THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Personally I think that it was season of underperformance from across almost every department of the club

Manning - Clearly a good coach as the season previous and season subsequently have proved. I felt that he buckled a bit under the pressure, making odd selections, even odder substitutions and changing the shape of the team. Its quite a distinguishable pattern actually and something that a lot of under pressure managers fall victim to. To me it looked like he started second guessing himself and for a manager thats about a bad a place as you can get too.

Sweeting - Be it bad luck or just bad timing, I think Mannings situation coincided with the poorest period of Sweetings tenure. The recruitment was average at best. The whole concept of a sporting director is to maintain a consistency of philosophy and I dont think he managed to do that in that particular season

Winkelman - Hard to say that Pete had a particularly poor season as owner in that he has been so erratic that the particular season was not that much different to plenty of others. Having said that I dont think the budget was anything particularly special and the sacking of Manning, while justifiable has less credibility in context when Jacko was the new chosen one. A man with no experience of such a role with a team in such a precarious position. if Pete had previous experience of dealing with that set of circumstances it might have helped. Oh, hang on, wait a minute...............

The Players - Pretty much a disgrace that season, almost to a man. Abject performances given consistently. The core of the squad was the same a the near promotion the season previously and all of a sudden the lack of ability to stay calm, follow patterns of play and at times even pass the ball to each other was an and should remain a time they look back on and be embarrassed about the levels they didnt reach.

As always, hindsight being the powerhouse that it is, sticking with Manning may well not have changed the ultimate outcome of that season but sticking with him would have kept some level of continuity and allowed a clearly talented coach the space to develop.

Your last paragraph is exactly right.

Believe it or don't, but but the players that started last season were 100% not his choices. He was given them and quite literally told to get on with it. Give him a descent squad and he'll get them playing good football. Witness what he did at Oxford and what he's doing at Bristol. He's a good coach, but it was the correct decision to part company with him. Equally as much it was the correct decision to part company with his successor, and likewise his successor.

_________________
When you make your music, do you think about the man in the street? No, I've met the man in the street. He's a Ladybit.

I really don't. I just cannot understand why Russ would have a significant input on recruitment, then Manning would have an influence over the signings of Wickham, Kemp and Coventry, then to take any say from Manning after a successful season to then allow Jackson to add Dean, allow Alexander to add Hunter, allow Williamson to bring in two lads from Gateshead. Why in one window did we remove the successful head coaches input in recruitment and then randomly go back to allowing them?

What I can see is recruitment offering some options and Manning taking his pick, didn't Sweeting mention Finn Azaz was on the options for Manning? I can also see Manning asking for certain types of player or players in a certain position then Sweeting identifying realistic and long term options. If Manning was truly 'given them and literally told to get on with it' I'd actually be disappointed in him for not pushing the club publicly or just walking from the job.

Not just Azaz, the lad from Palace who went to Charlton was supposedly very close. Might be remembering it wrongly but I'm sure we chose someone else.

I still think "on paper" the signings we made at the time were promising.
- Got our goalie back.
- Barry from Villa was highly rated and has proven it since.
-Grigg despite a rough few years is experienced and a help - I said when we signed him he wasn't the answer to the problem and was a squad player.. and was pretty darn nervous that I was looking wrong and so it proved.. he should've been the Conor Wickham type and we had to rely on him for a lot of the season.
- Two of Ireland's best talents that had been touted for a long time finally came in.
- Brad Johnson should've been good and I've no idea why he wasn't. Consistently Championship for 10 years is no mean feat.
- We signed a promising defender in Tucker
Despite relegation, it doesn't always mean you've got a bad individual player. If someone signed O'Hora last Summer we'd not be telling anyone they got a dud.

It went tits up. Losing to Cambridge before two incredibly tough fixtures didn't help. By the time we'd got to game week 4 we were miles behind. Pressure creeps in to pull a run together. I seriously wonder if our fortunes, although not much different, might have been different had we scored in those opening minutes at Cambridge.
I think many of us would've been content with 10th-12th and build again. But I listen back to the podcast I did at Cambridge in day 1 and it was optimistic. Embarrassingly so and a lot of people agreed. Nobody thought our summer business with the inevitable losses of our two golden boys would've resulted in the season we got so there's no reason Liam S and M and Pete etc would've forseen it.

Our inability as a club to really press on when we have positivity is worrying.
Championship season, the transfer window was lower mid table League One levels of mediocre.
Promotion to League One, made some great signings and Kasumu/Nombe showed up but injuries plagued Tisdale .
And last season was horrific.

If we fail to go up this year, we need to do all we can this season to set ourselves up for next season. Show players what we're about so we can do an assault on the League like Mansfield and Stockport are.

_________________
#DonYourWhite

Turn Stadium MK WHITE In The Playoffs

https://donsaction.co.uk/

GET THIS SEASONS HOME SHIRT FOR £16.50 ↓↓↓
https://shop.mkdons.co.uk/collections/23-24-home-kit

He was all set to sign then Tennai got injured so we got a right back instead IIRC

_________________
Cuboid of bum fluff

I was at Cambridge - didn't we hit the woodwork early on? But I was sat behind the family of some of the coaching staff and saw them texting, once the coked up fans on the right started getting eggy, that it was going to be a really tough season. They did know what was coming.

Part of being a good manager is "managing up" as well as "down". If the players weren't his, he was also weak to just accept that. I am sure he has learned lessons.



100% and the finger only really points at one person for that... Tucker. No, I mean Winkie.

A lot of these LM wanted and was told no by LS or PW - Azaz for example he was told no on.

That right back being Oyekoke wasn’t it? From Rak-Sakyi to Oyekoke. What a nightmare

How do you know that? I was under the impression it was the other way around.