Martin ling

[Trojan 67]

TUFC press anouncement :

"The board of directors are pleased to announce that Martin Ling has a new assistant in the form of decorated Marine, Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway. When asked what he had been tasked with, Highway replied : "F*!!? sh** b**@!!!@** w*@**?!! ".


The response from the playing squad varied :

[ferrarilover]

It's not nonsense, its fact. Dinger had half a season this year and got us to within a win of the playoff places. The minute he left, we lost 8 straight games and found ourselves down where we are now. What about that are you failing to understand?

Yeah, when he was here, we weren't exactly Champions League material, but as it stands today, we are a couple of results away from being considered not Football League standard. See the difference?

Everything points towards Dinger being a perfectly decent manager more than capable of leading us to a decent finish next year. To castigate the bloke because Taylor doesn't know his arse from his elbow (which is fine, not his job) is crazy and grossly unfair.

Matt.

[hector]

It's not nonsense, its fact. Dinger had half a season this year and got us to within a win of the playoff places. The minute he left, we lost 8 straight games and found ourselves down where we are now. What about that are you failing to understand?

Yeah, when he was here, we weren't exactly Champions League material, but as it stands today, we are a couple of results away from being considered not Football League standard. See the difference?

Everything points towards Dinger being a perfectly decent manager more than capable of leading us to a decent finish next year. To castigate the bloke because Taylor doesn't know his arse from his elbow (which is fine, not his job) is crazy and grossly unfair.

Matt.

He couldn't buy a win by the time he left. What are you failing to understand about the dismal run that preceded his departure?

One win a month is not gong to get you very far. That was Ling's record over the final three months of his reign. That does not point to Him being a successful manager. It just is not going to work, sadly and a new start is best for all.

[stevegull]

It's not nonsense, its fact. Dinger had half a season this year and got us to within a win of the playoff places. The minute he left, we lost 8 straight games and found ourselves down where we are now. What about that are you failing to understand?

Yeah, when he was here, we weren't exactly Champions League material, but as it stands today, we are a couple of results away from being considered not Football League standard. See the difference?

Everything points towards Dinger being a perfectly decent manager more than capable of leading us to a decent finish next year. To castigate the bloke because Taylor doesn't know his arse from his elbow (which is fine, not his job) is crazy and grossly unfair.

Matt.

A lot of the time I just seem to be telling Matt that I agree with him but this post is spot on. We weren't on a very good run even before Ling left but we weren't involved in a relegation dogfight - far from it. We were a mid-table/play-off chasing side that had hit a slump.

In Ling I trust!

[Gullscorer]

I, too, totally agree with Matt.

In his first season with us, Martin Ling presided over a dismal autumnal run, yet he eventually took us into the play-offs. Have people forgotten that?

It's a fact of football life that managers and teams can and do have bad runs, and also achieve success in the same season. They can also have a good season overall, but with a slump in the final weeks.

And, given all the other factors involved, such as injuries, suspensions, transfers, and finance, certainly in a club such as ours, in a period when it has been building stable foundations for the future, it may be that simply avoiding relegation could be considered a success, rather than the mark of a failed manager.

Is that really too difficult to understand?

[ferrarilover]

He couldn't buy a win by the time he left. What are you failing to understand about the dismal run that preceded his departure?

One win a month is not gong to get you very far. That was Ling's record over the final three months of his reign. That does not point to Him being a successful manager. It just is not going to work, sadly and a new start is best for all.

Let me make this easy...

HOW BAD CAN THIS "BAD" RUN HAVE BEEN IF WE WERE THREE F***ING POINTS OUTSIDE THE PLAYOFFS?

You say he didn't win a match for 500 years, we didn't have a single shot in all that time and we got beaten 400-0 every week, yet we were one win outside the playoff places after half a season. Either we won our first 20 games so handsomely that we could afford to lose every match for half a millennium, or our "bad" run was just a poor to average run which is now being viewed by those wishing to chastise Martin Ling.

He has been here for 18 months, you're picking on three months and saying he is no good. I point to the whole 18 months and we were never lower in the table, with Dinger at the helm, than about 10th place. Since he left, we have only been below that line. Yes, he may well have been on a bad run of form, but that bad run of form wasn't really all that bad, it can't have been, because at the end of it (the day he left) we were still very much in the playoff hunt. Regardless of any particular time frame at which you care to point, the salient facts are that, in his time in charge, Dinger took us to the playoffs (having been perilously close to going up automatically) and left us in fine enough fettle, just a win outside the playoff places.
If he were a landlord, he'd have handed over a lovely little cottage in the Cotswolds with a red wine stain on the living room carpet and a chip in one window. Where we are now represents a burnt out shell after the place was set on fire.
If he were a driver, the club he left was an Alfa Romeo with a dicky electric window switch. What he's getting back is the windscreen wiper from a 1989 Nissan Micra (in beige).
If he were a football manager, what he left behind was a team on a moderately bad run, just outside the playoffs. What he's getting back is a team who are fortunate not to have dropped out of the football league.

Where we are now is not Dinger's fault, nor is it a fair reflection of his abilities as a manager. Blaming an absent Martin Ling for everything which has happened since he left is a bit like blaming Tony Blair for all the trouble we are in today (ok, bad analogy, it is the cash we have spunked on his unwinnable wars in the Middle East which we would now be using to pay for shit instead of borrowing it from the IMF, European Bank etc. Well done leftists, another fine mess...).

Matt.

[ferrarilover]

Between the start of October and the end of January, we played 18 L2 games. We won 7, drew 3 and lost 8. We scored 25, conceded 25 for 24 points and a GD of 0. We ended, as I may have mentioned previously, 6 points with a game in hand (so, 3 points) outside the playoffs. In 18 games between the start of October and the end of January (their last game in Jan is excluded to tie up the matches), League Champions Gillingham played 18, won 8, drew 6 and lost 4. Scored 28, conceded 18 for 30 points and a GD of +10.


Tell me again about this dreadful run we were on just before Dinger left...

Matt.

[ferrarilover]

In fact, we can go further...

In the 18 games we have played since Dinger left, we have won 4, drawn 2 and lost 12. We have scored 17, conceded 26 for 14 points and a -9 GD. For fair comparison, Gillingham have scored 31 points and have a GD of +6.


Tell me again all about how it's Martin Ling's fault that we are where we are...

Matt.

[supergulls]

Let me make this easy...

HOW BAD CAN THIS "BAD" RUN HAVE BEEN IF WE WERE THREE F***ING POINTS OUTSIDE THE PLAYOFFS?

You say he didn't win a match for 500 years, we didn't have a single shot in all that time and we got beaten 400-0 every week, yet we were one win outside the playoff places after half a season. Either we won our first 20 games so handsomely that we could afford to lose every match for half a millennium, or our "bad" run was just a poor to average run which is now being viewed by those wishing to chastise Martin Ling.

He has been here for 18 months, you're picking on three months and saying he is no good. I point to the whole 18 months and we were never lower in the table, with Dinger at the helm, than about 10th place. Since he left, we have only been below that line. Yes, he may well have been on a bad run of form, but that bad run of form wasn't really all that bad, it can't have been, because at the end of it (the day he left) we were still very much in the playoff hunt. Regardless of any particular time frame at which you care to point, the salient facts are that, in his time in charge, Dinger took us to the playoffs (having been perilously close to going up automatically) and left us in fine enough fettle, just a win outside the playoff places.
If he were a landlord, he'd have handed over a lovely little cottage in the Cotswolds with a red wine stain on the living room carpet and a chip in one window. Where we are now represents a burnt out shell after the place was set on fire.
If he were a driver, the club he left was an Alfa Romeo with a dicky electric window switch. What he's getting back is the windscreen wiper from a 1989 Nissan Micra (in beige).
If he were a football manager, what he left behind was a team on a moderately bad run, just outside the playoffs. What he's getting back is a team who are fortunate not to have dropped out of the football league.

Where we are now is not Dinger's fault, nor is it a fair reflection of his abilities as a manager. Blaming an absent Martin Ling for everything which has happened since he left is a bit like blaming Tony Blair for all the trouble we are in today (ok, bad analogy, it is the cash we have spunked on his unwinnable wars in the Middle East which we would now be using to pay for sh*t instead of borrowing it from the IMF, European Bank etc. Well done leftists, another fine mess...).

Matt.[/quote]

[hector]

Very good use of statistics in the middle of the night. Care to review them from November onwards and see how good they look then. By January it would appear Ling had run out of ideas. He referred to 'doing the same as last year' but failed to acknowledge the players were different. It just wasn't working. The players brittle confidence was evident in the way they kept throwing games away. The qualitative data indicates that what followed - in terms of that poor run - was on the cards anyway. Plenty of us were suggesting it. This is Martin Ling's team. If his managerial input was so significant in the run that followed his departure then why was it having o little impact in the run that preceded his departure? I will say it again - only THREE WINS IN THREE MONTHS; Alan Knill has managed more than that and I don't especially rate him.

You can ignore the possibility that the wheels fell off around the end of Oct/beginning of Nov if you wish but the Harrogate defeat seemed to sum up what followed thereafter and perhaps that is what contributed to Martin Ling's stress related illness.

Furthermore, a bad run is a bad run wherever you happen to be in the table. A bad run put pay to automatic promotion hopes the year before. Nobody, other than you perhaps, would suggest that 2011/12 ended up with a good run simply because we finished in a play-off position considering the was a time when we were well clear in second place.

[Trojan 67]

From my viewpoint,Hector states the better case. I'm not going to fall out with Matt though because it means depriving him of his Werther's.


The should he stay or should he go argument is more than about slumps, when they occurred and the relegation battle. It also involves the dreadful tactics/entertainment on offer that has now run its course and can no longer achieve consistent results.


My season ticket does not get renewed (if at all) until I know in what League we will be, who will be manager, what the strength of the squad is and what tactics are deployed.

[Dave]

Matt, remember the win away at Exeter was under Shaun Taylor, Lingy's last game was the home draw to Exeter.

You can use any little run of games and show relevant stats to prove a point, it's pointless, some plain facts here, current form is measured over 6 games, during Martin Lings last 6 games we won.0 can't argue with that.

Then if you do a little comparison between Lingy and Knilly.. Alan Knill has been incharge of Torquay for 13 games, won.4 drawn.3 lost.6 pts 15 of Martin Ling's last 13 games won.3 drawn.3 Lost. 7 pts 12. And Alan Knill produced these results with a team that had just lost 6 in a row under Taylor and was devoid of all confidence. The football come the end of Lingy's time was just dire end of.

Hector is spot on about the reason why we were at one point so close to the play-off's everybody in the division have been beating each other, Gillingham are Champions with 83pts, Vale could go up today with 77pts less than what got us to 5th last year, the gap between 3rd and 23rd is 26 pts pretty close considering 45 games have been played. A team could be relegated today just 16-19 pts from the play-offs, what does that tell anyone, what should it tell anyone. The fact that we were so close to the play-offs when Lingy went sick is utterly meaningless.

Anyway, as it stand there is no guarantee that Lingy will be back as our manager, it's not his decision to make it's the boards.

[Sunnysideup]

Same as Trojan67 above for me as well. For all the bleating about only being 6 points from the playoffs, we were down to 16th in a gradual slide and only 8 points from a relegation slot. The tactics were poor & the team had seemingly lost most of their confidence on the field.
No more season ticket for me either, I expect a bit of entertainment (sadly lacking most of the time for the last season and a half) in return for my commitment, so I will find something else to occupy my time.

[Dave]

Same as Trojan67 above for me as well. For all the bleating about only being 6 points from the playoffs, we were down to 16th in a gradual slide and only 8 points from a relegation slot. The tactics were poor & the team had seemingly lost most of their confidence on the field.
No more season ticket for me either, I expect a bit of entertainment (sadly lacking most of the time for the last season and a half) in return for my commitment, so I will find something else to occupy my time.

Would you re-new your season ticket if Lingy was not the manager ?

[Trojan 67]

I'm not saying I won't be attending any matches at all, but not renewing the season ticket is a definite. For me, it will be suck it and see, pay as I go, dependent on already stated future events.

What is for sure is due to a tree rat crossing the path of my stride, life changing events have happened that now require my attention elsewhere.