Was it right to give Tonda the job?

[Holmes_and_Watson]

7 hours ago, Saint86 said:

Tonda played 3-4-2-1 (which let's be honest regrets to a 5-2-2-1) with the u21s. Its mandated throughout the club.

Seems most likely that Still (who wanted to play 4-2-3-1 but didn't) and tonda were instructed to play the same way with the first and B teams by the club when all things are considered. It's that or a previously successful manager (in Still) openly wanted to play a formation that he had the players for, but inexplicably didn't... Whilst the new "succession planning u21 coach" just happened to play the same formation that Still was reluctantly playing...

Ralph was hardcore advocate of his 4-2-2-2 for pretty much his entire career until SR arrived at saints... then in they came and all of a sudden we changed to 5 at the back, and so it has largely continued. Selles did briefly try to revert back to the traditional 4-2-2-2 Ralph formation but to no avail.

Jones was a 3-5-2 mananger.

Juric core formation was also 3-4-2-1.

Simon rusk played a 3-4-2-1 primarily, or a 5-4-1.

The only real exception really was when Wilcox was here and appointed Martin, who was seemingly left alone to play "his way", and for all his flaws (of which there were many), the period playing 4-3-3 / 4-2-3-1 under martin was the only successful period under SR. Obviously then Wilcox left and Martin started adopting more 3-5-2 variants over last year's absolute car crash season 🤔..

Could all be pure fluke and coincidence, but it's a shite formation and we seem to be seeing an awful lot of it under SR.

 

 

Agreed. SR don't have to get involved in insisting on day to day things, necessarily.

They have decided, through their data, on a style of play. Their recruitment process insists on incoming personnel adapting to that system. 

It's the same, and increasingly, the case with player recruitment. SR merged the scouting depts of their clubs into more of a data driven model. And using the database of recruits they've bought into accessing. Those recruits are to fit the SR model of player trading, and their preferred system. Now we have a head coach reliant on what recruitment tell him. 

Previous managers have had to deal with whatever SR ended up with at the end of a window - Downs, Orsic, Groenback. That extends to where they want to recruit. The Baz project, keeping with Stewart's return.

Some of it has been impacted by them getting it wrong right from the first window they had. But they've happily reinforced their errors of judgement.

[Ted Bates Statue]

13 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

It'll be Rob Edwards as manager come next season. You wait.

Would it be that bad? He's turned two midtable sides into strong contenders for promotion. Got better results out of Boro than Rasmus' previous favourite manager Carrick

[AlexLaw76]

9 minutes ago, Ted Bates Statue said:

Would it be that bad? He's turned two midtable sides into strong contenders for promotion. Got better results out of Boro than Rasmus' previous favourite manager Carrick

Did he play 3 CBs at Boro?

[Lord Duckhunter]

16 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

It’s very easy to say that we should have gone for a more experienced option but Tonda had experience of this squad and got some cracking results out of them. The momentum was very much with him and we don’t know how any of the other possible candidates would have done. We could be sat here now, no better off and saying, "why didn’t we give the bloke who won four out of five a proper go FFS!"

Agreed. There’s a lot of rewriting history going on lately.  I’d have preferred someone else but once results, and more importantly performance ,were dso good h, he deserved the job. Overall the points total is probably about par, and I’m not sure anyone else would have more from those games, but the issue is the downward trajectory. Spells like this are when experience is vital ,so not having any is defo a worry,. I’m a bit on the fence at the moment, we probably could have done  better, but we could have done a lot worse and still be grubbing around the bottom of the league.  Once results were so good the club were in a difficult situation, his results pretty much made it inevitable he’d get the gig, 

 

One thing for sure, is there’s a lot more saying they never wanted him now, than there was after those victories 

Edited 10 hours ago by Lord Duckhunter

[Sidney Fudpucker the 3rd]

No. Absutely not. 

I've got nothing against the guy but you need a manager with experience at this level. If he's part of the long-term plan then Tonda should've been made assistant manager but to give him the job made no more sense than giving it to Will Still. 

[Oh no Mick Mills]

100% yes....when we win.

100% no. When we lose.

[vectraman]

What Tonda can’t do is rip into the lazy useless players after insipid performances, and tell them how it is.
He doesn’t have the gravitas, football experience or life experience to do it. Most of our problems are the players reverting to lazy, non running tippy tappy shitball again. No wonder they “liked him and wanted him as manager”. Easy life. 
An experienced manager wouldn’t come in and work under Sport Republics interfering demands with formations and style required, hence we get work experience managers with no experience at all.
Happy days. Not. 

[Saint86]

2 hours ago, vectraman said:

What Tonda can’t do is rip into the lazy useless players after insipid performances, and tell them how it is.
He doesn’t have the gravitas, football experience or life experience to do it. Most of our problems are the players reverting to lazy, non running tippy tappy shitball again. No wonder they “liked him and wanted him as manager”. Easy life. 
An experienced manager wouldn’t come in and work under Sport Republics interfering demands with formations and style required, hence we get work experience managers with no experience at all.
Happy days. Not. 

I think this isn't far wide of the mark. By all accounts the players wanted rid of still (or at least a significant set of players did). I would say it now looks like they've played to get a young manager the players like the job... and are now reverting to type under a manager that basically has no real authority over them. Its long been rumoured that we have a rotten dressing room, and sadly the same core group of players have never been moved on... 

[LGTL]

It’s already well documented, but we’d be well rid of about half the starting 11. It’s a horrendous dressing room and they aren’t stupid. It’s been known all season that Spors wanted his lover in charge and the players latched on to this and fancied the easy ride he is giving them. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

2 minutes ago, LGTL said:

It’s been known all season that Spors wanted his lover in charge and the players latched on to this and fancied the easy ride he is giving them. 

If that’s true, why did he bother with Still? Why not just appoint his “lover” from day one. Unless of course it was all a cunning plan, get someone in he thought would fail, putting promotion and his position in doubt, for his “lover” to come along and rescue us. For this cunning plan to work, the players needed to put in 4 or 5 brilliant performances until The Lover got the job. 
 

Of course the alternative take, is he got Tonda in because he thinks eventually he’ll be a top coach, who could run the youngsters before eventually stepping up to replace Still. a combination of Still’s shitty spell & Tonda’s first few results as an interim changed that and he thought results deserved him a shot.
 

 

[Dr Who?]

In hindsight no, at the time yes, we were flying. Should have kept him caretaker until the end of the season then not take him on, rather than sacking him at the end of the season. 

[Gloucester Saint]

3 hours ago, Saint86 said:

I think this isn't far wide of the mark. By all accounts the players wanted rid of still (or at least a significant set of players did). I would say it now looks like they've played to get a young manager the players like the job... and are now reverting to type under a manager that basically has no real authority over them. Its long been rumoured that we have a rotten dressing room, and sadly the same core group of players have never been moved on... 

Possible, but he should have given them some in the interviews after yesterday and Oxford, but if true, bottled it. Shouldn’t be in post regardless of age - the lad at Brighton wouldn’t shirk doing it and doesn’t. Better still, drop the troublemakers and bomb them out this month. The squad is big enough to do so. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[The Kraken]

1 hour ago, Dr Who? said:

In hindsight no, at the time yes, we were flying. Should have kept him caretaker until the end of the season then not take him on, rather than sacking him at the end of the season. 

I know that it seems easy to say it like that but if you think about it, it isn’t. Eckert went from having a secure gig with the youngsters to being put as head honcho (temporarily) into a Championship job. A “caretaker” is most often a short term thing until a new manager is brought in. Caretaker until the end of the season is a long time, and if he had done that it’s harder to see how he would just pick up his old job with us again. Ergo, he’d be agreeing to a likely dismissal in a few months time.  Also, players are a notoriously fickle and delicate bunch who want long term security themselves by having a manager they think will stay around. I think the club probably made the best of it at that time given they had decided on Eckert and not a recognised manager: give him a contract so it looks a bit secure, then if they bin him at the end of the season he gets a year in compensation.

[pimpin4rizeal]

On 01/01/2026 at 20:33, saintant said:

Wow, it's our fault 🙂

Whether it’s fault or not is another discussion . But if everyone is happy that’s he’s being appointed it’s pretty lame to moan about it a few games later with opinion changing like the wind every couple of games .. 

the evidence that he had no experience was clear as day  sr wanted to appoint him chose to give him a trial the results and all the fans jumoing on board would only make their life easier