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Paul Cox??

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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Sedgwick » Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:27 pm

BH_Stag wrote:Obviously there’s nothing in this ‘rumour’, but when we do appoint again it needs to be somebody with a proven track record in the league.. the pattern is clear to see;

Cox - no football league experience and was found out at this level
Murray - no management experience and we never troubled the top half
Evans - finally we get somebody with a track record in and we were near the top until he buggered off with only 4 losses in 30 or something like that.
Flitcroft - again has a promotion on his CV and we are challenging near the top.
Dempster - back to no experience and it was a total disaster
Coughlan - no real experience or tangible success and it’s hardly going swimmingly.

To me it’s absolutely no coincidence that the two managers who have performed best for us out of the last 6 (EFL only) were the ones with a decent track record and a promotion already on their CV.


Harsh on cox... we got promoted then look at the standard of players he was able to sign.. Fergus flipping bell and co.
And to say we never troubled the top half with Murray isn't true... we were 4th under him playing good stuff with an average side at one point.

Both should have been given the proper backing others have been fortunate to get recently.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Bradders » Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:32 pm

I don't know why people rubbish Cox's achievements at FL level with us. It was several seasons before his best league position was bettered, and that with essentially non league players. The next season he had almost no budget to work with. At the time, few people criticised his record; it's just that at FL level there was an expectation of a much more flowing, short passing style. So because he insisted that the goalkeeper must always get the ball downfield, he had to go.
Not that I expect him back. Coughlan needs a full season with his squad. On paper they look to be playoff quality, so if they fall short of that level you'd consider it a failure. Even in one season.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby BH_Stag » Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:51 pm

That’s fair it does read slightly harsh... I do genuinely like Cox and I agree I don’t like it when his achievements are belittled. His tenure as a whole was a success no question.

I suppose what I was getting at more is that I didn’t really see us getting promoted again under him, particularly in the season that he left. Fair enough there’s many factors that tie in to that such as budgets or whatever, but that’s the bottom line.

End of the day, when we’ve had a manager at the helm who has a track record in the football league we have performed better than when we have had a rookie (Murray, Dempster, Coughlan (so far)). We can discuss budgets, transfers, whatever until we’re blue in the face, but the proof is in the pudding, results on the pitch were better when we had some experience and their was genuine belief, not just hope, around the club.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby gazza1988 » Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:51 pm

Cox did OK in his first season in the league. We never replaced Matt Green. Then we went for a "live within our means" phase and we struggled. Then we got Evans in and opened the chequebook. Which has remained open until this season.
We probably got the best "value" out of Cox, all things considered.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby kevin kents tasce » Tue Oct 06, 2020 5:07 pm

I agree Gazza.

Cox did well in his first season in the league and for a brief spell there was talks of us possibly sneaking a playoff spot.

Then the budget was cut to about 800k as I recall?

Then Murray came in and struggled just as much as Cox did under those circumstances until the following summer when he embarked on probably the best transfer window I can ever remember us having by signing Pearce, Bennett, Rose, Green and Benning!

Since Evans arrived we have spent silly money and gotten a poor return, except for when Flitcroft came within a whisker of promotion by losing out to teams who had equal or greater spending as we did (one even went out of existence as a result).

Coughlin hasn't done anything to suggest he is a better manager than Cox and he definitely has had better financial backing in L2.

Hopefully he delivers in the future but I personally don't think he will.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Sandy Pate Best Stag » Tue Oct 06, 2020 5:15 pm

kevin kents tasce wrote:I agree Gazza.

Cox did well in his first season in the league and for a brief spell there was talks of us possibly sneaking a playoff spot.

Then the budget was cut to about 800k as I recall?

Then Murray came in and struggled just as much as Cox did under those circumstances until the following summer when he embarked on probably the best transfer window I can ever remember us having by signing Pearce, Bennett, Rose, Green and Benning!

Since Evans arrived we have spent silly money and gotten a poor return, except for when Flitcroft came within a whisker of promotion by losing out to teams who had equal or greater spending as we did (one even went out of existence as a result).

Coughlin hasn't done anything to suggest he is a better manager than Cox and he definitely has had better financial backing in L2.

Hopefully he delivers in the future but I personally don't think he will.


Don’t forget Tafazoli and Hamilton were Murray signings as well. Imagine how a big budget would have improved his team.

Correction.

Tafazolli was signed by Cox but he still credits Adam Murray as the coach who turned him into a man (doesn’t sound right like that does it?)
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby kevin kents tasce » Tue Oct 06, 2020 5:21 pm

How I forgot about CJ!???

What would we give for a back 3 of Taf, Pearce and Bennett now?
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Old amber » Tue Oct 06, 2020 5:46 pm

Nobody’s rubbishing Paul cox... he got us back into the football league and we can be forever grateful for that..
But we as a club seem to fail on keeping good managers.. or not giving them enough time.. why is this I ask?
Let’s just GC can prove his worth.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby The One » Tue Oct 06, 2020 5:56 pm

Old amber wrote:Nobody’s rubbishing Paul cox... he got us back into the football league and we can be forever grateful for that..
But we as a club seem to fail on keeping good managers.. or not giving them enough time.. why is this I ask?
Let’s just GC can prove his worth.


Just like florists.Chris Hufton just appointed manager
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby my name is jonas » Tue Oct 06, 2020 6:00 pm

If GC got the sack, we could do a lot worse than getting in Paul Cox, I’d personally be happy if we got him back in. I imagine I’d be in the minority with that though.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Rob » Tue Oct 06, 2020 6:03 pm

The first season back into the league he had a very, very good budget - far better than the mid table position we ended up in. It was only when it was clear we were going nowhere did John, rightly, tighten the purse strings. Many other clubs promoted from the Conference have a real shot at successive promotions, we never challenged and the following season had a relegation battle (even though it was cut, our budget was still much higher than the 21st position we finished in). His league record is pretty poor, his Conference record is excellent, I think that pretty much sums things up, he's an excellent manager at that level. No-one has ever rubbished what he did for us getting us out of the Conference, even with a very high wage budget, it is still the hardest league to get out of due to only 2 spaces.

I agree with others on here, we really do need to give the manager time and talk of sacking him means some have just not learned the lessons from the past.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby kevin kents tasce » Tue Oct 06, 2020 6:03 pm

If GC got the sack, JR should right his wrong and get Flitcroft back in
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Brinner » Tue Oct 06, 2020 8:31 pm

No.....Paul Cook is the man. He has done it before and can do it again. I think the current manager will only take us one way and that is not up. Hope the Radfords will learn from their mistakes and appoint an experienced manager next time....whenever that is!!!
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby bobbystagsfan » Tue Oct 06, 2020 8:38 pm

Brinner wrote:No.....Paul Cook is the man. He has done it before and can do it again. I think the current manager will only take us one way and that is not up. Hope the Radfords will learn from their mistakes and appoint an experienced manager next time....whenever that is!!!



Cook is championship standard now, there's no way we'd be able to afford his wages or would want to drop back down to league 2 surely
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby KJW STAG » Tue Oct 06, 2020 8:56 pm

bobbystagsfan wrote:
Brinner wrote:No.....Paul Cook is the man. He has done it before and can do it again. I think the current manager will only take us one way and that is not up. Hope the Radfords will learn from their mistakes and appoint an experienced manager next time....whenever that is!!!



Cook is championship standard now, there's no way we'd be able to afford his wages or would want to drop back down to league 2 surely


David Sharpe as done it once

After relegation was confirmed Sharpe made the decision to approach Portsmouth for their manager Paul Cook.[23] Cook was appointed in June 2017.[24] Wigan managed to keep star players and under Cook have dominated League One so far this season.[25][26][27][28]
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby bobbystagsfan » Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:15 pm

KJW STAG wrote:
bobbystagsfan wrote:
Brinner wrote:No.....Paul Cook is the man. He has done it before and can do it again. I think the current manager will only take us one way and that is not up. Hope the Radfords will learn from their mistakes and appoint an experienced manager next time....whenever that is!!!



Cook is championship standard now, there's no way we'd be able to afford his wages or would want to drop back down to league 2 surely


David Sharpe as done it once

After relegation was confirmed Sharpe made the decision to approach Portsmouth for their manager Paul Cook.[23] Cook was appointed in June 2017.[24] Wigan managed to keep star players and under Cook have dominated League One so far this season.[25][26][27][28]



Cook hadn't been a championship manager at that time had he? Both teams were in league one then weren't they?

I mean it'd take some convincing from Sharpe to get him to come. I couldn't see it happening if we had a vacancy.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Sedgwick » Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:21 pm

kevin kents tasce wrote:If GC got the sack, JR should right his wrong and get Flitcroft back in


Imagine how much money it would cost to get him his flowing footballing side again... were so far away from that, he did well to use players he had to keep but wouldn't do much with some of these.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby kevin kents tasce » Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:41 pm

Sedgwick wrote:
kevin kents tasce wrote:If GC got the sack, JR should right his wrong and get Flitcroft back in


Imagine how much money it would cost to get him his flowing footballing side again... were so far away from that, he did well to use players he had to keep but wouldn't do much with some of these.


I agree that it would be a much tougher job this time around,.but I still reckon he would have us much better organised and fitter than what we have now.

What Flitcroft did really well make us collectively strong in defence and the counter attack he used was probably the best stuff I have seen at Mansfield in my 30 years watching.

Now we are a shambles defensively and have not pace in the side to even think about counter attacking.

It just shows what a pig's ear Dempster and Coughlan have made of the squad between them.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Tippy Tappy Football » Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:46 pm

I hope JR has followed Darragh MacAnthony's advice and put an early termination clause in GC's contract limiting compensation to six months salary. Darragh was also shocked by the wages owed to Sol Campbell and John Askey at Macclesfield. He said you should not pay a League 2 manager more than £60-£70,000.

Paul Cook is the obvious David Sharpe connection if things go pear shaped for GC. There are also loads of pubs in Mansfield so he will like it here. I can't see him dropping down to League 2 though. He was also on big money at the Spireites and left the Prozac because Portsmouth agreed to pay him £150,000.

If we need a Mr Positive to cheer us all up then Nigel Adkins is not doing anything and I think he only lives up the road. He's been out of work since he resigned from the Hull City job in June 2019. Nigel Clough's teams normally play a bit of football and he lives in Derby. Could be out of our reach though.

I think JR will stick with GC as JR likes to give his managers time (apart from David Flitcroft! :lol:). JR regretted sacking David Holdsworth as he said the club could not be promoted as we did not have a 10 year lease for Field Mill. JR also wanted to give Duncan Russell another season after he took the Stags to the FA Trophy Final in 2011. He was also very fair to Paul Cox and Adam Murray even though Paul Cox did have his budget slashed in half and reduced to £800,000. JR gave them both decent deals when they were sacked. Steve Evans did the dirty on him and David Flitcroft must have driven him crazy by not winning promotion after JR had given him loads of financial backing with expensive loan signings, overnight stops, training at St Georges etc.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Sedgwick » Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:50 pm

kevin kents tasce wrote:
Sedgwick wrote:
kevin kents tasce wrote:If GC got the sack, JR should right his wrong and get Flitcroft back in


Imagine how much money it would cost to get him his flowing footballing side again... were so far away from that, he did well to use players he had to keep but wouldn't do much with some of these.


I agree that it would be a much tougher job this time around,.but I still reckon he would have us much better organised and fitter than what we have now.

What Flitcroft did really well make us collectively strong in defence and the counter attack he used was probably the best stuff I have seen at Mansfield in my 30 years watching.

Now we are a shambles defensively and have not pace in the side to even think about counter attacking.

It just shows what a pig's ear Dempster and Coughlan have made of the squad between them.


Dempster biggest mistake was not sorting out the midfield or signing any healthy competition at the back... he pinned everything down to needing two strikers, then didn't play them together. The one person who knew that squad better than anyone and what it needed doing to it was sacked. Mistake learnt hopefully.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Sedgwick » Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:54 pm

Tippy Tappy Football wrote:I hope JR has followed Darragh MacAnthony's advice and put an early termination clause in GC's contract limiting compensation to six months salary. Darragh was also shocked by the wages owed to Sol Campbell and John Askey at Macclesfield. He said you should not pay a League 2 manager more than £60-£70,000.

Paul Cook is the obvious David Sharpe connection if things go pear shaped for GC. There are also loads of pubs in Mansfield so he will like it here. I can't see him dropping down to League 2 though. He was also on big money at the Spireites and left the Prozac because Portsmouth agreed to pay him £150,000.

If we need a Mr Positive to cheer us all up then Nigel Adkins is not doing anything and I think he only lives up the road. He's been out of work since he resigned from the Hull City job in June 2019. Nigel Clough's teams normally play a bit of football and he lives in Derby. Could be out of our reach though.

I think JR will stick with GC as JR likes to give his managers time (apart from David Flitcroft! :lol:). JR regretted sacking David Holdsworth as he said the club could not be promoted as we did not have a 10 year lease for Field Mill. JR also wanted to give Duncan Russell another season after he took the Stags to the FA Trophy Final in 2011. He was also very fair to Paul Cox and Adam Murray even though Paul Cox did have his budget slashed in half and reduced to £800,000. JR gave them both decent deals when they were sacked. Steve Evans did the dirty on him and David Flitcroft must have driven him crazy by not winning promotion after JR had given him loads of financial backing with expensive loan signings, overnight stops, training at St Georges etc.


Nigel Clough is a great guy. Proper old fashioned... won't let the youth team wear flash boots, expects his players to be clean shaven in bed by 10 etc. Builds a team from the back etc.. Heard many many stories about him at Derby and Burton did well with incredibly small budgets.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Rob » Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:38 pm

kevin kents tasce wrote:
Sedgwick wrote:
kevin kents tasce wrote:If GC got the sack, JR should right his wrong and get Flitcroft back in


Imagine how much money it would cost to get him his flowing footballing side again... were so far away from that, he did well to use players he had to keep but wouldn't do much with some of these.


I agree that it would be a much tougher job this time around,.but I still reckon he would have us much better organised and fitter than what we have now.

What Flitcroft did really well make us collectively strong in defence and the counter attack he used was probably the best stuff I have seen at Mansfield in my 30 years watching.

Now we are a shambles defensively and have not pace in the side to even think about counter attacking.

It just shows what a pig's ear Dempster and Coughlan have made of the squad between them.


It was the best football I've seen since Dearden and since his sacking it has been just miserable. Also whilst getting grief for wanting to stick with DF I did say on many occasions (I can repost) that we will regret his sacking and that it will set the club backwards no matter who we appointed. I didn't expect it to go quite as badly but now the Flitcroft Out brigades only answer is "move on", a bit like the Tories, we've made a complete mess of everything so lets move on. Well lets hope given time GC is the man to move us on, but I maintain had we stuck with DF last season we'd be a League 1 side now. We'll never know I guess, but what we do know is that we've had a raspberry 18 months since DF was sacked.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Dan » Tue Oct 06, 2020 11:29 pm

kevin kents tasce wrote:I agree Gazza.

Cox did well in his first season in the league and for a brief spell there was talks of us possibly sneaking a playoff spot.

Then the budget was cut to about 800k as I recall?

Then Murray came in and struggled just as much as Cox did under those circumstances until the following summer when he embarked on probably the best transfer window I can ever remember us having by signing Pearce, Bennett, Rose, Green and Benning!

Since Evans arrived we have spent silly money and gotten a poor return, except for when Flitcroft came within a whisker of promotion by losing out to teams who had equal or greater spending as we did (one even went out of existence as a result).

Coughlin hasn't done anything to suggest he is a better manager than Cox and he definitely has had better financial backing in L2.

Hopefully he delivers in the future but I personally don't think he will.


There was no other team in League Two who were spending £5,000 a week on a player like we did, not even Bury. Bury were spending money they hadn’t got, we were spending money like it was going out of fashion. Or rather Flitcroft was. Then he bottled it. Again. There’s a reason he’s still unemployed, talk to some of the players who played under him & you’ll see why. Good riddance.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby Dave Wayne » Tue Oct 06, 2020 11:50 pm

Dan wrote:
kevin kents tasce wrote:I agree Gazza.

Cox did well in his first season in the league and for a brief spell there was talks of us possibly sneaking a playoff spot.

Then the budget was cut to about 800k as I recall?

Then Murray came in and struggled just as much as Cox did under those circumstances until the following summer when he embarked on probably the best transfer window I can ever remember us having by signing Pearce, Bennett, Rose, Green and Benning!

Since Evans arrived we have spent silly money and gotten a poor return, except for when Flitcroft came within a whisker of promotion by losing out to teams who had equal or greater spending as we did (one even went out of existence as a result).

Coughlin hasn't done anything to suggest he is a better manager than Cox and he definitely has had better financial backing in L2.

Hopefully he delivers in the future but I personally don't think he will.


There was no other team in League Two who were spending £5,000 a week on a player like we did, not even Bury. Bury were spending money they hadn’t got, we were spending money like it was going out of fashion. Or rather Flitcroft was. Then he bottled it. Again. There’s a reason he’s still unemployed, talk to some of the players who played under him & you’ll see why. Good riddance.

Do you know that for a fact Dan, or are you just stating it to fit your narrative ?
What about County ?
As far as I understand it, the reason we didn't take up the option on Hemmings was because he was on £8k per week at Oxford and wanted more than we were prepared to pay him on a permanent deal.
We signed Walker on the rumoured £5k per week, and County signed Hemmings on a shade over £6k per week if rumours are to be believed.
I would say Flitcroft got the better deal out of those two.
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Re: Paul Cox??

Postby stagmanrob » Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:45 am

There's no way Paul Cook would come to League 2 now there's a salary cap.

He fell out with Dave Allen because he wanted his budget increased by over a million to go one further and take Chesterfield to the Championship, after they lost in the League One playoffs. Good job Dave Allen didn't cave to those demands really isn't it?

Real sliding doors moment that one.
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