Chairman update (free on Argyle TV)

[Jon with no H]

I'm not sure that's true, given what he's said in that interview about the reports he was receiving, and the lack of unity that was getting frayed.

He said it on Sky on Friday night and in the interview with Chris Errington he is quoted as saying "We used the same process we used to get Schuey and Ryan and this time it didn't work out. Why didn't it work out? Results were bad and we need to stay up, it's as simple as that."

There's every chance the man management issues would have come to a head eventually, regardless of results, but he did say it, in two different settings.

 

[Biggs]

He said it on Sky on Friday night and in the interview with Chris Errington he is quoted as saying "We used the same process we used to get Schuey and Ryan and this time it didn't work out. Why didn't it work out? Results were bad and we need to stay up, it's as simple as that."

There's every chance the man management issues would have come to a head eventually, regardless of results, but he did say it, in two different settings.

Yep I think perhaps that's why the change was made now, but if the results were better I think the change would still have happened in the summer based on what he and others have said (between the lines or otherwise!) about the situation.

 

[jimsing]

Certainly off the pitch it was obvious.
On the pitch, flukes happen short term.

Are you calling these early results "Flukes"?

I call them results, while Foster was making changes to the team tactics.

He did it with the best intentions, but it didn't work out, so he had to go.

 

[Kentishgreen]

I believe he said that in his business life he hopes that at least 55% of his decisions are right. He admitted the last one was wrong but the one before that was incredibly right.
No one gets it right all the time. Let’s hope his next one is a winner! Meanwhile all power to Neil and Nance!

 

[Jon with no H]

I believe he said that in his business live he hopes that at least 55% of his decisions are right. He admitted the last one was wrong but the one before that was incredibly right.
No one gets it right all the time. Let’s hope his next one is a winner! Meanwhile all power to Neil and Nance!

This! What reason does anyone have not to believe him when he says they did the same thing that resulted in appointing Ryan Lowe and subsequently Steven Schumacher?!

 

[Biggs]

To be fair... clearly the process was much different in getting Ryan Lowe, and appointing SS. For obvious reasons.

 

[budock]

I thought at the time bringing in 18 and 19 year old kids and putting them straight into the team was disrespectful to our current players. Then moving out some key character guys like Gillesphey regardless of him being a regular or not, all of this really hurt the moral and thus the performances and results. I think IF lost the team pretty early on.

 

[Argonut]

The Chairman has said that Foster was sacked because of poor results.

End of.

The rest is pure speculation.

It is a results business after all.

Attila The Hun got results 👹

 

[Argyleloyal]

I thought at the time bringing in 18 and 19 year old kids and putting them straight into the team was disrespectful to our current players. Then moving out some key character guys like Gillesphey regardless of him being a regular or not, all of this really hurt the moral and thus the performances and results. I think IF lost the team pretty early on.

I am sure the Gillesphey deal was lined up way before Foster arrived

 

[Cobi Budge]

I think it's clear that there was a bit of a misunderstanding between the club and Foster as to what we wanted him to actually come in and do, whether that misunderstanding came about because of Foster misleading the board, the board not doing their due diligence, or a mixture of both, we don't really know.

It's important to look at Foster's background, he's been an assistant for much of his coaching career and when he hasn't been an assistant he's been working for the FA. He's 47 and retired from playing in 2008 meaning that he's had 15 or 16 years to ponder what he'd do when he finally got himself a top job. This is in contrast to how Ryan Lowe and Steven Schumacher entered management, both were very much thrown into coaching and had to learn on the job and adapt as they went. Foster strikes me as being extremely meticulous and a bit of an obsessive, I think when he arrived he arrived with a blueprint which essentially would have entailed his perfect idea of a football club and how it should run. That isn't necessarily a bad thing - but it was a bad thing for us. We needed someone to come in and adopt a policy of evolution, not revolution, we needed someone to provide continuity with a few tweaks here and there. Appointing Foster would have made sense for a club who had just had a poor season and who had had let their manager go, a club with no identity or culture, a club that could act as a blank canvas for Ian Foster, we were never going to be that club.

He was never right for us and we were never right for him.

We need to learn from the above and get the next appointment right.

 

[CarolinaGreen]

I'm just glad he's killed off all of the Dewsnip hating, and silly rumours people came up with for whatever sad agenda they had, with nothing to back it up.

 

[mutley marvel]

Considered,open & honest from Simon
Close season will be the time to dissect what went wrong & how they can ensure the recruitment process is fine tuned
We have a marvellous Custodian who privately is gutted the Head Coach tenure was so short lived

 

[jimsing]

Attila The Hun got results 👹

Foster the Head Coach didn't!

 

[memory man]

I think it's clear that there was a bit of a misunderstanding between the club and Foster as to what we wanted him to actually come in and do, whether that misunderstanding came about because of Foster misleading the board, the board not doing their due diligence, or a mixture of both, we don't really know.

It's important to look at Foster's background, he's been an assistant for much of his coaching career and when he hasn't been an assistant he's been working for the FA. He's 47 and retired from playing in 2008 meaning that he's had 15 or 16 years to ponder what he'd do when he finally got himself a top job. This is in contrast to how Ryan Lowe and Steven Schumacher entered management, both were very much thrown into coaching and had to learn on the job and adapt as they went. Foster strikes me as being extremely meticulous and a bit of an obsessive, I think when he arrived he arrived with a blueprint which essentially would have entailed his perfect idea of a football club and how it should run. That isn't necessarily a bad thing - but it was a bad thing for us. We needed someone to come in and adopt a policy of evolution, not revolution, we needed someone to provide continuity with a few tweaks here and there. Appointing Foster would have made sense for a club who had just had a poor season and who had had let their manager go, a club with no identity or culture, a club that could act as a blank canvas for Ian Foster, we were never going to be that club.

He was never right for us and we were never right for him.

We need to learn from the above and get the next appointment right.

I don't always agree with you but I really do think that this is a fair comment. I smiled at Simon's comment to Chris Errington "Footballers tend to get antsy when they are not getting their own way." I think that was a real acknowledgement of how fair our Chairman was to Ian Foster. And I liked the fact that he thought about his family and the affect on them. In some ways I saw parallels with Bobby Williamson's appointment. Following someone who has been hugely successful is not easy and he was left with the job of turning a good League One team into a decent Championship team. And with his signings I thought Lasley and Doumbe were top notch, Crawford perhaps a step above that. I thought all three were upgrades but Doumbe wasn't Wotton, Crawford wasn't Lowndes or Keith and Lasley wasn't Capaldi. So once results turned the spotlight turned on everything else and once the blame game was on a roll it became unstoppable.

 

[RochdaleGreen]

Mmmm... We need to stick together, at this moment in time, as Adams would say.

However, I'm surprised that most posters seem to be content, or even happy, with the Chairman's interview on Argyle TV. I'm pleased that he seems to accept some responsibility for getting the Foster recruitment decision so badly wrong, but, unless I missed it, I didn't hear him apologise to the fans, or to the employees of the Club.

Indeed, he continued to advocate "sticking with the [FAILED] process", claiming that the recruitment decisions on Lowe and Schumacher worked out fine.

That's true maybe in relation to performances on the pitch under Lowe and Schumacher, but all three of his managers would seem to have had some deep flaws in their characters. He needs to shove his management/investment decision textbooks where the sun don't shine and get some help on the next interview panel with character analysis, and not just his crude "no knobheads" policy.