Talkin' Ian Burchnall

[Chris]

There's been a lot of calls on social media for his departure, if you've read Twitter at all - there's fans with their handle as BurchnallOut (hash tagging it too).

Its a bit more self-destruction if anything.

The Reedtz brothers won't sack him this early, I don't think he should either (despite his appointment/start bring very underwhelming).

My personal thoughts so far, he's desperate to have a few of his own signings in the squad. He hasn't really influenced the players and performances haven't been great either.

Hopefully, the win over Sutton can be a turning point.

Yet the departure of Ross, I had hoped someone experienced with assisting Burchnall would come in.

I think the squad has suffered poor form due to pressure, it's a confidence thing for me. It wasn't Ardley, Burchnall might be okay in the next campaign but the signs so far don't look promising.

Some fans have stated facts about the amount of wins, compared to defeats, but we need to face it that this season is out of our hands. We can only hope we can make the most of the chance of reaching the play-offs, knowing Notts - we'll still do it or miss out after losing to Weymouth.

Give Burchnall time, Ardley haters got him out but at what cost?

[Super_Danny_Allsopp]

I think it's fairly clear that 'Ardley haters' didn't result in Ardley losing his job. The Reedtz brothers seem far too level-headed and analytical for that to be the case, they aren't Alan Hardy v2. 

The timing of Ardley's departure is both understandable and perplexing, depending on how you look at it. 

Scenario A: The owners thought that Ardley wasn't getting the best out of players that were capable of achieving better; a new manager could provide that boost (Cotteril-esque). Personally, I can't understand this. The performances have been terrible since the start of this season and the warning signs have long been there. In fact, a lot of the games we've been very, very lucky to walk out with as many points as we did. I think back to beating Chesterfield at home when we played appallingly and deserved nothing, to Kings Lynn when we were terrible and got points. I think the guy that runs notts stats on twitter alluded to this; Ardley got more points than the stats suggested we would, and Burchnall got a lot less fewer points than the stats would suggest we should've. Call it rub of the green, poor form, loss of confidence.... 

This is why I can't understand fans that are calling for Burchnall already. It's not as if the performances have been largely different, they haven't, they've been pretty much similar. Some good performances and we look like a team capable of doing something, followed by terrible performances. The deficiencies are exactly the same; inconsistent performances from players (Rodrigues, Sam), passing sideways and backwards, mistakes in possession, can't handle teams that come at us and conceding from set pieces. Cast your mind back to that first game of the season and how we lost it. We passed sideways, backwards, created little and conceded from a set-play. Sound familiar?  Maidenhead: October. Score 2 bur lose. Concede 2 x set pieces. The list of examples can go on and on... 

Scenario B: The owners identified that promotion is very unlikely given the performances and decided to make the change now, so the manager has time to assess the squad. This ensures that he's not taking deadwood into next season and we don't waste another half a season to find out the players we have aren't up to scratch. Also allows him to settle in and we are stable-ish going into next season, with targets identified and signings ready to go.


I think the reality is likely in between. I'm sure the owners knew that the performances were bad, the results were OK (but getting worse) and that this squad had some pretty big flaws. They took the decision to rectify the issue with one eye on next season, but also hoping a bit that maybe that new manager bounce might work. It didn't. 

[liampie]

to keep on point with talking about burchnall, i think hes got to be given time. some fans call for heads way too early but something has to happen in the meantime with making the most of the remaining games that notts has.

i also agree that he needs to have players hes brought into the fold, these need to be strong characters when it happens.

or else i fear we will end up with another mixed camp of players.

[Joshua]

I just think the people who usually moan about this type of appointment, are the people trying to wind other supporters up. Ian Burchnall does not look like someone who can be a good manager in the time we require, more of a long term project and Notts does not give managers this time.

In a new season under him we would be near the bottom of the league and struggling, is he really strong enough to do better?

He needs more time to judge properly but I find it frustrating.

[menzinho]

I think any fans calling for Ian Burchnall to go are wasting their time, I agree he isn’t going anywhere soon.

It’s easy to look at Ian Burchnall’s stats and just disregard him, but you can’t deny he’s been at some clubs that have been total disasters behind the scenes (we know about that…) the big positive I can take from it is, despite this, a lot of the fans from the clubs he’s worked at have good things to say about him.

Next season the biggest and most important thing like it is every season is recruitment. That will ultimately play a huge part of whether IB will be successful or not. Look at the Munto season, McParland went from a manager who could barely get us mid-table to play-offs simply because the players were so much better.

And the recruitment here now is very different to previous regimes. The slight change from 'Manager' to 'Head Coach' suggests to me he won’t have as much say as Ardley did when it comes to signings – but surely he’ll get final say? And for all the good ‘Football Radar’ brings the Sloth signing was so, so wrong – hopefully there’s been a lesson learnt there.

Until we get mid-way through next season we won’t really be able to tell if IB (and the ‘strategy’) is working.

[Wilfordpie]

Ian Burchnall does need time to address things from Neal Ardley's reign, he will be learning every game about the squad and I think the start of his time here is a shock. I have quickly come to think he could do well, he should be ambitious.

This season seemed all over, Sutton and Barnet's results now suggest otherwise.

Judge him nearer to next Christmas.