Acceptable return for me would be an improvement in the consistency of our weekly performances and a sign that our attack is improving. I would even accept a lower placed finish next season if it meant that the team are starting to gel on the pitch.

Another one prepared to give Radford an easier ride than Gentle had.

A lower placed finish would mean we were less consistent. If the team are 'starting to gel', we should win more games and finish the same or higher. 6th with a higher points return is the absolute minimum he must deliver.

What if other clubs (Salford, Saints and Hkr) are stronger?

You're really ed aren't you?

Why shouldn't Radford have the same leeway as Gentle? PG wanted his squad and he and McRae built it. They put together some truly appalling performances with his team. Allow Radford at least a year before you all start creating terrible, rudimentary MS Paint avatars.

Final league position shouldn't be the only thing that we judge Radford on. If Radford can knock the shocking performances on the head such as Widnes away, Saints at home, Huddersfield last week and Wembley then I would say that's an improvement even if we still ultimately lose those games. At this time it's impossible to tell what FC team will turn up each week and if he can create a team that we know plays with heart and passion every week and gives their all then I would consider that an improvement even if they still end up losing the game.

I think it's a poor appointment, but I'm utterly baffled by the differing attitudes towards Radford compared to any other coach. Radford himself said there would be no excuses that it "isn't his team", yet plenty of people are already making that excuse on his behalf. Maybe AP knew a 'local boy' would get more latitude and has appointed him because of that.

To me, it's quite simple. We would have expected - demanded, even - an improvement next season if Gentle had remained in charge. If Radford is a better coach than Gentle (which he must be considered to be since he took Gentle's job), then surely the minimum we should expect him to deliver is what we would have expected Gentle to deliver.

Minimum should be top 6. He is taking over from a "failed" coach who had two 6th place finishes. When you consider the injuries and retirements and disruptions to the squad then Radford should find top 6 a walk in the park.

If we 'knock the shocking performances on the head', we should win more games, shouldn't we? We lost quite narrowly in a few games we were expected to win this season, and improved performances in those games should have seen us win. We can't possibly improve performances across the board and win fewer games. And even if we could, what's the point? Sport is all about winning.

If Gentle was still in charge and finished 7th next year, would he get away with that excuse?

I think Pearson has made some elementary mistakes since taking over.
My frustrations are centred around him more than the man we've just let go.

He should have the same, but not more. We would have demanded an improvement from Gentle next year, so we should demand one from his replacement too. This squad has underachieved this season, so if Radford is the man to prevent that, we certainly shouldn't be finishing any lower than we finished this year.

This is why I started this thread. It's amazing how suddenly the goal posts change because its a local lad in charge.

That's bollox.
It's all gonna be new and some will give him a chance.
Plenty have already decided they wont.

It's clearly not bollox you only have to read this thread for proof. The excuses have already started and no way would Gentle have been given the same leeway.

You're either being disingenuous or stupid. It's not that people have decided 'not to give him a chance', it's that the whole point of sacking and replacing a coach is to see an improvement. If we'd brought in, say, Nathan Brown to replace Gentle, do you think people would be saying they'd be happy for him to deliver a 7th/8th place finish?

Radford should be given a chance, but he shouldn't be given more of a chance than anyone else just because of the city on his birth certificate. 7th or lower is a failure for a club like ours. If Radford is an improvement on Gentle, he shouldn't be delivering a lower finish than Gentle delivered.

Edit: I'd add to that that it was all a lot more new to Gentle in his first year in charge. He flew around the world and settled in a new place to take over a club he'd had no prior involvement in, and still managed to finish 6th. Radford has been involved with the club for several years, and in a coaching capacity for the last two.

I've already said I expect 6th place next season, but not sure the goal posts have changed. I think PG should have been given another year but plenty of posters were not renewing their passes if PG had stayed because the product on the pitch had become less entertaining, many expected us to go backwards next year if PG had stayed.

Salford are the obvious team that will climb the table, whether they can achieve 6th or higher remains to be seen, Catalan underperformed in many peoples opinions in 2013 and will expect to finish higher next time around and Bradfords new owners are stating top 5 ambitions for 2014, one thing is for sure we will need to improve next year to stand still, and we will probably need to do that next year with a squad that on paper looks weaker. Huddersfield have done exceptionally well this year, and they have done that IMO due to the fact that they have been relatively injury free, hopefully we can have that sort of fortune in 2014.

Yep, no fanfare and trumpets as when Gentle was heralded in.
No more mediocrity.
No more scraping into the 8.
World class 6 and 7 and no more shoddy recruitment.
Believe.

A bitter pill has been swallowed by our leader me thinks.
Reality check installed, and the toughness of the way forward duly noted.

Fook me stupid.
Is it your turn to dry the pots tonight or your lasses?

Er...did you post this on the wrong thread? I'm struggling to see the relevance.

He'll get a clean slate from me from the start regardless of where he was born as would any other coach that might have been appointed.

He needs to make the quality of our performances consistently better over the next two years. He needs to avoid rank embarrassing performances and record breaking defeats. He needs to smarten up the club's recruitment performance in conjunction with the other new staff. In culture terms he needs to change the perception of the overall squad from being a bunch of well paid contractors to a team of like minded individuals with a fear of losing and a fear of performing in a sub standard fashion.

If he can do those things - not easy - then the material measures such as league position and cup runs will fall into place. I think Gentle went because AP didn't see enough improvement this year after a reasonable first year - and AP clearly lost confidence in Gentle to take the firm actions needed to succeed. If Radford can demonstrate continuous improvement in the next two years then he will have done better than Gentle. If not then we're back to square one.

I'm beginning to understand why!

Not necessarily. Do you think if we had put in a half decent performance against Hudds last week that we were guaranteed a win? I don't. In the same round of the playoffs last year we put in a better performance against Warrington and we still lost. Better performances do not necessarily mean we will win those games.



I agree that improved performances in fixtures we narrowly lost would result in more points but as I have already pointed out I don't believe that would be the case in games were we were hammered. If Radford can take those sort of defeats and turn them into narrow defeats next season then is that not an improvement and a sign of progress? I think you've already answered that by saying sport is all about winning so anything less than a win will not be good enough for you.

We are not going to turn into a Top 4 team overnight so I just want to see signs that we are heading in that direction (as I did when Gentle was in charge) and my opinion is that more consistent performances on a weekly basis would be one of those signs regardless of result.

Ok, this has gotten weird. We were discussing coaches, right? Not sure where drying pots fits into that, but we have a dishwasher if that makes any difference.

Honest question, where do you believe we should be in the table given our current playing roster?