We had a decent thread a while back discussing Evatt’s philosophies and approach to the game (think it got tainted and pulled)

So not a bad time to start it up again at the beginning of the season.

In the main he’s done a fantastic job. A minority lost patience round about Xmas/New Year in both seasons. 

But surely now he has the large backing of the majority of fans and the brand he talked about implementing here is now well and truly established.

Good article above highlighting how he’s using Sport Science to get the squad performing to it’s optimum level.

A young, meticulous, intelligent and passionate individual, who we are very lucky to have leading our club.

I hope he gets what he deserves with promotion to the Championship. 

31 minutes ago, Johnnyrotten said:

I'll agree all day long that Baxter is steadier than Coleman, but he also saved us a few times and no guarantee Baxter makes the same saves on the day.  I just can't think of any game where I came away thinking we'd dropped points because of Coleman.  Possibly Exeter's 1st goal when he came off his line, but I think Baxter would have too (2 great finishes by them).  Maybe Charlton's 2nd in the 3-3. 

We didn't drop many points with Coleman playing, aside from the games we always lose, and had some good results. It’s a myth in my book that we'd have had more points with Baxter. but always happy to hear your opinion (but the chairman absolutely should not be commenting negatively on an individual player).

She didn’t individually call him out and berate him personally! You read between the lines all you want, she just mentions we missed our number one keeper. 

Also I’ve just had a quick look and the stats are in my favour as well as the subjective opinion that a lesser keeper will lose you more games than win them. 

In the 13 games that Coleman plays we win 5/13. In the thirteen before that it’s 8/13 and same again in the 13 before that 8 wins in 13.

Everything else is subjective, I think a better keeper gets us more points in that spell, you think a better keeper with a more confident defence will make no difference because of history and the opposition in that spell - just opinions at the end of the day 😊 

Just now, desperado said:

She didn’t individually call him out and berate him personally! You read between the lines all you want, she just mentions we missed our number one keeper. 

Also I’ve just had a quick look and the stats are in my favour as well as the subjective opinion that a lesser keeper will lose you more games than win them. 

In the 13 games that Coleman plays we win 5/13. In the thirteen before that it’s 8/13 and same again in the 13 before that 8 wins in 13.

Everything else is subjective, I think a better keeper gets us more points in that spell, you think a better keeper with a more confident defence will make no difference because of history and the opposition in that spell - just opinions at the end of the day 😊 

No doubt in my mind we get more points with baxter, but wasnt santos out for quite a few, too

1 minute ago, Casino said:

No doubt in my mind we get more points with baxter, but wasnt santos out for quite a few, too

Could well have been, which I agree would also make a difference - but he’s overrated, past his best and deserves to be back delivering for Amazon doesn’t he? 😊

18 minutes ago, desperado said:

She didn’t individually call him out and berate him personally! You read between the lines all you want, she just mentions we missed our number one keeper. 

Also I’ve just had a quick look and the stats are in my favour as well as the subjective opinion that a lesser keeper will lose you more games than win them. 

In the 13 games that Coleman plays we win 5/13. In the thirteen before that it’s 8/13 and same again in the 13 before that 8 wins in 13.

Everything else is subjective, I think a better keeper gets us more points in that spell, you think a better keeper with a more confident defence will make no difference because of history and the opposition in that spell - just opinions at the end of the day 😊 

Draws count too 😀 eg 2-2 at Barnsley, 0-0 at Stevenage.  We lost 3 out of 13 - Blackpool, Wigan, Derby with Coleman, 2 out of 13 prior to that, Orient and Bristol Rovers at home.  Fixtures were harder IMO.

Aside from opposition, 8 of our 13 games were away with Coleman, only 6 with Baxter. 

Anyway, I don't care this much honestly!  Thanks for the chat. 

28 minutes ago, desperado said:

She didn’t individually call him out and berate him personally! You read between the lines all you want, she just mentions we missed our number one keeper. 

In hindsight, she should have said nothing.

I did think it sounded like Coleman got threw under the bus by SB & IE after the failure to go up.

No mention of JDB not scoring v Derby, though.

2 minutes ago, Traf said:

In hindsight, she should have said nothing.

I did think it sounded like Coleman got threw under the bus by SB & IE after the failure to go up.

No mention of JDB not scoring v Derby, though.

I don’t think there was any malice in it. Just highlighting a key injury over 13 games which had a negative impact IMO and hers

There’s nothing personal in it whatsoever.

It went something like this:

“We had a torrid run of injuries when we lost Nathan for 13/14 games. We could have got promoted had those not happened” 
 

3 hours ago, desperado said:

I don’t think there was any malice in it. Just highlighting a key injury over 13 games which had a negative impact IMO and hers

There’s nothing personal in it whatsoever.

It went something like this:

“We had a torrid run of injuries when we lost Nathan for 13/14 games. We could have got promoted had those not happened” 
 

my memory might be playing tricks, but I recall her saying "if Nathan Baxter hadn't been injured we'd have gone up, there's no doubt in my mind about that". Which seemed pretty specific to me.

Can't be arsed watching the video to check though, so might have got  exaggerated a bit in my erratic memory.

Felt harsh (to me) at the time.

Anyway, be water under the bridge if we go on an amazing run and go up.

Or don't and pot him. 😁

20 minutes ago, wakey said:

my memory might be playing tricks, but I recall her saying "if Nathan Baxter hadn't been injured we'd have gone up, there's no doubt in my mind about that". Which seemed pretty specific to me.

Can't be arsed watching the video to check though, so might have got  exaggerated a bit in my erratic memory.

Felt harsh (to me) at the time.

Anyway, be water under the bridge if we go on an amazing run and go up.

Or don't and pot him. 😁

Exact words were:  “I don’t like excuses, but we had a torrid run of injuries and in particular when we lost Nathan for 13 or 14 games, I personally, in my opinion, think that without that injury we would have been promoted.”

18 minutes ago, Cheese said:

Exact words were:  “I don’t like excuses, but we had a torrid run of injuries and in particular when we lost Nathan for 13 or 14 games, I personally, in my opinion, think that without that injury we would have been promoted.”

Scapegoating 

5 minutes ago, Stig said:

Scapegoating 

Nah, I think she was spot on. Probably shouldn't have said it publicly though.

7 minutes ago, Cheese said:

Nah, I think she was spot on. Probably shouldn't have said it publicly though.

Old ground, but Derby lost their first choice keeper for an equal amount of time and coped.

Plenty more important reasons we didn't go up.

And no excuse for the boss of the company singling out a junior employee as the cause of failure.

Edited January 5, 20251 yr by Stig

Just now, Stig said:

Old ground, but Derby lost their first choice keeper for an equal amount of time and coped.

Plenty more important reasons we didn't go up.

And no excuse for the boss of the company singling out an employee as the cause of failure.

Maybe Derby's second choice keeper was better than ours?

1 minute ago, Cheese said:

Maybe Derby's second choice keeper was better than ours?

Didn't hear them publicly complaining so possibly.

Or just they conducted themselves better.

Edited January 5, 20251 yr by Stig

1 minute ago, Stig said:

Didn't hear them publicly complaining so possibly.

Or just they conducted themselves better.

Regardless, I still believe injuries fucked us up that season. The spine of our team was basically decimated.

43 minutes ago, Cheese said:

Maybe Derby's second choice keeper was better than ours?

Which is why we upgraded our second keeper. Coleman as a stopper was OK but he loved coming flying off his line. 

1 hour ago, Stig said:

Scapegoating 

Was it balls.

 

12 hours ago, Stig said:

Old ground, but Derby lost their first choice keeper for an equal amount of time and coped.

Plenty more important reasons we didn't go up.

And no excuse for the boss of the company singling out a junior employee as the cause of failure.

Thank god Baxter was fit for the play off final, at least the same claim couldn't be made for arguably the worst display of 2024.  I still wonder which games Sharon has in mind when having Baxter in goal would have given us extra points.  Talk about shifting the focus away from the real issues.

Wasn't Charles also out for some of the games Baxter missed? 

We did have a lot of injuries, including key (1st names on the Team Sheet) players at a time when we had to play extra games due to cup runs, and replaying a couple of abandoned games.

Perfectly reasonable, when being asked to comment, for the chair to suggest without those injuries she believed we would have gained promotion. Scrappy late goal at Derby for us instead of them would have sent us up. We were very close. Close enough to suggest it wasn't (isn't) time to rip it all up and start again.  

22 minutes ago, kobeer said:

 

Perfectly reasonable, when being asked to comment, for the chair to suggest without those injuries she believed we would have gained promotion. 

That would've been perfectly reasonable for her to say.

As kindly provided by Cheese above, she said we'd have gone up without Baxter's injury. 

5 minutes ago, wakey said:

That would've been perfectly reasonable for her to say.

As kindly provided by Cheese above, she said we'd have gone up without Baxter's injury. 

Which is a mental statement given her “standards” 

It was a pretty empty headed statement. There's no reading of it that isn't a dig at Coleman - 'if we had a better keeper we'd have gone up'. And I'm positive that anyone in his position would take it the same way.

Not sure it's that relevant now though. Maybe makes it weirder that she seems so keen to shield the manager - but equally in her previous lines of work she probably didn't have hundreds of people analysing every word she said publicly. 

Fundamentally, what she said is bollocks though. We've bottled more than enough games with Baxter.

Feel sorry for Coleman, I thought once he settled in he looked fine and in no way let us down. I wonder what he’s doing at the moment because yet again he doesn’t seem to be getting any actual game time.

Out of all our current problems Im not sure a throwaway comment made last summer about our goalie getting injured mid-season is up there.

1 hour ago, Whitesince63 said:

 I wonder what he’s doing at the moment because yet again he doesn’t seem to be getting any actual game time.

Why dont you just read posts above and your answer is in there

2 hours ago, Tombwfc said:

It was a pretty empty headed statement. There's no reading of it that isn't a dig at Coleman - 'if we had a better keeper we'd have gone up'. And I'm positive that anyone in his position would take it the same way.

Not sure it's that relevant now though. Maybe makes it weirder that she seems so keen to shield the manager - but equally in her previous lines of work she probably didn't have hundreds of people analysing every word she said publicly. 

Fundamentally, what she said is bollocks though. We've bottled more than enough games with Baxter.

I'm sure Coleman would have been pissed off with that comment, but he should understand that the comments had merit. The drop off between him and Baxter was enormous. Way too large to be considered a non-issue. That gap has closed now with the inclusion of Southwood.

Again, Coleman needs to accept that. Big boy pants and all that. He's a neighbour of mine and I'm sure is a very nice guy, but there is no doubt that having him in nets rather than Baxter cost us. Not sure we'd have been guaranteed promotion or anything, but it certainly would have given us a better chance.

He's unfortunate to play in a position where you're alone. Saying things like "our best striker was out" or "best defender was out" doesn't stick 2 fingers up at the replacements in those positions in the same way.