What a new coach tends to do is get an idea in his head of who his best team is. He then gives that team the first 40 in at least two of the pre season games. He then uses the 2nd halfs to get ideas of how the other players are performing and also giving them a chance to stake a claim for a starting spot.
Radford however had the benefit of seeing and working with the majority of the squad first hand all last season.

It is also hard for players to gel (especially halfbacks) if they are not given a good run of games.

Still it seems we are not much further on from "us does well in training".

they are getting game time now & most are going through the motions...he's naming them & trust me people think he's there mates but if he has to swing the axe he will...he knows this coaching job could last 6 months or 6 years..but he will do what no other coach as dared to do..drop household names in our squad. Then that's upto them to knock his door down with the right attitude or move clubs..this is unfair to say he should go after a small amount of games..with a squad he's inherited with no class pivots,a few risky signings,& the loss of 1 of the best British wingers in the game.

1, The squad he inherited finished 6th and got to 1 of the 2 finals on offer in the game.
2, I am presuming he had input on those risky signings, yet I would say the best signing so far has been Thompson who was signed by Gentle IIRC.

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I agree, yet the 2 Salford games have now become massive games for Radford and the team. Pearson is not known for resting on his laurels when it comes to changing managers. He mentioned that he wanted us back at the final this year, if we suffer defeat against Salford he may start getting an itchy trigger finger.

Like i have said before, give him till midway through the season before making a rash decision.

Every game is important imo as we are not the dead cert top 6 club people think we are, "or we should be beating these sort of teams" the team picked as got to turn up & put an 80 minute performance in each week regardless of who or where we are playing, & from what I have seen we haven't managed 40 minutes, bad execution/poor discipline/ wrong options..we've had it all but concentration!

Good post agree re players and hope you're right re Radders.

The fact remains that Gentle got us to a major final and a sixth place finish, but still got the sack because that wasn't (presumably) deemed to be good enough. Radford needs to do at least as well as Gentle did, or it was utterly pointless sacking him.




Not the old "it's not his squad" chestnut, please. He's been involved for a couple of years now and was responsible for many of our off season signings. I'm not saying he should be sacked now, but I'm far from convinced he'll see the season out.

We did get to a final but the team failed to turn up, same at huddersfield in the play offs, & its not his squad, his first signing would have been a decent halfback or two, & seen as he took over when the available layers had left the market i still think his signings have been the best of the bunch so far, barring ellis & westy, Tickle & Briscoe are huge losses also imo.

i said in my posts last year think we got rid of gentle to early defo worth another year imo, still thats gone and whilst i still have doubts about radford he will get my full support , i really hope he is a success as i love fc and just want us to do well

Gentle finished 6th in his first season without his own squad.

good to see the resident apologist keeping the faith

Like it or not it seems that Pearson was not happy with how things were being run off the pitch during Gentle's reign. He's alluded to it several times before. Gentle did OK by getting us to Wembley - the Wire semi final was a brilliant day to be a fan of the club. But the final and the play off disaster were indicative of how this club has been for so long. Clearly Pearson didn't believe Gentle's style and management were going to change things and he believes Radford can. Don't know if he's right or not but it'd be better for us all if he was.

Why not? Or do you want everyone to be negative like you? Squads are improving each season so teams are harder to beat...but sack the coach as the fan who dosent go to games said...give yourself a nip pal!

Indeed. And plenty of coaches in all team sports manage to make a positive difference with inherited squads.

east hullfc fan, I fully support your right to have an opinion, but find it ironic that the other day you accused someone of having a photo of Jacob Miller at their bedside just because they had shown support for the lad. Seems to me that the only person around here with a crush is you- on Lee Radford.
I'm prepared to give him a chance, but agree with other posters that he needs to at least match last years league finish and cup run to justify Gentle's sacking

sorry if this has been mentioned but radford seemed to be having a pop at the long term players in the HDM today. basically the same players making the same mistakes year on year, and will be still here making these same mistakes after he's left. is he referring to horne, yeaman, whiting, houghton? these are our long serving players who were on the pitch sunday. or is he referring to newer recruits. so far he has dropped crooks and shaul and ignored miller and pitts, but who are the players he is referring to in the article. his quote is
Radford said: "It's the same blokes and old habits. Is it ingrained in them? Who knows?"

if its the same old blokes and mistakes, then drop them. they can't make the mistakes then can they?

i notice that he's had a direct go at yeaman in the article - unusual for a coach to do this in the media