FAO Crewe Fans - Re: Steve Davis

[The Terminator]

Looks like he will be our new Head Coach and unveiled early next week.

My initial thoughts are, he started off very well, but undid all his good work and should've gone at least 2 years earlier before he did.

 

[TimeyWimey]

Pretty much it. He inherited a good team and his strength was he brought them together with incredible team spirit. All fell apart when he lost their respect when several were arrested in Somerset one preseason. Fell out with players, far too arrogant and unwilling to listen to fans and made some pretty horrendous signings. His style of football also went from 8-1 wins to defending 1-0 defeats during his time here and I have never worked out why.

His last two years were horrible but considering how good he made us in his first 18 months, there must be some talent there. I think he'll forge a career as an impact manager; long term I don't think he has the brain or personality. But then we're probably the only club obsessed with the idea of long term managers.

You will hear some horror stories about him but he's still got a half decent record and could be good for you.

 

[The Terminator]

Will be interesting to see how he works here as he won't get the final say over transfers, Martin Ling our Director of football has already said the final say will lie with him in regards to player recruitment from the under nine's to the senior team.

Davis's role will be to work on the football side of things in the first team and to build a philosophy and identity. He has a good track record of bringing your youngsters through to the first team, something which we're also keen to follow in the footsteps of doing here.

He was apparently at Sutton v Coventry yesterday, Sutton are our first opponents.

 

[lordofthepies]

Will be interesting to see how he works here as he won't get the final say over transfers, Martin Ling our Director of football has already said the final say will lie with him in regards to player recruitment from the under nine's to the senior team.

That's probably a good thing, because recruitment was certainly not one of Davis's strong points. Some/most of his signings were verging on disastrous. He was never afraid to give the kids a chance, but I'm not sure that they all developed quite as expected and I think he gave up on a few of them too quickly as well.

He would never admit it but I think he actually lost a bit of confidence in his own methods when we started losing games in L1. He went from having a pretty positive attitude and playing reasonably positive football to setting the team up to defend and just coming across pretty negatively as person so quickly. For example, he was way too quick to blame the budget for on-pitch failings. Contrast that to our new manager, who has been remarkably positive about budget limitations and has managed to sign at least 4 players who I don't believe Davis would have even tried to sign.

He's still got the potential to have a decent career, but I think a lot of that depends on whether he's learned any lessons in the few months he's had to reflect since we let him go. He seemed a bit stubborn and arrogant at times, so I hope the time away from the game has allowed him to learn from his own mistakes to work on his own shortcomings. Orient have obviously had major issues but there's definitely an opportunity for a coach to build something there and I hope he does well.

 

[JJ1532]

I'm confused, he's coming in as head coach. What's happening with Omar Riza then?

 

[The Terminator]

I'm confused, he's coming in as head coach. What's happening with Omar Riza then?

Riza's contract expired on 30th June, the new owners arrived on 22nd June and have basically ordered a complete restructure of the coaching staff.

Riza applied for 3 of the coaching jobs I believe, but Martin Ling had already made his mind up about him.

Riza confirmed on Twitter today he is no longer working at the club, a huge shame as he worked very hard to keep things going over the summer, but he was far too unprofessional on Twitter.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Some Alex fans will be impartial regarding Steve Davis and they're entitled to that opinion, but I implore you lot to not hire this pathetic excuse of a manager...

Sure, a very long time ago, he instilled great fitness and a team spirit in an underachieving squad but look at how strong that squad was at League Two level given the moves half the squad made in the years after that. But most of his good work came before the London Olympics it was that long ago! The last 3 and a half years of his reign prove just how limited a manager he was. He couldn't build a squad to save his life. Most games we had 5 loanees a game playing (particularly between 2013-2015) and we relied on the individual brilliance of these loanees such as Inman, Aneke, Uche and Ajose far too much that it hampered the development of our young players and you could argue that we lost a promising crop of youth that could've been developed during those turbulent years.

Fathers of some of our youth products such as Billy Waters, Ryan Colclough and Kelvin Mellor have been very public with their criticism of Steve Davis too. Waters' Dad in particular was very celebratory on social media the day Davis was sacked! Davis obviously had his favourites (his son and Ollie Turton the glaringly obvious pair) and this alienated many in the squad. I know he wasn't great, but why would you spend £80,000 on Mark Ellis to then release him two years later when you keep the underachieving and injury prone Dugdale and Davis Jnr instead?

Davis' best permanent signing he made in League One was Anthony Grant. Now Grant was no angel but he had zero respect for Davis and the way Davis has managed volatile or big personalities over the years proves he can't manage egos (Colclough, Lowe, Ray, Dugdale, Tootle, Phillips and Shearer who was shit anyway come to mind). So if you have characters in your squad like your Charlie Lee's and Dave Mooney's, beware! Davis would much rather have "a team of Ollie Turton's". That is 11 shrinking violets who say "yes boss, no boss, three bags full boss" to his every word.

He'll more than likely sign his son for you lot too, or at least have him on trial to prove his fitness because no one else will have him. There's a player I wouldn't want within a mile of a professional football club. Moment you sack Daddy he'll go on strike and demand a move elsewhere as he'll feel personally insulted. Let's also add to the fact he isn't very good either and was hideously overpaid and bigged up beyond belief by his own Dad when in reality he was a crock very lucky to even make our starting XI after the plethora of mistakes he committed.

If it starts to go pear shaped at Orient, don't expect him to blame himself either. He'll throw players under the bus, I think he'll be very wise not to blame the board in this particular job because I think he's not stupid to realise it won't work at a club that won't tolerate long winless runs like Orient won't in the Conference, he'll constantly say he's a fighter, a winner and that it can't be his fault that the players don't follow his instructions. He'll come in and say how he's got a great track record at developing young players but the only players he truly brought on himself was Colclough given the other three who went for big money were Gradi's players in the first place. And even Colclough spent well over a year crocked to the point we were just desperate to sell him to the first realistic bidder because we hadn't sold anyone for 2 years. He'll more than likely use the emergency loan market as you guys still have that luxury in the Conference to stifle any hopes of your talented youth products progressing.

Some of his signings, as identified by others on here were totally bizarre. Chris Atkinson is the big one, a man who now plays for Farsley in the glue leagues after Salford thought he was shite. To think some of our fans thought he should've been given more of a chance in League One too...

Regarding his tactics (or lack of) his style of play is easily the worst brand of football I've ever seen and I sat through nearly a year of Gudjon Thordason inspired performances. After years of watching free flowing attacking football and plenty of goals, he was a manager who was so hideously ultra defensive it hurt. I maintain that whenever we scored 3 goals in a game under Davis, we often failed to win in the process. We only managed to score over 3 goals in league games on 3 occasions in the 5 years and 2 months Davis was manager. Artell has already managed it twice in 4 months. Davis tried to win most games 1-0 and in doing so, we blew plenty of leads under his stewardship that it became ultimately predictable. Apart from his final season, he never knew how to start a season but he almost always (last two seasons apart) had a very strong middle thanks to the injection of talented emergency loanees. This didn't materialise in his final two seasons because the whole squad was a travesty in 2015-16 and, with the emergency loan market scrapped for 2016-17, our promising start ending up becoming a nightmare where we only won 2 out of 22 games.

Finally, and this is my biggest gripe with him, he doesn't have a Scooby how to handle the media or criticism from fans and it'll be so interesting how he handles the media without his pals Morse and McGarry asking him the questions. Some of his press conferences to fans were downright disrespectful. When asked why we were constantly fighting relegation battles in the 2015-16 season: "Only the real fans understand why we are where we are. The younger fans need to gain the perspective of the older fans and become realistic with their views." After losing 5-0 to Coventry: "Take out the 5 goals and there were nothing between the sides." After suffering a humiliating relegation at Port Vale: "We're still 18 places higher than when I took over the job.". He had nothing but contempt for our fans, swearing and making crude gestures to them on a number of occasions which showed he couldn't handle the pressure at all.

I have no ill will against Orient and I wish you guys all the best, but I hope to God you appoint someone else. This man almost single-handedly destroyed my enjoyment watching my football club home and away to the point I felt the need to protest at games which caused a very toxic atmosphere between pro and anti Davis fans at quite a few of them. It's a period of supporting Crewe that I want to erase from memory and thankfully Dave Artell has breathed some new life into our underachieving football club in the wake of Davis' dismissal. I just cannot see this appointment ending well because Davis will be asked to build a squad and will be asked to inject confidence into your youth players. Two things he will really struggle to do as he proved at our place. Even with him being a big spender in the league for a change, I wouldn't trust him with money either given the shite he signed for us whenever he was backed!

By the way, if at any point you want to get him out but he seems to be immovable again, I've got a Davis Out banner you guys can borrow...

 

[Posh Harry]

Some Alex fans will be impartial regarding Steve Davis and they're entitled to that opinion, but I implore you lot to not hire this pathetic excuse of a manager...

Sure, a very long time ago, he instilled great fitness and a team spirit in an underachieving squad but look at how strong that squad was at League Two level given the moves half the squad made in the years after that. But most of his good work came before the London Olympics it was that long ago! The last 3 and a half years of his reign prove just how limited a manager he was. He couldn't build a squad to save his life. Most games we had 5 loanees a game playing (particularly between 2013-2015) and we relied on the individual brilliance of these loanees such as Inman, Aneke, Uche and Ajose far too much that it hampered the development of our young players and you could argue that we lost a promising crop of youth that could've been developed during those turbulent years.

Fathers of some of our youth products such as Billy Waters, Ryan Colclough and Kelvin Mellor have been very public with their criticism of Steve Davis too. Waters' Dad in particular was very celebratory on social media the day Davis was sacked! Davis obviously had his favourites (his son and Ollie Turton the glaringly obvious pair) and this alienated many in the squad. I know he wasn't great, but why would you spend £80,000 on Mark Ellis to then release him two years later when you keep the underachieving and injury prone Dugdale and Davis Jnr instead?

Davis' best permanent signing he made in League One was Anthony Grant. Now Grant was no angel but he had zero respect for Davis and the way Davis has managed volatile or big personalities over the years proves he can't manage egos (Colclough, Lowe, Ray, Dugdale, Tootle, Phillips and Shearer who was shit anyway come to mind). So if you have characters in your squad like your Charlie Lee's and Dave Mooney's, beware! Davis would much rather have "a team of Ollie Turton's". That is 11 shrinking violets who say "yes boss, no boss, three bags full boss" to his every word.

He'll more than likely sign his son for you lot too, or at least have him on trial to prove his fitness because no one else will have him. There's a player I wouldn't want within a mile of a professional football club. Moment you sack Daddy he'll go on strike and demand a move elsewhere as he'll feel personally insulted. Let's also add to the fact he isn't very good either and was hideously overpaid and bigged up beyond belief by his own Dad when in reality he was a crock very lucky to even make our starting XI after the plethora of mistakes he committed.

If it starts to go pear shaped at Orient, don't expect him to blame himself either. He'll throw players under the bus, I think he'll be very wise not to blame the board in this particular job because I think he's not stupid to realise it won't work at a club that won't tolerate long winless runs like Orient won't in the Conference, he'll constantly say he's a fighter, a winner and that it can't be his fault that the players don't follow his instructions. He'll come in and say how he's got a great track record at developing young players but the only players he truly brought on himself was Colclough given the other three who went for big money were Gradi's players in the first place. And even Colclough spent well over a year crocked to the point we were just desperate to sell him to the first realistic bidder because we hadn't sold anyone for 2 years. He'll more than likely use the emergency loan market as you guys still have that luxury in the Conference to stifle any hopes of your talented youth products progressing.

Some of his signings, as identified by others on here were totally bizarre. Chris Atkinson is the big one, a man who now plays for Farsley in the glue leagues after Salford thought he was shite. To think some of our fans thought he should've been given more of a chance in League One too...

Regarding his tactics (or lack of) his style of play is easily the worst brand of football I've ever seen and I sat through nearly a year of Gudjon Thordason inspired performances. After years of watching free flowing attacking football and plenty of goals, he was a manager who was so hideously ultra defensive it hurt. I maintain that whenever we scored 3 goals in a game under Davis, we often failed to win in the process. We only managed to score over 3 goals in league games on 3 occasions in the 5 years and 2 months Davis was manager. Artell has already managed it twice in 4 months. Davis tried to win most games 1-0 and in doing so, we blew plenty of leads under his stewardship that it became ultimately predictable. Apart from his final season, he never knew how to start a season but he almost always (last two seasons apart) had a very strong middle thanks to the injection of talented emergency loanees. This didn't materialise in his final two seasons because the whole squad was a travesty in 2015-16 and, with the emergency loan market scrapped for 2016-17, our promising start ending up becoming a nightmare where we only won 2 out of 22 games.

Finally, and this is my biggest gripe with him, he doesn't have a Scooby how to handle the media or criticism from fans and it'll be so interesting how he handles the media without his pals Morse and McGarry asking him the questions. Some of his press conferences to fans were downright disrespectful. When asked why we were constantly fighting relegation battles in the 2015-16 season: "Only the real fans understand why we are where we are. The younger fans need to gain the perspective of the older fans and become realistic with their views." After losing 5-0 to Coventry: "Take out the 5 goals and there were nothing between the sides." After suffering a humiliating relegation at Port Vale: "We're still 18 places higher than when I took over the job.". He had nothing but contempt for our fans, swearing and making crude gestures to them on a number of occasions which showed he couldn't handle the pressure at all.

I have no ill will against Orient and I wish you guys all the best, but I hope to God you appoint someone else. This man almost single-handedly destroyed my enjoyment watching my football club home and away to the point I felt the need to protest at games which caused a very toxic atmosphere between pro and anti Davis fans at quite a few of them. It's a period of supporting Crewe that I want to erase from memory and thankfully Dave Artell has breathed some new life into our underachieving football club in the wake of Davis' dismissal. I just cannot see this appointment ending well because Davis will be asked to build a squad and will be asked to inject confidence into your youth players. Two things he will really struggle to do as he proved at our place. Even with him being a big spender in the league for a change, I wouldn't trust him with money either given the shite he signed for us whenever he was backed!

By the way, if at any point you want to get him out but he seems to be immovable again, I've got a Davis Out banner you guys can borrow...

Enough of this sitting on the fence. You need to tell us how you really feel about Davis
Hope you feel better after that fella.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Enough of this sitting on the fence. You need to tell us how you really feel about Davis
Hope you feel better after that fella.

Felt great ever since my raging hangover from Mansfield away was cured by news of his long overdue sacking...

 

[The Terminator]

Now confirmed on a 2 year deal.

We weren't going to get any better out of work managers to fit within our new structure and Davis ticks all the boxes. He won't be allowed to bring in any backroom staff as we've already got those in place, he has to work with Ross Embleton. He won't be able to moan about budgets here, as we will probably have one of the biggest in the National League.

He isn't expected to win promotion this season, we're in a huge transitional period and despite signing 4 senior players, we still need at least eight more - One of which I thoroughly expect to be Davis's son. I don't want him, but it depends if Martin Ling allows it.

To give anyone an idea what state the Italians left us in - The club is in the process of opening a brand new bank account after the previous clowns closed it down.

Unless he gets a terrible run of results and we're bottom of the National League by December, I can see him getting at least one full season.

I didn't realise he'd had some success in Non League with Northwich though. Here's hoping he's learnt some lessons from his final years at Crewe.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Now confirmed on a 2 year deal.

We weren't going to get any better out of work managers to fit within our new structure and Davis ticks all the boxes. He won't be allowed to bring in any backroom staff as we've already got those in place, he has to work with Ross Embleton. He won't be able to moan about budgets here, as we will probably have one of the biggest in the National League.

He isn't expected to win promotion this season, we're in a huge transitional period and despite signing 4 senior players, we still need at least eight more - One of which I thoroughly expect to be Davis's son. I don't want him, but it depends if Martin Ling allows it.

To give anyone an idea what state the Italians left us in - The club is in the process of opening a brand new bank account after the previous clowns closed it down.

Unless he gets a terrible run of results and we're bottom of the National League by December, I can see him getting at least one full season.

I didn't realise he'd had some success in Non League with Northwich though. Here's hoping he's learnt some lessons from his final years at Crewe.

Was Nantwich where he had the non league success. He resigned from Northwich after 3 months in the job!

Problem with Davis is once he hits a bad run of form he finds it very very difficult to get the squad back to improve it. That'll be your biggest problem this season given you've told him he's not in charge of transfers...

 

[The Terminator]

Was Nantwich where he had the non league success. He resigned from Northwich after 3 months in the job!

Problem with Davis is once he hits a bad run of form he finds it very very difficult to get the squad back to improve it. That'll be your biggest problem this season given you've told him he's not in charge of transfers...

I wouldn't be suprised if we started well, but get sussed out as already pointed out by the halfway mark.

We then slip down the table, he is then given the first 6 months of next season, where we continue to struggle and the cycle continues of him losing the plot............

 

[markpvfc]

We've re-signed one of his sons so at least you won't be getting the pair.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

We've re-signed one of his sons so at least you won't be getting the pair.

Still have the emergency loan market in the Conference though so don't be too sure just yet.

All it needs is for Joey D to have another car crash performance like he did against us that time Uncle Micky subbed him off after half an hour with him on the verge of getting sent off...

Always had a feeling Davis wanted to sign him for us but the fan backlash would've been massive so he was wise to avoid pursuing that option.