Ricardo Moniz: Stick or twist?

Well we’re just over a third of the way into the season, and what looked to be a season full of promise most certainly has not lived up to expectations thus far.

We find ourselves lying 16th in the table following a series of poor displays interspersed with the off half-decent performance, which seems to suggest a rate of progress going along at one step forward followed by two steps back. And given the tools we have at our disposal and what we’re up against, that to me is totally unacceptable at this stage of the season.

Now of course, given that we had a relatively new manager, new coaching staff and about 30 new players it was always going to take some time to gel. Fine, I get that. But is there really a hint of progress being made? Personally I don’t think so. 

You only need to listen to Ricardo Moniz’s post-match interviews to see where I’m coming from. Particularly after away games, it’s pretty much the exact same interview on repeat. The same mistakes, the same problems. 

It does beg the question: what do we actually do on the training ground all week? Because learning from our mistakes certainly doesn’t appear to be one of them. So here we are, once again with a fan base (one which continues to dwindle at that) split on whether to stick or twist.

Let’s be honest, nobody was really all that surprised when Shaun Derry lost his job, but the appointment of Moniz certainly did raise a few eyebrows, and it always looked to be an appointment that would go one way or the other. It’s all well and good saying he had so much success abroad in Austria or Switzerland or wherever, but let’s be right; League Two is a completely different world. 

I felt at the time we needed someone who had been there, seen it, done it and got the t-shirt at this level. Funnily enough the last manager we appointed with that in mind did a fairly good job while he was here. Say what you want about Martin Allen and his off-field antics, but nobody can really deny that it has all been downhill since he went. 

I certainly feel that we have created a lot of our own problems by signing a quite outrageous number of players, again many of which are unproven at this level. And then the proven players we did sign we go and play out of position! 

Jon Stead – a 32-year-old centre forward is NOT suddenly going to become a winger overnight so why stick him there? We signed him to score goals to play him in a position where we can do just that! We have good wingers at the club who don’t get a game, where’s the logic in that?

Meanwhile we persist with playing a pensioner in midfield and leaving the young and hungry local boy Curtis Thomspon out of the fold, that despite his outstanding performances in the first few games of the season! I thought our whole philosophy under the last few managers was to blood these youngsters into first team regulars, yet all of a sudden we’d sooner stick a has-been in there? It doesn’t add up at all.

Oh, and then there’s the left back situation. Blair Adams was for me one of the better players last season. Granted that’s not saying a great deal considering the side he was in, but the decision to send him out on loan to one of our main rivals in this league is completely baffling. What does that leave us with? Well there’s Alan Sheehan, but seeing as none of the centre halves we have at the club are capable of carrying out even the most basic of defensive duties we have a left back and a fitness coach playing there, leaving us with Gill Swerts or Audel – neither of which are capable of blocking a cross.

And while I’m at it, whatever happened to Rob Milsom? Or Rhys Sharpe? Or Wes Atkinson? What was the point of them signings exactly? I mean Scot Bennett gave me hope I could still make it!

I could go on. I never like seeing any manager get the sack. The rate at which this club has gone through managers down the years is embarrassing, but I really do think it’s getting to the stage where Ricardo Moniz’s position is becoming untenable unless we can finally start a winning run, but there’s certainly no sign of that happening anytime soon.

I don’t think it’s all Moniz’s fault. The board of directors and the transfer committee need to look at themselves, because they’re all combining to drag this great club to an all-time low.  

The players certainly were not playing for Moniz at Salford, and the second half capitulation at Cambridge was a complete shambles – the likes of which we’ve seen all too regularly on the road. Gillingham, Morecambe, Wimbledon, Sheffield United to name but a few. 

I would love nothing more than for us to go on a winning run and turn this season around, but for now I’m firmly of the opinion that sadly, Moniz needs to go. I don’t see where progress is being made, and as it is this season is in severe danger of fizzling out into mid-table obscurity at best, and as I said given the tools at our disposal that is totally unacceptable. Top seven should be the absolute bare minimum and right now we look a long way off that. 

But who do we get in? Well that’s the problem. There’s not many managers out there we haven’t tried! Knowing us we’d go and give the job to Alan Smith and Mike Edwards as joint player-managers. We’re not in a position to go and poach somebody off of another club. And anyway you’d have to be mad to take the job on at Notts given the rate at which we go through managers. 

This will probably come across as a bit of a rant, mainly because it is. I just don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. Supporting Notts has genuinely become quite tedious over the last few years. I’m at the point of almost dreading our matches now. I’ll still go as often as I possibly can, but I always go fully expecting the day to take a turn for the worst from about 3pm onwards! 

Oh to have been around in the days of Jimmy Sirrell or Neil Warnock...