The Hotel End

From the official site
https://www.ntfc.co.uk/news/2018/october/staff_changes/

We are going to miss Melville sniffing out all those gems  :)

Gutted to see Melville leave. Had an uncanny knack of uncovering some real talent.

Our loss is hopefully another clubs gain. It would be good to see him performing his duties equally as well at one of our rivals!  8)

Good piece of decision making in my book by our new manager, Thomas seemed to think Melville was the best thing since sliced bread but even he seems to admit now that they guy has not delivered.

Finally! This is great news...

Nice to see KC acting on these "issues" straight away.

Melville leaving could also have something to do with the imminent sale by KT too...

The sports scientist departure might also be a mark of a more pragmatic KC approach  - I’m not against sport scientists but first and foremost should be more basic fitness regimes that mean players can perform for a full 90 mins and avoid where possible injuries - some sports scientist’s techniques disappear up their own backsides with thousands of analytic measurements and the players still looked f***ed after 60 minutes and we get 3 hamstring strains from simple accelerated sprints.

I’m warming to KC - might not get us to the championship but I have less and less fear of relegation

Within 7 days, Curle has dropped Buchs, dropped Taylor entirely from the squad, managed to only concede 1 in 2 and given Melville the boot. Initial thoughts were totally underwhelming. These acts however are winning him over very quickly for me  ;D ;D

He's been building the east stand in the evenings as well.

 ;D ;D

It must have cost a few quid to get rid of those lot .
Good to see though . The goalkeeping coach is a bit unlucky bearing in mind Cornell has improved considerably .
Noticeably , the youth set up has been left alone and quite rightly so .

I would be interested to know exactly how Melville’s role worked. Without knowing his level of responsibility it is rather unfair to comment. However, for the sake of his own professional reputation this should be clarified, as on face value his performance was an absolute disgrace.

Now that’s very disappointing, I’d have been far happier if he had been dismantling the bag of s***e instead.

Curle out! . . . Ooh, that doesn’t sound right.

Chief scout.

What does that mean, did he listen to what the manager wanted and then present him with a number of possible candidates for assessment? Or did the manager say “I need a centre half” and Melville just went and got him one? I’m guessing both and all points inbetween. I think JEs recruitment plans went south with the introduction of the Chinese money. Carefully laid plans went out the window and they just went bonkers with the money burning a hole in their pocket? What they ended up with was a disjointed mish mash of players with big reputations and no substance. I’m assuming all led by Melville given the timeframes between the introduction of the money and the end of the transfer window, I doubt if JE would have had the breadth of knowledge regarding available options? It you recall it was left late to make the majority of the signings that summer, probably waiting to see if the cash turned up? And then when it did it was panic buy, buy, buy and from that we have never recovered. At least that’s what I’ve always assumed? That is all complete guesswork on my part, but I’d put my house on the fact that I’m not wrong.

.....again I think you are right

Unfettered access to money (or the promise of money) leads to poor decision making be it rubbish permanent or loan signings (Which are often expensive). When the Cardoza's first came in it was exactly the same situation with Wilko squandering a huge amount of money.

I know many disagree but I still think significant point in Chris Wilder's success was the point where there was a transfer embargo and he had to make do with the players he had rather than a succession of stop gap loan players.

Simon Tracey has joined as Chief Scout, worked with KC before at Carlisle. Mainly responsible for scouting opposition and the scouting network.

First on the agenda, two new wing backs

Don't wish to appear negative, maybe concerned but...if this scout, West and Co brought in were are so brilliant (as Curle states) why did Carlisle not set the league on fire - ala Wilder n Knill with the Cobblers?

It'll take at least a couple of transfer windows to sort this squad around

I would add some midfield creativity as well as wing backs as a priory in January

It’s good to see a complete new broom at the club .
Who knows how good they will be but let’s face it , the record of previous managers , coaches , scouts and physios hasn’t been good since Wilder left and it can only get better .
The only thing that hasn’t changed significantly is the youth set up , with the exception of Gould going .
JB coming in and nurturing those players through has been the best thing that has happened at this club in recent times outside of the promotion season .

We still need to appoint someone to fill the vacancy left by Gould. JB has done a very good job but the older ones in the youth set-up have been recording good results for a number of years. They're playing in the regional quarter final of the Alliance Cup on Saturday. I will watch that before watching us beat Oldham later in the day.

I think where there is a need for and under 21 team in which youth players can make the step up to the first team without going on loan .
I know the club knows this and there are plans afoot

Good to hear. A lot of clubs with less money than ours have an U23s. This is something that should have been set up years ago. You are right when you say there should be a step after U18s.

I was really looking forward to KTs thoughts on Melville during his recent appearance on Noddy. Unfortunately due to the “Sing along a Mark” feature there wasn’t time to ask. Never mind eh?