Is Hargreaves fit for purpose?

[royalgull]

I'm still sticking by him and will do until he gets a chance to manage his team and then proves he's incapable. Right now this is a really tough job, it's always a tough job but it's probably the toughest it's ever been and to have us near the playoffs isn't totally awful. It's not great and I was hoping we'd be a bit more competitive but overall it's ok.

What I find the most disappointing and i'm sure you all do is the amount of points we've tossed away to seriously sh!t teams, close defeats or bad results against Bristol Rovers, Kidderminster or even FGR who are a strong side at this level is one thing, dropping points never mind losing to Telford, Alfreton, Braintree and Welling is completely unacceptable and the riot act should be read to our players and even as far as fines for poor performance as this has been a constant. These are semi professional poor sides who's only chance is to out fight us so for that to happen regularly shows the sort of character or complete lack of it within our club. Sadly as much as Greavsie has he can't cross the line for us and as much as he can try if people don't have that self respect for themselves then they can only be helped so far. We are likely to go to Grimsby or rovers and compete because we do have a handful of talented players but if they don't perform then the rest of our team lets us down.

This season has been horrible, I don't know about anyone else but I haven't enjoyed one minute of it, admittedly I've only been to a few games but I've listened to most of them and the empty lifeless grounds with 22 pitiful players on show most weeks and losing to sides as per mentioned above it's been horrible. We failed in the FA Cup and if we lose this Saturday it would probably just about sum our season up, Bromley have one of the biggest budgets in the division below and are going for promotion, while we should win they would probably slaughter the Alfreton's and Telford's of this world so it's not going to be a walk over.

Back to Hargreaves I'm judging him next year, he's trying desperately to balance the books, Hawley's gone, Benyon as well, once we get to the summer and he can get rid of Downes, Harding, Tonge and possibly a couple of others he may get the chance to actually form a team he can finally call his own then i'll judge him. Right now he's still got all these freeloaders in our club sucking the club dry and when he does get rid of one he's having to sign 3-4 players for the money equivalent of one he's letting go, when that's the case you get some good some bad and generally i think his signings have done ok. Most of them are a bit raw but I think Richards, MacDonalad, Ajala and big Duane have all had good first full seasons and you'd hope there's more to come from them in the future. Berry has been what we've missed for God knows how long and we just have to hope no one signs him so that we can keep him for next season.

We are also slowly thankfully starting to see the first young lads break through, this was always going to be a long process and I've said it before the worst thing Bateson ever did here was scrap the youth team because Torquay Utd can't buy players, never have done so we have to make our own or at least try to. Scrapping the youth team helped the club immediately financially but put us back 10-15 years and long term destroyed us financially. Once that ceased then it takes those 10 years to get the kids through to first team level, you restart it and your u16, u18 sides are full of the kids Plymouth, Exeter, Yeovil or the Bristol clubs didn't want, you get the rare diamond that may have slipped the net but these clubs know what's out there and would have pilfered all of any local talent that may have been around. This is why we've had none apart from Yeoman who has never been a first team regular here break through over this time and will be gone in a few months time. It's probably been going again for 7/8 years and it's now that our 17/18 year olds are starting to look as though they've got a chance although even our best one doesn't want to sign for us! Sad state of affairs but the reality of modern football.

This club desperately needs some new blood at boardroom level ideally new finance but where do they come from these days? Few ad far between especially at this level so until then Greavsie has to work with his hands tied and just do his best to continue to find young raw players like Ajala or Duane and try to improve them, as ever with these players they will throw the odd stinker out there but that's why they're playing for us.

Massive summer for us, expect a huge exodus from the club with all the high earners gone and possibly a couple we don't want to lose as well. Hargreaves for me is the best person to lead us through that change and put a young team out there again that hopefully has a bit more balls about them and more self respect than half of this lot do.

[royalgull]

Really ?? Ask Simon baker

is he the berk that sacked Ling by text and got us Alan Knill? Don't mind if I don't care what he thinks?

[Trojan 67]

Massive summer for us, expect a huge exodus from the club with all the high earners gone and possibly a couple we don't want to lose as well.

Only three senior pros are contracted beyond June 2015 (the squad overview thread needs to be updated).
Duane O', Toby Ajug, Richards, Shortfuse Gus and Jordan Seabiscuit need to improve to earn contract extensions. Berry in situ is earning a contract.

All the rest released. F**k off.

[yellowforever]

And Young, thankfully.

[PhilGull]

You need all in the club to SUPPORT the Manager. We have the same problem despite the position in the league where there are still supporters who would have Daryl Clarke out which is really stupid. A Manager can only work within the Clubs limitations. Will CH be given funds to improve in January or does that depend on getting rid of deadwood?
Could it be that you will have to sell Young to enable maybe three positions to be brought in?
I have always said that if the sell of one player can finance three or four positions in the team to make it better overall then I would go with that but too often at our club the sell of a star player has not gone back in to funding replacements and we have ended up much worst off.
How do you all feel about CH's signings ? Would you trust him to sign good replacements but more importantly does your Board trust him?
At the end of the day it is generally the case that the Board will act when the Manager has totally lost the fanbase. Reading your topics on here I don't see the numbers disillusioned as was the situation well before the end of Knill's tenure.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and you might have been better sticking with Ling in the same way we might have been better sticking with Trollope just those five years ago!!!

Sadly it doesn't always work, see Tottenham after Bale or Liverpool after Suarez.

As for Hargreaves, I still think he is doing an okay job. Considering the lack of experience and lack of funds I am quite happy with him so far. I certainly don't think the board will be looking to sack another manager, even if they could afford to (which I doubt they can.)

[Neal]

Gee no we don't want to pay off another manager, that would be at least 2 players less next season.

Don't worry, I get as frustrated and as pissed off as all of you, but there is some reality here, we cant f ing afford to keep sacking managers, weve done that, made a decision that was mainly welcomed and we should stick with it.

Next season I will make a judgement about half way through, but not now!!

[kevgull]

Objective - Employ a manager.

Purpose - To keep Torquay in the League - Failed
Purpose - To get Torquay promoted - Failing
Purpose - To keep us in the Conference ?

Let us all hope that he will one day gain enough experience in order to get us out of the sh*t the boardroom got us into. :Oops:
If he doesn't, were all doomed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Trojan 67]

Hargreaves is his own biggest fool - re-signed Fanny Stevens. Not a good start in my book. Who sanctioned that one?

Now it's beginning to dawn on the retarded - no more money than necessary will be wasted on squad building until all those in the squad here when relegation happened are released.

I, and hundreds of other non attendees this season await future developments with interest.

[SuperNickyWroe]

Hargreaves is his own biggest fool - re-signed Fanny Stevens. Not a good start in my book. Who sanctioned that one?

Now it's beginning to dawn on the retarded - no more money than necessary will be wasted on squad building until all those in the squad here when relegation happened are released.

I, and hundreds of other non attendees this season await future developments with interest.

he looks good on tv though........

always said he was a bad idea as manager.......

[Trojan 67]

Oh yeah almost forgot, Fanny Stevens has nothing on the real pocket "Atom" : Drew Provan.

[stefano]

.....tough job, it's always a tough job but it's probably the toughest it's ever been and to have us near the playoffs isn't totally awful.

I don't really think 10th out of 24 with 5 clubs below us able to overhaul us if they win just some of their many games in hand, is 'near the play-offs'.

It's actually quite near the relegation zone, although surely we are not that bad? We must be able to stay above at least 4 of the part-time outfits in the league. They are there for the taking by a full time professional club just out of the Football League.

Chris Hargreaves as manager? I do not really think any manager would be a big hit given the general malaise that seems to be running through the club.

Mind you publically slagging off players is an indication that he is well entangled in the general malaise!

It's running right through the club .... Last time even my Bovril was cold!

[RussianGull]

It's not going to plan, but did we really expect it to? The only place we're looking quite strong is up front, in goal, defence and midfield there's certainly room for improvement, having not seen Harding play for us yet, I'm a bit worried about our players being too easily overrun in midfield, could do with Richards rediscovering some of his early season form.

I won't judge CH until next Christmas, far too early too yet. He's a club legend. Though club legends can still face criticism, some of his tactical decisions this year have been very suspect, but he's learning and the younger players are learning too. Yes it's rubbish that we're in the Conference, but give me Hargreaves over Knill any day.

[Trojan 67]

give me Hargreaves over Knill any day.

Viewing that choice is like the condemned man choosing death by hanging in preference to the electric chair.

[Dave]

Current league table from 5th down to 14th

Kidderminster 29-46 pts
Woking 29-44 pts
FGR 29-44 pts
Halifax 27-42 pts
TUFC 30 - 42 pts
Lincoln 27-42 pts
Gateshead 26-40pts
Dover 28-40 pts
Braintree 29-39 pts

The important bit here is to look at the number game we've played (highlighted) compared to all the other team chasing a play-off spot, lets cut to the chase, unless there's a massive up turn in form our team are not even going close to a play-off spot, in fact it's starting to look like a battle between us, Braintree and Altrincham for 14th spot. Is that good enough or acceptable, not a chance, not even close, that would rank as a dismal failure.

I've been largely sympathetic to Chris Hargreaves, yes he's had difficulties that certainly hasn't helped his cause, but my patience with CH is wearing very thin now. The fitness of our team is alarming, it's January for gords sake, and those poor part-timers who only train twice a week, still had to play the same number of games over Christmas on the same heavy pitch's managed to look fitter than our full time professionals, is CH running a professional training regime or a holiday camp ?

The personal condition of Briscoe, and to a much lesser extent Yoeman and Rice who seems to be carrying a little wobble as well, is nothing far short of a disgrace, a professional manager has every right and should questioning any player turning up for training in January 'fat' in Briscoe we have a player capable of winning games in a flash, but can't because he's less mobile than Thomas the Tank engine.

I question the manager over inconsistency as well, how is it our team can turn up one day and superbly and just a few days later look like they couldn't give a monkeys stuff , something is not right there, and it's down the manager. As far as the manager is concerned the clock is ticking as fast.

[lucusmc]

Forever, that is why these players are at this level. If they were consistent and they would be playing higher. If Briscoe was fitter he would be playing higher level, there's a reason they are here. Also having send that, most of our team haven't even played a full season of first team football. Time to judge when we get the high wage earners out at the end of the season/ start of next.