Coaching and backroom staff

JonnyBiscuits

Chris Hackett is assistant manager. Although I think Des is head coach so not sure who he’s assisting.

brinyhoof

CHRIS HACKETT INVETIGATES

Bspittles

The mysterious case of the missing S

Joe_Citrone

I am going to sound like such a Debbie Downer on his appointment and I am sorry.

Firstly, I am happy for Chris Hackett as a person. Local lad who has done well coaching in the youth system by all accounts and has worked his way up - fair play.

HOWEVER, I think it has been apparent that Des needs extra help and support on top of what was already in the building for a little while - this hasn’t remedied that - and possibly extra experience to help a coach who is still learning his trade somewhat (again, not been added).

Also, you have to factor in how at odds this feels with everything Des has been saying which indicated the appointment would be both external and someone he has worked with before.

I hope this works out and that my worries are for nothing, but I would be lying if I said that I am not a little bit concerned.

TrevorAylottsHeadband

I tend to agree with @Joe_Citrone here.

As much as anything, this is a case where expectation management has gone wrong. If there hadn’t been talk about Des looking at candidates from outside the club etc etc, there could have been a decent story here around how he worked with Chris in the Academy before, recognises what he has to offer and feels that he’s the best person for the job. The problem is, it now looks like a second/third-best option just to get someone in place.

It’s the same with The Triangle planning. We’ve gone from a definitive statement about an application being submitted in Oct/Nov, to some vague notion about amended plans being revealed in the ‘coming weeks’. What we were told to expect is different to the reality being delivered.

To be honest, the whole update from Tim Williams comes across as being reactive; it’s something which has been put out to temper the criticism over the lack of comms, rather than being a planned/regular update. The club need to get a grip of comms sharpish, because the whole planning cycle is going to need them to be absolutely on the ball.

JonnyBiscuits

While I fully agree with the points about it looking like we’ve gone with the in-house option because we couldn’t get the people we wanted from outside, I do feel that the “Des needs more help” thing was a bit of a fan-driven narrative. A comment repeated on social media enough to have become ‘accepted fact’, regardless of how true it was or wasn’t.

I think part of that was that everyone wanted Des to start off where Manning left off, and it was easier to lay the (relatively) bumpy start at the feet of the fact that “Des needs more help” and create a bogeyman to be the focus of our frustrations (the board for not providing him with the support he needed). I think that was an easier narrative to accept rather than countenance the possibility that it might just take Des some time to get up to speed, and we may have to accept that this season isn’t going to be the blast to promotion we’d convinced ourselves it would be after five games.

I definitely agree with the reactive nature of the Tim Williams nothing-statement though. Without wanting to detract from his considerable contribution to the heart and soul of the club over the years, I think Chris Williams needs somebody at senior management/director level above co-ordinating the comms stuff (and tying it together with the marketing stuff too). They’re all hard-working and talented people, but they’re focused so much on the day-to-day, game-by-game work that it’s all a bit scattergun and reactive all the time.

brinyhoof

JonnyBiscuits the fans were amazing though? They deserved that, didn’t they?

JonnyBiscuits

Either way, I reckon Des has definitely learned a few lessons about what to discuss openly in interviews and what not to in the past few weeks.

brinyhoof

JonnyBiscuits has made KR look positively secretive at times…

Bspittles

When was the last time we employed a permanent manager who hadn’t held a similar position before? Malcolm Shotton?

At some point, people have to be given a chance to show they can perform in a different/higher role than they have previously. Otherwise all managers would be the age of Roy Hodgson!

I’m pleased for Chris and Des, who now has someone to help out.

brinyhoof

Bspittles Pep wants a word…

JonnyBiscuits

brinyhoof I especially like it when he asks that when the atmosphere has been dreadful and the team were barracked and booed throughout the game.

JonnyBiscuits

brinyhoof I kind of get the sense that DB will learn the lessons though

Bspittles

brinyhoof Ah yes. Best we don’t go down that path…

JonnyBiscuits

I see they’ve downgraded “assistant manager” to “assistant”.

brinyhoof

JonnyBiscuits saw a reference to something DB said in an interview, implied CH wasn’t his choice?

JonnyBiscuits

brinyhoof He said something along the lines of “Yeah, I think we’ve gone a bit early on that” (IE the announcement of CH as assistant). He then said a bunch of positive things about CH and the impact he’s had, and implied he’ll be a positive asset to the coaching team, but he then went on to say some fairly guarded things along the lines of “what that looks like we’ll have to wait and see and it should be clearer by the weekend”.

My interpretation was that he has asked for CH to have a role, but not as his assistant, and if I had to take a guess, it’d be that whoever put together Tim Williams’s update to fans had misunderstood/misinterpreted what was happening with CH. I think some people were suggesting that CH had been forced on him, which wasn’t my interpretation at all. My guess is miscommunication within the club, and haste to whizz out Williams’s update led to inaccurate info being about CH being published.

It would, after all, be strange to announce a new assistant manager in paragraph seven of a general CEO new year update message.

I could be wildly wrong though, it’s all just interpretation and guesswork at this stage.

JonnyBiscuits

I’ve now seen some people point out that his previous answer had been about how he had recently been speaking too early about things we were still trying to nail down (saying signings were nearly done, saying the analyst was nearly done etc. etc)… and thus the point he made about the assistant manager being one they’ve “gone too early on” was in reference to his optimistic appraisals earlier in the season on how quickly it would be done. That does actually scan better than “the CEO has announced it too early”

However, he did then go on to explain that how CH will fit in with the coaching team is still being worked on and will be finalised by the weekend.

So, other than the original TW statement potentially overstating CH’s role, which hasn’t yet been defined, it actually sounds like DB is very happy with CH being involved.

So, and this seems like an absurd concept, perhaps people on twitter might be getting their pants in a knot over nothing.

brinyhoof

JonnyBiscuits perhaps people on twitter might be getting their pants in a knot over nothing.

First time for everything!

Thanks for the summaries :)

TrevorAylottsHeadband

From what I’ve heard, the Tim Williams announcement came as a surprise to those involved. Apparently, Des was still negotiating with Glyn Hodges to come in as assistant, and Chris Hackett doesn’t really want to be the permanent assistant.

The Edwards situation is odd too. His loan has been terminated as he’s going to be out injured until April, but he’s staying with us for treatment as we are looking to sign him permanently when he’s out of contract in the summer.