Heckingbottom

[Jack Daniels]

@Durutti

Cifuentes gives me Selles vibes.

Mowbray is past it imo and his health, which is a factor, should be more important for him than PNE.

Struber is just meh.

Just my opinions.

 

[Bodney Rewes]

Sam Allardyce?

I just don't think he's a realistic option. He seems to only be interested in quick paydays by getting drafted in to try and avoid relegation from the Premier League. There have been plenty of bigger and richer clubs than us without a manager in the Championship that he hasn't gone anywhere near. Plus he hasn't managed a full season at a club since he left West Ham back in 2015. I just don't think he'd be interested in managing us.

 

[Bodney Rewes]

That list really does make grim reading.

Of that motley crew I think our best bet probably would be Gerrard. Though I’d be far, far from convinced. I think his work at Rangers goes very underrated tbf to him though.

All completely premature and pointless speculation though as Hecky isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I pray this takeover does happen and in the form we’re all hoping for.

Personally I think there’s a hell of a lot of work that needs doing off the pitch to upgrade the club to Championship standard before we can start fantasising about hiring a some maverick coach. I hope Zedan has very deep pockets.

That is, if he does actually buy the club at all.

Yeah that's fair! I mainly assembled the list because a fair few people have said they want Heckingbottom sacked and I think it's easy to want a manager sacked if we're not considering the options available to us. For what it's worth, I think Heckingbottom deserves a chance to continue his good transfer work and, if we do get a new owner, the opportunity to work under (in theory) better resources. Although if we do sack Heckingbottom, I think our best options are among those teams competing for promotion from League One.

 

[pne1881]

I just don't think he's a realistic option. He seems to only be interested in quick paydays by getting drafted in to try and avoid relegation from the Premier League. There have been plenty of bigger and richer clubs than us without a manager in the Championship that he hasn't gone anywhere near. Plus he hasn't managed a full season at a club since he left West Ham back in 2015. I just don't think he'd be interested in managing us.

We shouldn't be interested either.

If Mowbray is past it then God knows Big Sam deffo is.

FWIW I've always liked him but there's no way he should be in the conversation.

 

[pthnorthender]

Yeah that's fair! I mainly assembled the list because a fair few people have said they want Heckingbottom sacked and I think it's easy to want a manager sacked if we're not considering the options available to us. For what it's worth, I think Heckingbottom deserves a chance to continue his good transfer work and, if we do get a new owner, the opportunity to work under (in theory) better resources. Although if we do sack Heckingbottom, I think our best options are among those teams competing for promotion from League One.

I am sure the new owners, if it happens, will have already considered who they want if Hecky is potted.

 

[Bodney Rewes]

I am sure the new owners, if it happens, will have already considered who they want if Hecky is potted.

Depends how organised they are and if they already know some people in the footballing world

 

[SF]

This guy worked miracles at Elversberg in Germany, taking them from the third division to 3rd in Bundesliga II. Got poached by Werder Bremen but got sacked within 7 or 8 months.

Horst Steffen - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I'd still gamble on Will Still as he did very well in France, but Southampton was totally the wrong move.

Think outside the box Zedan, please.

 

[pthnorthender]

This guy worked miracles at Elversberg in Germany, taking them from the third division to 3rd in Bundesliga II. Got poached by Werder Bremen but got sacked within 7 or 8 months.

Horst Steffen - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I'd still gamble on Will Still as he did very well in France, but Southampton was totally the wrong move.

Think outside the box Zedan, please.

Horst Steffen was also sacked by 3 clubs after less than 12 months in charge of any of them.

 

[simo]

Billy!

Zedan can surely sort him out with a top level ghost writer for the book so that’s covers the main barrier to entry.

I think they’d get on famously.

 

[SF]

Horst Steffen was also sacked by 3 clubs after less than 12 months in charge of any of them.

He was at Elversberg for 7 years.

I'm not saying we go out and get this specific guy, I'm saying look for managers in Europe who have excelled in similar situations to ours. Underdogs.

 

[Jack78978]

He was at Elversberg for 7 years.

I'm not saying we go out and get this specific guy, I'm saying look for managers in Europe who have excelled in similar situations to ours. Underdogs.

This is a better system for clubs like us as well. Some of them will be misses, but atleast you can see we're trying to be different.

 

[Michael]

Yeah that's fair! I mainly assembled the list because a fair few people have said they want Heckingbottom sacked and I think it's easy to want a manager sacked if we're not considering the options available to us. For what it's worth, I think Heckingbottom deserves a chance to continue his good transfer work and, if we do get a new owner, the opportunity to work under (in theory) better resources. Although if we do sack Heckingbottom, I think our best options are among those teams competing for promotion from League One.

He's done nothing to earn that extra chance. In consecutive seasons he has overseen two of the worst runs of form I have witnessed as a Preston fan in nearly 40 years.

He's had two good seasons as a manager but largely failed in every other job he's had. Granted he is more media friendly than some of our previous managers, but thats about it. At any other club in England he would have been sacked by now and it's only because our owners refuse to part with more money than agreed at the start of the year that he is still here now.

 

[RibbletonWhite2.0]

Table wise we slightly over performed under Lowe. Looking at stats and our actual performances we were largely dogshit. And it was all much of a muchness, it led us the exact same place.

Nowhere near the playoffs. Not in a relegation fight.

The only time the club will see a manager as performing below par, is if they have us in a relegation fight.

We was in a relegation fight last season - Hecky should have been sacked.

But some people just blamed it all on Lowe.

The league hasn't improved at all. It's still competitive (it's the championship - it always is!) but I look at some of the teams in and around us and we should be doing better against these teams.

 

[callum-pne]

We was in a relegation fight last season - Hecky should have been sacked.

But some people just blamed it all on Lowe.

The league hasn't improved at all. It's still competitive (it's the championship - it always is!) but I look at some of the teams in and around us and we should be doing better against these teams.

Should we?!
Looking at the teams above us, all of them have outspent us by some margin and I'd say based on our squad we're about where we should be.

Osmajic, Devine, Dobbin & Iversen would all play for the majority of teams in this league - I'm not sure many others, if any, would.

I'd say we're probably where we should be. The main gripe people have with Hecky is that he hasn't overachieved.

But again, it all comes down to a lack of investment where our only hope every season is that we may get 'lucky' with a free signing or loan. Without this takeover I think we're royally fucked.

 

[simo]

Yeah that's fair! I mainly assembled the list because a fair few people have said they want Heckingbottom sacked and I think it's easy to want a manager sacked if we're not considering the options available to us. For what it's worth, I think Heckingbottom deserves a chance to continue his good transfer work and, if we do get a new owner, the opportunity to work under (in theory) better resources. Although if we do sack Heckingbottom, I think our best options are among those teams competing for promotion from League One.

I’m struggling to see what Heckingbottom has done to give people any reason to think he could take us forward.

Basically his career at this level boils down to promoting a very well resourced Sheffield United followed by a car crash in the premiership and a couple of poor seasons with us. With some temper tantrums thrown in.

We just have to move on. Ownership, off field and on field managers - all need to be cleared out. The Hemmings ownership era needs to be over.

 

[monky1234]

We was in a relegation fight last season - Hecky should have been sacked.

But some people just blamed it all on Lowe.

The league hasn't improved at all. It's still competitive (it's the championship - it always is!) but I look at some of the teams in and around us and we should be doing better against these teams.

It's not all blamed on Lowe. It's blame on the club and the state of our squad, which Lowe is apart of too. We had an alright 11 last season, but the squad depth was awful.

FWIW, Lowe did over perform in league positions with the squads he had, but the final season was when the writing was on the wall that things are likely to drop off a cliff based on the data compared to the previous two seasons. But it was his gob that cost him. Constantly saying attacking football and the brand, when we were watching something different. If it wasn't for that, the fans would've probably been more on side and he'd have stayed. He didn't leave because he didn't think he could take us any further as he said, he left because it was toxic, and he probably knew things weren't going to go as well that season.

The overall squad depth is better this season after the summer recruitment. But I'm not sure what teams in and around us you think we've got a better squad than that we should be doing better than. I think it's all rather close, despite some teams being able to spend a lot more, bar Sheff United, who do have a better squad than the rest, and the points show that it is close.

I'm not advocating to keep Heckingbottom. I think the really bad runs have been awful. A large part of them have coincided with losing the No1 GK which have caused issues, but if we start a season off with a bad run, I don't think he's got it in him to reverse that and it could end up costly. A full fresh start of new owners and new management would be a welcome refresh for everyone so it is what would be best.

 

[Bodney Rewes]

He's done nothing to earn that extra chance. In consecutive seasons he has overseen two of the worst runs of form I have witnessed as a Preston fan in nearly 40 years.

He's had two good seasons as a manager but largely failed in every other job he's had. Granted he is more media friendly than some of our previous managers, but thats about it. At any other club in England he would have been sacked by now and it's only because our owners refuse to part with more money than agreed at the start of the year that he is still here now.

For the worst runs of form, it depends what you're talking about. If I look back at our time since we rejoined the Championship:

• As a 5 game spell, nothing beats the 5 losses at the end of Lowe's final season.
• As a 10 game spell, nothing beats games 2 to 11 under Alex Neil in the 18/19 season where we managed to accrue just 3 points.
• As a 15 game spell, Heckingbottom's 10 points earned at the end of the 24/25 season was poor.
• As a 20 game spell, there's the 17 points we earned under Alex Neil and Frankie McAvoy in games 23 to 42 in the 20/21 season.

Ultimately form is temporary. The end result is all that matters – whether we stay up/compete for the playoffs or not.

If we're talking about Heckingbottom's record at other clubs:

• At Leeds he failed in his 16 game spell where so many other managers had failed before. It's notable that he was sacked after a change in the ownership structure. All of a sudden the club was able to attract Marcelo Bielsa as manager.
• At Hibs he failed where so many other managers have failed before and since. Hibs don't really do anything.

I think he deserves more time with us because I can see the improvements in the team and the way the club operates thanks to him and his team.

There's a logic that dictates that certain managers are builders and certain managers are polishers. We need a builder not someone to polish the job and give us that final push into promotion contention. We need to build a better squad (which can take more than one season to do) and for us to operate successfully, we also need to be a selling club which is a lesson we've forgotten since the beginning of Alex Neil's era. If we're under the Hemmings, all the power will be under the manager (whoever it is) to decide whether or not to sell players. As we've seen, even good managers like Alex Neil aren't always capable of committing to this strategy. It was under his and Ridsdale's watch that we had that awful January where we lost Pearson, Fisher, and Davies for effectively nothing. You also can't rely on good coaches like Alex Neil to sign well because the quality of our squad declined over the course of his watch. The quality in our squad has generally been on the decline since then too. It's only now under Heckingbottom that the quality has started to improve again and that we've actually started accruing potentially sellable players in the future plus we've learned how to sell players again to support our budget. If we're under a new ownership, I still think we need a builder to assemble a good squad. I don't think we're going to be that much richer than everyone else that we can blow them away with our spending and massively bounce up in quality. A lot of teams in our league are actually pretty well off. Our problems are not solved quickly and we need a manager who is capable of building a stronger squad through smart transfer business which Heckingbottom has shown he is capable of.

I think the big question is what were you expecting this season? If you were expecting playoffs, that's a hell of a turnaround you would've been expecting from Heckingbottom that would've put him in manager of the season contention. It would've been especially daft considering he's had to build this squad with no budget other than the players we've sold. If you were expecting relegation/a relegation battle, we're not going down and comfortably so. If it's a case that you wanted us to be closer to the playoffs, frankly midtable is just midtable. It doesn't matter if you're 18th or 8th, you're midtable. Without a change in ownership I don't think it's possible for us to improve upon midtable unless we commit to the long-term strategy of being a successful selling club. Even with the change in ownership, as a said before, it's unlikely that we're going to be dramatically better off and better ran than everyone else in the league. We still need to operate pragmatically.

 

[Tony-Garstang]

Heckingbottom with a higher amount of money to spend on a transfer fee and player salary, he would be looking at more higher quality footballers than what he is allowed to bring in under the yearly budget. Brought in a couple of good quality signings last summer in Andrija Vukcevic and Odel Offiah. The Zedan group will probably know their intentions now, whether to keep or let go

 

[simo]

For the worst runs of form, it depends what you're talking about. If I look back at our time since we rejoined the Championship:

• As a 5 game spell, nothing beats the 5 losses at the end of Lowe's final season.
• As a 10 game spell, nothing beats games 2 to 11 under Alex Neil in the 18/19 season where we managed to accrue just 3 points.
• As a 15 game spell, Heckingbottom's 10 points earned at the end of the 24/25 season was poor.
• As a 20 game spell, there's the 17 points we earned under Alex Neil and Frankie McAvoy in games 23 to 42 in the 20/21 season.

Ultimately form is temporary. The end result is all that matters – whether we stay up/compete for the playoffs or not.

If we're talking about Heckingbottom's record at other clubs:

• At Leeds he failed in his 16 game spell where so many other managers had failed before. It's notable that he was sacked after a change in the ownership structure. All of a sudden the club was able to attract Marcelo Bielsa as manager.
• At Hibs he failed where so many other managers have failed before and since. Hibs don't really do anything.

I think he deserves more time with us because I can see the improvements in the team and the way the club operates thanks to him and his team.

There's a logic that dictates that certain managers are builders and certain managers are polishers. We need a builder not someone to polish the job and give us that final push into promotion contention. We need to build a better squad (which can take more than one season to do) and for us to operate successfully, we also need to be a selling club which is a lesson we've forgotten since the beginning of Alex Neil's era. If we're under the Hemmings, all the power will be under the manager (whoever it is) to decide whether or not to sell players. As we've seen, even good managers like Alex Neil aren't always capable of committing to this strategy. It was under his and Ridsdale's watch that we had that awful January where we lost Pearson, Fisher, and Davies for effectively nothing. You also can't rely on good coaches like Alex Neil to sign well because the quality of our squad declined over the course of his watch. The quality in our squad has generally been on the decline since then too. It's only now under Heckingbottom that the quality has started to improve again and that we've actually started accruing potentially sellable players in the future plus we've learned how to sell players again to support our budget. If we're under a new ownership, I still think we need a builder to assemble a good squad. I don't think we're going to be that much richer than everyone else that we can blow them away with our spending and massively bounce up in quality. A lot of teams in our league are actually pretty well off. Our problems are not solved quickly and we need a manager who is capable of building a stronger squad through smart transfer business which Heckingbottom has shown he is capable of.

I think the big question is what were you expecting this season? If you were expecting playoffs, that's a hell of a turnaround you would've been expecting from Heckingbottom that would've put him in manager of the season contention. It would've been especially daft considering he's had to build this squad with no budget other than the players we've sold. If you were expecting relegation/a relegation battle, we're not going down and comfortably so. If it's a case that you wanted us to be closer to the playoffs, frankly midtable is just midtable. It doesn't matter if you're 18th or 8th, you're midtable. Without a change in ownership I don't think it's possible for us to improve upon midtable unless we commit to the long-term strategy of being a successful selling club. Even with the change in ownership, as a said before, it's unlikely that we're going to be dramatically better off and better ran than everyone else in the league. We still need to operate pragmatically.

What was I expecting this season?

On pitch improvement. The previous season was awful, with a dreadful end.

This season we saw the first half with some good results but a sense (to me anyway) that we were massively dependent on our goalkeeper and a couple of loan players. We looked a team of “moments” with a very effective safety net.

The second half of the season saw us lose the safety net for a long period and the moments dry up. That exposed us for what we actually are which is a fairly limited squad, coached poorly and performing badly.

All through this Heckingbottom has made no difference. No imagination or flexibility tactically, no change or improvement to patterns of play and no discernible improvement in individual players.

It’s been months of scraping together enough points to avoid relegation and marking time.

I’m at a complete loss as to what he can offer going forward.

As others have said, he isn’t the only problem by any stretch but he remains a massive problem.

 

[cragtek]

For the worst runs of form, it depends what you're talking about. If I look back at our time since we rejoined the Championship:

• As a 5 game spell, nothing beats the 5 losses at the end of Lowe's final season.
• As a 10 game spell, nothing beats games 2 to 11 under Alex Neil in the 18/19 season where we managed to accrue just 3 points.
• As a 15 game spell, Heckingbottom's 10 points earned at the end of the 24/25 season was poor.
• As a 20 game spell, there's the 17 points we earned under Alex Neil and Frankie McAvoy in games 23 to 42 in the 20/21 season.

Ultimately form is temporary. The end result is all that matters – whether we stay up/compete for the playoffs or not.

If we're talking about Heckingbottom's record at other clubs:

• At Leeds he failed in his 16 game spell where so many other managers had failed before. It's notable that he was sacked after a change in the ownership structure. All of a sudden the club was able to attract Marcelo Bielsa as manager.
• At Hibs he failed where so many other managers have failed before and since. Hibs don't really do anything.

I think he deserves more time with us because I can see the improvements in the team and the way the club operates thanks to him and his team.

There's a logic that dictates that certain managers are builders and certain managers are polishers. We need a builder not someone to polish the job and give us that final push into promotion contention. We need to build a better squad (which can take more than one season to do) and for us to operate successfully, we also need to be a selling club which is a lesson we've forgotten since the beginning of Alex Neil's era. If we're under the Hemmings, all the power will be under the manager (whoever it is) to decide whether or not to sell players. As we've seen, even good managers like Alex Neil aren't always capable of committing to this strategy. It was under his and Ridsdale's watch that we had that awful January where we lost Pearson, Fisher, and Davies for effectively nothing. You also can't rely on good coaches like Alex Neil to sign well because the quality of our squad declined over the course of his watch. The quality in our squad has generally been on the decline since then too. It's only now under Heckingbottom that the quality has started to improve again and that we've actually started accruing potentially sellable players in the future plus we've learned how to sell players again to support our budget. If we're under a new ownership, I still think we need a builder to assemble a good squad. I don't think we're going to be that much richer than everyone else that we can blow them away with our spending and massively bounce up in quality. A lot of teams in our league are actually pretty well off. Our problems are not solved quickly and we need a manager who is capable of building a stronger squad through smart transfer business which Heckingbottom has shown he is capable of.

I think the big question is what were you expecting this season? If you were expecting playoffs, that's a hell of a turnaround you would've been expecting from Heckingbottom that would've put him in manager of the season contention. It would've been especially daft considering he's had to build this squad with no budget other than the players we've sold. If you were expecting relegation/a relegation battle, we're not going down and comfortably so. If it's a case that you wanted us to be closer to the playoffs, frankly midtable is just midtable. It doesn't matter if you're 18th or 8th, you're midtable. Without a change in ownership I don't think it's possible for us to improve upon midtable unless we commit to the long-term strategy of being a successful selling club. Even with the change in ownership, as a said before, it's unlikely that we're going to be dramatically better off and better ran than everyone else in the league. We still need to operate pragmatically.

I think you make some good points, especially about continual improvement. I am honestly not a big fan of switching out managers every year as so often they do their best work in years 2, 3, 4 when they have time for their plans to come to fruition.

It's undoubtedly good business that has been done in shaping a squad that has more of an identity than anything under Lowe. We have players with a lot of potential in positions that were lacking badly. And if we were able to invest you'd be sure that he'd want to recruit the likes of Dobbin, Devine etc to a long term project.

For me the main issue I have is the mentality as I've said before. Regardless of the off pitch strategy or the tactics, we look frail as a team at times. We make silly defensive mistakes out of nothing, or lose concentration as games go on.

Obviously this is something that happens at all levels, but I do think we look particularly frail sometimes and I think the finger has to be pointed at the manager for that as it's his job to instill the confidence and lack of fear needed.