Beveree Chat

Picking up an earlier comment, I noted our high place on the form chart and was surprised to see Havant at the bottom. When you look at their squad, including some quality strikers, who must wonder if there is something causing such a dip in form . They have had several sending offs recently so have had to deal with suspensions , but even so, I would have expected them to cover.
Doswell getting a long suspension might indicate that it was an ideal chance to change manager but they remain in house. Doswell has funded not just the players but the pitch, so a departure would not seem imminent. A loss to a late Dulwich goal further suggests not all is well there.

On what we have seen Mel is a massive step up on Gary . He has improved the confidence of the players and listening to him from the touchline he is more thoughtful, considered and has a much better game plan as to how we should play. To be fair to Gary he had a spell playing great football during the time we had Ryan Gondoh but overtime it degenerated to being near unwatchable. Hopefully we stay up and it will be exciting to see how Mel strengthens the team during the summer.

Picking up what TW10 posted, to me the test of Mel and his ability to manage at this level will be in his recruitment. We all would have our ideas of who we would keep and what positions need to strengthen. In some ways the list would be broadly the same whatever league we are in, what would change is the quality we could obtain.

Gary has been consulting at Havant since he left us… could be why

BevereeMaster wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 3:22 pm Gary has been consulting at Havant since he left us… could be why

If they start missing penalties then that is confirmation!

I was told today that Gary has definitely not been consulting at Havant - or anywhere for that matter.

GRTourist wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 5:13 pm I was told today that Gary has definitely not been consulting at Havant - or anywhere for that matter.

I took it as a joke!

Luke Jenkins recalled by AFCW. Guess we are happy that Jordan Thomas can fill that role and Crowhurst is I presume still with us.

Tony wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:52 am Luke Jenkins recalled by AFCW. Guess we are happy that Jordan Thomas can fill that role and Crowhurst is I presume still with us.

Crowhurst has hardly featured so would not be surprised if he too left. Thomas and Dunne can both play right back and Fernandez can also play there as Davis still with us.

TW10 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 1:28 pm On what we have seen Mel is a massive step up on Gary . He has improved the confidence of the players and listening to him from the touchline he is more thoughtful, considered and has a much better game plan as to how we should play. To be fair to Gary he had a spell playing great football during the time we had Ryan Gondoh but overtime it degenerated to being near unwatchable. Hopefully we stay up and it will be exciting to see how Mel strengthens the team during the summer.

I thought the parting of the ways with Gary was a classic example of a manager running out of ideas within his current club. The evidence was clear from the performances on the pitch (where we looked increasingly unlikely to ever win again) and the post match interviews, where he looked more and more dejected and sounded more repetitive every time. I strongly suspect he would have been sacked before Christmas if the takeover had been done and dusted at that stage. No changes were going to made with all of that going on which was a shame, as Mel could have come in and given us more time to get more points on the board to be a bit higher up the table, not having to keep looking behind us.

It's worth adding that I hope Gary pops up somewhere else soon as Manager. I see from online speculation that he was linked with the Kingstonian job recently...at least he was the popular choice amongst their fans prior to any announcement. Really, even after such a disappointing season with us he can still do better than that husk of a club and I'm actually glad for him that he didn't take over, if he even applied.

Mel's summer recruitment is going to be really interesting. I suspect he might want to keep the obvious choices but there will be wholesale changes otherwise. It's certainly going to be eventful.