I'm undecided.
Fletcher is young and inexperienced, driven and committed, accomplished and well regarded. The senior players seem supportive of him and his methods.
But something seems missing from last season. The backs to the wall firefighting which saw Fletcher emerge like a lion leading the donkeys seems like an age ago. Last season he got 100% out of the players in every game after Reid left, and our problems were due to the disproportionate amount of inexperienced lightweight 17 and 18 yr olds in the team - not for lack of passion, effort, tactical mistakes and the rest of it.
This season has been totally different. Fletch has been given a sizable budget, I'm assuming, to pick and choose who he wants. He has been allowed to develop a squad. He has the luxury of tactics and different systems and different options. And against this backdrop his is floundering. He either plays a good first half then gets outthought, or sets out a first XI which faces problems from the start and we are chasing the game.
So it goes back to this point - Carl Fletcher is a fantastic firefighting manager, with a contagious indomitable spirit and a hero in our hour of need. But Carl Fletcher may not be a thinking manager, a tactician, a modern manager capable of handling a big budget and delivering success.
He has the squad he needs so there can be no excuses. We have options in defence, midfield and most importantly in attack. Fletcher could play in the style of any way he chooses, and change the game in a way he could only dream of last season, with the likes of Chadwick, Gurrieri and Madjo on the bench. But it honestly feels like we fared better knowing Feeney was our only option up front, maybe with Chadwick, and the rest of the team would have to put in a giant shift to get a point, possibly three, because the whole team knew as a unit it was poor.
Maybe there are lessons from last season that Fletcher needs to take into now. Particularly having a settled XI to the extent the fans can pick the team before it is announced, stability, unity etc. It worked well enough last season, so it stands to work better this season with better quality. Except this season its Gurrieri in, then PCH is in favour, Griffiths then Madjo, then Madjo is late so its Griffiths. Lecointe was briefly in favour, but at an attacking midfielder. MacDonald, arguably our best striker, on the wing and moved from position to position. Different systems, different formations - the Argyle unit being a jack of all trades, master of none.
So it's looking clearer to me that Fletcher is not the man for Argyle at this time. But it would be painful sacking him for sentimental reasons. Sadly too many of the problems above seemed to have come to head at once, and reared at a time where we got outplayed at home to one of the poorest teams in the division. When two important players, Blanchard and Jenkins are lost to injury, it probably isn't the best time to discipline another good player for being late. The long ball football, total lack of a technical structure to pass the ball - finishing the game with 5 strikers in most of the midfield places in total desperation. As I say, it was better with 4-5-1, or 4-4-2, just trying to implement two banks of 4 - the luxury of options seems to have ruined Fletcher's ability to manage.
On the bright side - Jenkins and Lowry to return, Blanchard to return, and the possibility of Madjo and MacDonald until the end of the season might actually give us some stability. A decent winger might allow us to play MacDonald up front where he belongs. But Fletcher is running out of time fast. If he gets a few more games he really needs to get the team back to basics and stop trying to overthink things.
