Gary Waddock

[Hog]

Have to say I'm in the underwhelmed camp but in fairness to Waddock I would probably feel the same about practically any appointment we could reasonably afford or expect: perhaps indifferent would be a better description than underwhelmed. A little part of me was hoping for Beattie but I think that would have been a little too scary! I was happy to hear Waddock say he liked his teams to play fast, attacking football (can't remember his exact words) so that has got to be a bonus if he keeps to his word and I will be behind him from the off.

Of course a lot now depends on the players, particularly those out of contract at the end of the season. Off the top of my head Constable, Smalley, Newey, Whing and Rigg are all coming to the end of their deals and I suspect none of them are good enough for L1 if their L2 performances this season are anything to go by. So what do they do? Hopefully play as well as they can to try and go up through the play-offs knowing they will be playing themselves out of a job at Oxford if we do go up but getting a valuable promotion on their CV so they can get a L2 contract elsewhere.

[SWA]

@myles Francis
In the radio interview before the game, IL said he had asked Mickey if he wanted to be part of the final interview process, and Mickey said no. This means he didnt want the top job.

[Snake]

I can’t say I got as excited as first hearing the news that we’d secured the services of Ramon Diaz, his sons, and his whole backroom team, but welcome to the Minchery Madhouse Mr. Waddock...

[Snake]

@myles Francis
In the radio interview before the game, IL said he had asked Mickey if he wanted to be part of the final interview process, and Mickey said no. This means he didn't want the top job.

No it doesn’t.

[Old Abingdonian]

Whing under contract until 2015.

Senior players ooc: Newey, Raynes, Rigg, Constable, Smalley, (Williams), Davies, (Wroe), (Connolly) - I think. I don't expect to see Kitson next year for a variety of reasons, although he is under contract.

My first choice would be Connolly for a year, and I then think Raynes. Beano is a tough one.....

[Mooro]

Whing under contract until 2015.

Senior players ooc: Newey, Raynes, Rigg, Constable, Smalley, (Williams), Davies, (Wroe), (Connolly) - I think. I don't expect to see Kitson next year for a variety of reasons, although he is under contract.

My first choice would be Connolly for a year, and I then think Raynes. Beano is a tough one.....

I've started a separate thread for contract thoughts....

[Kernow Yellow]

I'm neither over- nor under-whelmed by the appointment. Just whelmed maybe? But the important thing is that IL has now acted, we have our new manager and still a great chance of making this an exciting season to be a Us fan. We have some absolutely crucial games coming up against the three teams directly below us, starting tonight of course. I am delighted that we have ended the period of meandering uncertainty (and shit football) and have a new man in place to drive us into the play-offs and some huge matches.

I am feeling positive. COYY!

[SmileyMan]

@myles Francis
In the radio interview before the game, IL said he had asked Mickey if he wanted to be part of the final interview process, and Mickey said no. This means he didn't want the top job.

No it doesn’t.

There's very little difference between not wanting a job, and not applying for the final stage of an interview process for that job.

[GodalmingYellow]

GY - did you not see the IL interview on Yellow Player or it may have been his BBC Radio Oxford
interview where he said he gave Lewis four weeks to see if he was up to the job (which he wasn't)

IL did admit that it probably took two weeks too long to appoint the new guy!

As I've already said, I've seen, heard and read all the salient information in the public domain.

ML had already said he didn't want the job, so that comment is a complete red herring. The problem was IL going walkabout down under when he should have been chained to his desk at the KasStad.

Shit. I am off to Canberra in three weeks. Do they not have telephones, internet and Skype in Australia?

You would be happy conducting an interview process for arguably the most important position in your organisation, by means of telephone, internet and Skype? I take it you are not in HR.

[Kernow Yellow]

@myles Francis
In the radio interview before the game, IL said he had asked Mickey if he wanted to be part of the final interview process, and Mickey said no. This means he didn't want the top job.

No it doesn’t.

There's very little difference between not wanting a job, and not applying for the final stage of an interview process for that job.

But there is a big difference between ML not wanting the job when Wilder left (which is what GY is implying, and which I have seen no evidence for) and not wanting to be considered against the strongest applicants 8 weeks later after a very poor run of results. I strongly suspect that ML realised he didn't want/wasn't up to the job during that 8 week period, and probably towards the end of it.

[SWA]

What does it mean then snake? Please enlighten us all.
Also, if Swansea get relegated back to the Championship, and Oxford go up, who will you support?

[Kernow Yellow]

As IL pointed out, we were 6th when Lewis took the reigns and we are still 6th

We were then 6th with games in hand, and a lot closer to the top 3 than we are now.

Just to tidy this up with some stats:

When ML took over we were 4 points off top spot with a game in hand, 2 points from the automatic promotion spots and had the second best goal difference in the league. We had accumulated 1.73 points per game up til then.

We are now 11 points off top spot, 8 points off the auto spots, with a vastly inferior goal difference to all the top three. Under ML we garnered 1.16 ppg.

To pretend that ML left us in as strong a position as he inherited is frankly ridiculous.

[GodalmingYellow]

But there is a big difference between ML not wanting the job when Wilder left (which is what GY is implying, and which I have seen no evidence for) and not wanting to be considered against the strongest applicants 8 weeks later after a very poor run of results. I strongly suspect that ML realised he didn't want/wasn't up to the job during that 8 week period, and probably towards the end of it.

Where or when has Mickey Lewis said he doesn't want to be considered against the strongest candidates after a very poor run of results? We have no idea of Mickey's thoughts or reasons on the process other than quotes in the media.

There's a big difference between wanting to keep your (probably) low paid job at a lower league football club (which is what Mickey is actually quoted as saying he wanted to do) accepting whatever the owner asks you to do, and saying you want to be considered for the permanent position.

[Dr Bob]

GY, actually I was referring to your assertion that he should have been "chained to his desk", as if he could not or was otherwise unable to maintain contact with his sons on the Board whilst away. I was not referring to the idea that he would be interviewing via those media, that he had to be interviewing people every single day - of course I was not referring to that - nor were you until just now. But actually in Higher Education, with academics operating in a global marketplace, interviews do get conducted over Skype. Second interviews might be done face to face, and as we know, IL did conduct two rounds of interviews.

[Kernow Yellow]

But there is a big difference between ML not wanting the job when Wilder left (which is what GY is implying, and which I have seen no evidence for) and not wanting to be considered against the strongest applicants 8 weeks later after a very poor run of results. I strongly suspect that ML realised he didn't want/wasn't up to the job during that 8 week period, and probably towards the end of it.

Where or when has Mickey Lewis said he doesn't want to be considered against the strongest candidates after a very poor run of results? We have no idea of Mickey's thoughts or reasons on the process other than quotes in the media.

I thought IL was quoted (on Saturday) as saying he asked ML whether he wanted to be considered in the final stages of the process and ML said he didn't? I'm only going on what's been widely reported - I've been away this weekend and not heard any press conferences etc. If I've misunderstood then apologies.

The more salient point of the argument (which my post was intended to address) is your statement - "ML had already said he didn't want the job, so that comment [about giving him 4 weeks to prove himself] is a complete red herring." Can you substantiate this? I thought it was pretty clear at the start that ML wanted to see how things went (I can't be bothered to dig up the interviews but that's what I recall), whereas you seem to think he had already made his mind up that he didn't want the job at that early stage.

By the way, I'm not saying I agree with the idea of giving ML 4 weeks to prove himself at all - with 71 applicants I never considered it likely that ML was going to be the strongest. I'm just querying the reasoning you gave for rubbishing IL's comment about it.