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John Potter to Kelty Hearts?


GG Riva

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According to the Daily Record.

https://t.co/NbDfEiM7t5

Pleased for him. Could be a good move. He`s a highly regarded coach. There`s no doubt his short spell as Pars manager didn`t work out, but he`ll have learned from any mistakes he made then and the time is right for him to give management another go.

I believe he inherited a poor squad, who were low in confidence, when he took over from JJ. The players he brought in during the January transfer window proved no better than those already at the club, meaning results and performances failed to improve. JP is a good guy and I wish him every success with Kelty - except when they`re playing the Pars, of course. 🙂

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1 hour ago, GG Riva said:

According to the Daily Record.

https://t.co/NbDfEiM7t5

Pleased for him. Could be a good move. He`s a highly regarded coach. There`s no doubt his short spell as Pars manager didn`t work out, but he`ll have learned from any mistakes he made then and the time is right for him to give management another go.

I believe he inherited a poor squad, who were low in confidence, when he took over from JJ. The players he brought in during the January transfer window proved no better than those already at the club, meaning results and performances failed to improve. JP is a good guy and I wish him every success with Kelty - except when they`re playing the Pars, of course. 🙂

It's been overstated how poor the squad was that he took over, we were a point behind Morton for his first game, and five points clear of fifth place, if the squad was low in confidence then Potter absolutely nuked it. He's fortunate that Peter Grant is a thing because without him Potter is probably the worst Pars manager we've ever had. 

 

He sounds like a lovely guy but I'd far rather prefer he done the same to Kelty tbh. 

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6 hours ago, Grant said:

It's been overstated how poor the squad was that he took over, we were a point behind Morton for his first game, and five points clear of fifth place, if the squad was low in confidence then Potter absolutely nuked it. He's fortunate that Peter Grant is a thing because without him Potter is probably the worst Pars manager we've ever had. 

 

He sounds like a lovely guy but I'd far rather prefer he done the same to Kelty tbh. 

I think you're being rather harsh, Grant. The stat you've used to make your point is a bit flawed - all teams are closer together in midseason, but are more spread out at the end. I remember looking at the records of JJ and JP that season, thinking JP's would be slightly better. If fact it was slightly worse, but not by a huge amount. I'm not trying to rewrite history here but I'm fairly sure Morton went on to have a great run in the second half of the season, which would have made the Pars under JP look even worse  - not that we weren't dire by any stretch. 🙁

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I really like John, and there are mitigating factors, but we had an absolute disaster in the 2nd half of that season - much of it to do with the transfer dealings in the January window.

Having said that, he seemed to do well at Queens Park when he was in charge and he seems like the kind of guy who will learn from what went wrong.

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If you think about what he’d done before he took our job, he’d probably agree in hindsight he wasn’t ready given what he’d done before. 

If you look at his experience he’s gained since then at the levels he’s worked at with the players he’s worked with, this could be a time for him to prove he can actually manage.

I know a couple of the young guys who played under him in the u20’s and youth teams and they all speak really highly of him as a person and a coach. 

Good luck to him I say, just not too much this season…

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3 hours ago, GG Riva said:

. I remember looking at the records of JJ and JP that season, thinking JP's would be slightly better. If fact it was slightly worse, but not by a huge amount. I'm not trying to rewrite history here but I'm fairly sure Morton went on to have a great run in the second half of the season, which would have made the Pars under JP look even worse  - not that we weren't dire by any stretch. 🙁

I don't remember the numbers, but my recollection is that JP's record was significantly worse than JJ's. I did have a graph of that somewhere actually.

JJ should never have been sacked IMO, we were only 5 points behind at the time.

EDIT - still had a spreadsheet of the numbers, so here we go.

JJ was sacked after 16 games. We had 27 points, 5 behind first placed Forfar, though only 2 behind eventual champions Morton

By the end of the season we had 48 points, 21 behind Morton and 18 behind Forfar.

JJ's average points per game was 1.69. JP's was 1.05.

Screenshot_20220607-193306.png

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4 hours ago, GG Riva said:

I think you're being rather harsh, Grant. The stat you've used to make your point is a bit flawed - all teams are closer together in midseason, but are more spread out at the end. I remember looking at the records of JJ and JP that season, thinking JP's would be slightly better. If fact it was slightly worse, but not by a huge amount. I'm not trying to rewrite history here but I'm fairly sure Morton went on to have a great run in the second half of the season, which would have made the Pars under JP look even worse  - not that we weren't dire by any stretch. 🙁

Nah that's not quite right. It's not just slightly worse, it's quite significantly worse.

It wasn't so much Morton making us look bad, we done that ourselves. Like I said when Potter took over we were fourth, and five points clear of fifth place, by the end we were seventh and 11 points behind. Airdrie who were 10 points worse off, and 12 goals worse on GD, finished 10 points, and 16 goals ahead. And they were only fifth! It would take Potter seven games to get his first win, against Ayr united (8th place). They along with Stenhuismuir (9th place) would make up four out of Potters 5 wins.

 

By every conceivable fact, stat and figure he was absolutely awful. Who can forget shipping 5 to Stranraer? or 4 to Morton? Grim, grim times. Appointing a competent manager in AJ turned us around double quick though and the next season was good fun, hopefully McPake can do the same.

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I remember listening to potter being interviewed and he was pretty open about getting things wrong.  To paraphrase he felt the pressure of the role change and tried to play up to what he thought a manager should be instead of being his natural self.  
 

I think a lot of the reputation he has built as a coach has come from his personality, if he wasn’t using that as a manager then that’s going to create a struggle for him.

Wish him all the best so long as he promises the 12 points and to finish behind us.

Edited by parsforlife
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I think that was on the excellent Black and White Noise podcast...

He said that he took a bit of a step back and slightly distanced himself (in comparison to how he was with the boys as a coach) as it is perceived wisdom that you need to do that to be seen as 'managerial' or a figure of authority.

In hindsight, he felt that he could be more himself, maybe more hands on, and still get the necessary respect. I guess more Klopp, less Ferguson for the sake of elite level comparison.

He was also 35 back then and 42 now, having worked at Hibs and Sunderland - and been the acting manager at Queens Park in a successful season. He's much better equipped now. No guarantee of anything though.

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8 hours ago, Grant said:

Nah that's not quite right. It's not just slightly worse, it's quite significantly worse.

It wasn't so much Morton making us look bad, we done that ourselves. Like I said when Potter took over we were fourth, and five points clear of fifth place, by the end we were seventh and 11 points behind. Airdrie who were 10 points worse off, and 12 goals worse on GD, finished 10 points, and 16 goals ahead. And they were only fifth! It would take Potter seven games to get his first win, against Ayr united (8th place). They along with Stenhuismuir (9th place) would make up four out of Potters 5 wins.

 

By every conceivable fact, stat and figure he was absolutely awful. Who can forget shipping 5 to Stranraer? or 4 to Morton? Grim, grim times. Appointing a competent manager in AJ turned us around double quick though and the next season was good fun, hopefully McPake can do the same.

I guess I owe you an apology, Grant. These stats are far grimmer than I remember. I think I may have looked at the relative points per game ratio for JJ:JP much earlier than the final game, when I was trying to defend Potter from the abuse he and his family were getting on dotnet at the time.

Still, I wish him well at Kelty. He's a top guy. So many Pars players he coached have said he was a big - or the biggest - influence on their career. That's first hand, not hearsay, btw.

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37 minutes ago, GG Riva said:

I guess I owe you an apology, Grant. These stats are far grimmer than I remember. I think I may have looked at the relative points per game ratio for JJ:JP much earlier than the final game, when I was trying to defend Potter from the abuse he and his family were getting on dotnet at the time.

Still, I wish him well at Kelty. He's a top guy. So many Pars players he coached have said he was a big - or the biggest - influence on their career. That's first hand, not hearsay, btw.

Aye, it should be noted that despite IMO being one of our worst managers, I bear absolutely no ill towards him, I was delighted when he stayed on and was part of the coaching team which won the league. He just seemed like such a cracking guy. 

If nothing else, if it doesn't work out at Kelty as the head honcho I'm sure he'll be able to continue as a coach, seems extremely highly thought off in that regard. 

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13 hours ago, Grant said:

By every conceivable fact, stat and figure he was absolutely awful. Who can forget shipping 5 to Stranraer? or 4 to Morton? Grim, grim times. Appointing a competent manager in AJ turned us around double quick though and the next season was good fun, hopefully McPake can do the same.

Nobody can deny JP's short spell in charge was massively disappointing, but there were mitigating circumstances. Although some think we had a decent squad,  it's perhaps significant that AJ allowed all those who were at the end of their contracts to leave, though Lewis Spence did manage to win a new deal after impressing in pre-season training. 

We had 10 players still under contract but it's likely he would have binned at least some of them if it had been an option.

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