Heckinbottom- what’s the verdict so far?

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Must admit I was one one of those underwhelmed with his appointment, but he's proved me wrong. He's shown that he has a good tactical and man-management skills and can motivate a team. A good team spirit is vital to success and we seem to have that.

People need to be aware that all managers have good seasons and poor seasons, and if we have a poor season it doesn't mean Hecky 's a poor manager. I'd like to see him given plenty of time to build, he's earned it.
 



The dingle's not changed my opinion of him at all. Results went fairly well for him but he is in the job for the wrong reasons, ie princey's yes man, regardless of the 'empty noises' he makes toward/about the board etc etc, he ain't kidding me.
Overall he still looked/looks like what he is.... a failed coach.
Now a failed coach taking a good income from our club for four & half years, regardless.
 

He has done a good job no doubt

But I fear he has taken us as far as we can and we have peaked under Hecky, poor performances towards the end of last year and we struggled to scrape the play offs and that's with Berge & MGW

No room for sentiment for me a good 45 vs Forest wont convince me otherwise

Id be on the phone to Corboran or Dychey or even the bible basher at Luton

There is no previous evidence that Hecky is good enough at this level 4/5 months of getting a play off squad at the minimum performing at that level wont convince me otherwise

I will get called a debby downer and troll but there are better managers out there 100% there is no room for sentiments boro sacked Colin when he was doing an Ok job and they upgraded
 
I'm a big fan. He's made us enjoyable to watch again after a long period where we weren't at all and he just seems like a really nice guy.

I think the coming season is a big one for him, possibly the biggest of his career so far. He's in charge of a squad that cost big money and that has proven it can compete at the top end of the division. He's been backed in the transfer market this summer. The pressure is on for him to deliver and I think anything less than a top six finished will be seen as a failure. It might not cost him his job but it would definitely mark the end of the honeymoon.
 
dc_blade said:
I'm a big fan. He's made us enjoyable to watch again after a long period where we weren't at all and he just seems like a really nice guy.

I think the coming season is a big one for him, possibly the biggest of his career so far. He's in charge of a squad that cost big money and that has proven it can compete at the top end of the division. He's been backed in the transfer market this summer. The pressure is on for him to deliver and I think anything less than a top six finished will be seen as a failure. It might not cost him his job but it would definitely mark the end of the honeymoon.
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Unless there are extenuating circumstances then I don’t think a finish outside the top six would be acceptable.
 
With the loss of Billy for at least the early part of the season , the need to bed in the new signings and get them used to our system and a number of tricky looking fixtures I can see us getting off to a slow start to the season .

If that happens , I hope he is given time to turn things around , as he has already shown he can do , and that mass hysteria and doom laden prophecies are kept to a minimum on here .

You can but dream ..... :)
 
It may look as though I'm sticking up for Hecky here and coming up with excuses for him but its just the way I see it really 🤷‍♂️

Those that say his past managerial record is poor/underwhelming I think are only looking at it on the surface without a bit of context.

He didn't succeed at Hibs but what can any sort of manager really achieve there in all honesty? The SPL is a small pointless league at the end of the day and how have they gotten on since his departure? Same old same old in the middle third of that league I guess?

Leeds. Just that one name says it all doesn't it so when passing judgement on a manager's time there it shouldn't be too harsh. They've been a basket case of a club for years once they finally got promotion from L1 in 2011 by having about 25 managers in 25 minutes. They probably would still be a basket case if not for finally stumbling upon Bielsa that got them up.

Barnsley. Victorious at Wembley twice within months of each other winning the EFL Trophy and L1 Play Off final and then kept them up in the Championship which on the back of that success is why Leeds ended up appointing him.

Granted what he did with Barnsley wasn't super spectacular by any stretch but (and here is a little more context) its still a lot more achievement in English football than most managers that you could look at up and down the EFL pyramid, a lot of them we've not really heard of before that have come from abroad too and then end up going back after being sacked with nothing to show for it.

ETA: forgot to give a small mention to his caretaker spell with us for our last few matches in the PL. Again not spectacular (effectively we were already down) but admirable and picked up more points on average than Wilder that season if you were to take a similar sample size of matches played. He seemed to get the team playing a little better.
 
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He does seem to learn well from his various experiences. Some good and some not so good, but his impact on younger players is clear to see.
He has been backed by the Prince, but only within limits. He has probably had to battle quite hard for the little he was given.
Based on his reputation for developing all kinds of player, his successes last season and his quality coaching and understanding at youth level., I think he has done a cracking job so far.

As many have pointed out, he must continue to move forward this season to be considered an unqualified success. I reckon he has done well with some mixed resources so far, and I think we, and he should be looking at automatic promotion this season. If he does get this team promoted, he will be an unqualified success.
 
I think our Hecky has been fucking a few forum members wives. That's the only explanation.
 
If he could get Princey to fund progression to a Category 1 academy it would be his greatest achievement.

I suppose that would mean getting a whole new training ground which will cost millions.

How many on here would be willing to forgo progress in the league for a couple of years and focus investment on the academy?

(I did by a Euromillions ticket last week with a view funding the academy improvements but didn't quite choose the right numbers).
 
He’s had a strong start to the role better than I initially expected however he has to answer the big question about him this coming season that being can he do it in his own right so to speak.

Came in at Barnsley taking on Lee Johnson’s squad got them motivated and pushed them on into the play offs. Came in here took over Wilder/Slav’s squad got us motivated and pushed us into the playoffs needs to show he can repeat the trick and hopefully build on it and show that his failures at Leeds and Hibs were due to the environment and that he’s not just a motivator/man manager.
 



He speaks well, really good and engaging.

Tactically I'm not quite as sure in terms of a plan b, but currently the best man for the job in my view and a quantum leap better than Slav.
 
Terrible luck with injuries means we never got the best of what potentially could have been a even better second half of the season.

Be interesting to see how HIS signings change us.
 
Judge a man by what he's done and he's done a really good job so far.

It feels like a fair few fans can't wait for him to fail because he's not a big name manager and hasn't had previous success in this division. Like Slav.....

He's a pleasure to listen to and you can tell he cares about doing the best by players and the club.

He's earned some time and patience in my book. I don't expect us to challenge for autos this season, but I suspect a lot do
 
derekacorah said:
I don’t think he’s 10% of the prick that Blackwell was/is, Blackwell made it his business to try and ruin the careers of a lot of young lads at the time.
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The scenario not the man....take over struggling team do really well then poor the season after. Hecky seems a good bloke and I hope I am totally wrong.
 
derekacorah said:
I don’t think he’s 10% of the prick that Blackwell was/is, Blackwell made it his business to try and ruin the careers of a lot of young lads at the time.
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And every fucker he signed too. What a catastrophe that chubby fuck was. He’s the only ex manager I despise.
 
Argentinemanager said:
If this is true get rid as soon as possible, we demand real pies with something in that may have come from any animal
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Think he’s getting credit for something that’s not been on the ‘menu’ for years

Can remember going in the late 80’s and asking for a ‘potato & potato’ pie

The welcoming smiling operative used to point out is ‘meat and potato’

To which we used to reply ‘had one last time and definitely potato and potato’

How we laughed….
 
When he’s good he’s spot on but last season he got some team selections and tactics completely wrong Pompey point this out straight away in his match reports. I’m happy with nearly 2 points per game though that would be perfect for the coming season.
 
7/10 so far,at least he's moving us in the direction of foreign players which is the way to go unlike you know who who's scouting range reached as far as Britain I really like the fact he gives the youngsters a go and with the likes of ndiaye and arblaster jebbo etc we have a really good future,also I don't think we'd let any of the youngsters go for peanuts because the prince won't accept it the futures bright it's red n white
 
Can't argue with results. He hasn't done anything revolutionary and his in game management can be questioned, but then again he didn't need too and the results were generally on point. A competent manager all last year and we finish top two reverting to the Wilder system. Unfortunately we appointed cheque book Slav.

Jury is out for me though. Talking over at the beginning of a season with all the expectation and pressure on you is a lot different than steering the club until the end of the season with the pressure having dissipated and blame lying firmly with your predecessor. We saw that with Blackwell: open, expansive, creative football as caretaker. Horrible, negative anti football as manager. We'll know by Christmas whether he'll be here long term imo: signings, likely league position and style of play will be assessed by then.
 
Bashamed said:
I thought he was a terrible appointment as a long term manager. He did brilliantly last year though. Not sure anyone could have done any better. Slightly worried his flaws will become more apparent this season. In game management as people have said seems a bit of an issue. But can't knock him so far.

GLTTL
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Agree....there are similarities between the Paul Heckinbottom appointment and Kevin Blackwell appointments.
Both were cheap options brought in the steady the ship and revert back to the previous style.

Both had a surprisingly good first season.
Let's hope PH doesn't end up like another KB.
 
Sheffsteel said:
Agree....there are similarities between the Paul Heckinbottom appointment and Kevin Blackwell appointments.
Both were cheap options brought in the steady the ship and revert back to the previous style.

Both had a surprisingly good first season.
Let's hope PH doesn't end up like another KB.
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Also both were the more obvious successor to carry on their predecessor’s work, but the board succumbed to a big name that then failed.
 
1/10. Can’t wait for the new kit to come out so he can wear it. Some of his attire last season in his post match interviews was not acceptable and he should be told to stick with the training gear when in front of the cameras
 
We improved us in the last few games of the shambles of our last Premier League season and I thought he might get the job but we went down the Slav route which was in hindsight a mistake. So Hecky took over a squad what was still a bit of a shambles after Slav and got rid of the losing mentality taking us on a run that was worthy of a top two place over a season. From the lower positions to a play off spot was about the best we could hope for and he achieved that despite an horrendous run of injuries especially to our forwards. Speaks well in post game interviews and so far I can't really fault him on much, everyone makes mistakes he is no different but I'm confident he will get more right than he does wrong. Not bothered about his previous management record Leeds were poison when he went there and Scotland is Scotland, I'm thinking he could add another promotion to his CV.
 
Took a team which under Jokanaovic we thought needed a complete overhaul to within a whisker of promotion despite all the injuries. He’s made what appear to be decent signings this summer. ‘Not in the top 20’ podcast have us down for finishing 5th this season and Middlesbrough 3rd. I think we are better than them but could do with another striker who is either proven at this level or someone dropping down a division who is on the fringes of a PL club to make it into the top 2.
 



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