposal. If Cleverley emulates that, then it will be the best Pozzo appointment since Garcia.

 

Yeah I'm sure quite a few on here would have been peeved at Pozzo having gotten rid of Dyche at the time. It's a weird thing for @a19tgg to try and make a complaint out of Cleverley potentially being similar; if he turns out to be as good a manager as Dyche there probably won't be too many complaints at the moment.

 

Good luck Major Tom.

Hopefully he can improve our players ' ground control.

 

'Some' wins would have been nice!

 

It wasn’t a complaint, it was an observation.

 

As I’ve pointed out to Rousey, it wasn't a complaint, it was an observation, but it’s worth pointing out Malkay had a 33% win record with us, he managed 16th and 14th place in his two seasons in charge. Dyche managed 11th which was a decent achievement in that we’d sold Danny Graham and being in a relegation battle was wildly expected, because we’d only finished 14th the season before under Malkay, with a prolific goalscorer.

Essentially their achievements were to stop us getting relegated and make us a middle/lower mid table championship team instead. It’s not like they significantly overachieved and had us anywhere near the play-off spots at any point, so if Cleverly does as well as either of them, then ultimately that is just going to be more of the same drudgery we’ve seen this season for many years to come.

 

Achieving the same in the next 3 years would be an equally impressive achievement!

 

My money is on Scott Parker to replace TC in October .
Or Warnock.

 

Gracia.

 

He obviously meant Oscar Garcia m8.

 

It’s a step into the unknown, which is both exciting and scary at the same time.

There’s the potential for it to be successful and that we’ve unearthed a gem of a Head Coach, but also the nagging feeling that it’s a move being done to save money and shows a lack of ambition.

Ever the optimistic I’m in the first camp (with fingers tightly crossed, as I’d hate to see a decent guy who served us so well as a player ultimately treated badly) but with total respect for those who fear the worst or who are underwhelmed.

I guess all we can do is wait and see what unfolds.

As I’ve said before, a win on Saturday would help, as it’s unthinkable we could go from November to August without a victory at the Vic.

A couple of good performances to end the season should send more of us into the summer break feeling a little optimistic about what’s to come!

Btw a genuine question…who was the last interim/caretaker manager we had who ended up getting the job?