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Nigel Worthington

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Anybody noticed the run that York are on which has taken them from 21st to 7th?

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"Anybody noticed the run that York are on which has taken them from 21st to 7th? "

Yup. There has even been a thread started about it before!

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He did a great job for us until promotion, then made some catastrophic decisions like breaking up the defence, and letting go big players in the dressing room.To think we ended up replacing Malky with the awful Doherty,  and then Doherty played for us for 6 seasons... what a decline.His biggest failure was dealing with the breakup of the squad on relegation. Andy Hughes, dreadful.

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He had no budget to work with though. We asked him to finish in the play off places with a squad that had been stripped of quality players. Although i don''t think he covered himself in glory by being quite as defensive in crucial moments, I do have a great amount of sympathy for him.

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"Yup. There has even been a thread started about it before!"

Well clearly not as today was the first time they had reached 7th place (the play offs).

What thread and when? Did that thread talk about how they are unbeaten in 9 games and have won 5 in a row?

His remit this season was to keep them up!

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CJF has hit the nail on the head.

Worthy was great until he won the Championship and ditched Malky and Iwan, who were the two leaders in the dressing room.

He then made some terrible signings in our first season after relegation.

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Yes, I did notice and was going to start a thread but was beaten to it!Yep, York were, I think, in the bottom 2 before Worthy took over and now they''re looking good for the playoffs.I like York as a city, quite similar to Norwich in some of its architecture, so I was always quite fond of the place.Here''s hoping York have quite some success !OTB (Norwich) C

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Pretty much my local team so have a couple of mates that support them. He''s doing well, I hope they get promoted. Ryan Jarvis still can''t get a game there though!

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Didn''t mean that to sound harsh buddy.

There have been other posts about how well Worthington was doing at York. Not specifically about the last few games.

People banging on about Iwan and Malky are remembering things with skewed hindsight.

Malky was a fantastic stopper, but it pretty much ended there. His distribution was poor and when he left he didn''t have the pace of Fleming. I could be wrong but I believe he was also given the choice, Worthy respected him enough to sit him down and inform him that he wouldn''t be a regular starter in the prem - Malky wanted regular footy.

Iwan was 35. He was a legend, a top notch chap but would have struggled to achieve anything like he did in the championship. It''s worth noting that he went to Gillingham.

As much as those two guys were well loved and fantastic Norwich players how much they would have contributed on the pitch during the premiership campaign? Their leadership values may well have been missed - but that point will always come when a choice has to be made as to is that enough to keep them on?

People forget we still had the leadership of the likes of Edworthy, Helveg (who had captained his country), Holt, Huckerby, Fleming and a number of other players with experience (some too who had captained at some point in their career).

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Indeed it''s been a hell of a run for him and it''s something that plenty of us in York have been following intently. To say that most of us had major concerns about York''s league status being preserved and now we''re talking about sneaking in to the playoffs..incredible. He''s made quite a few loans which have worked out well and hopefully they can continue this form to the end of the season. Really would be a great thing for York to have that excitement and I always fancy them in those kind of big games. Maybe they''ll do what we did when we snuck in to the playoffs and almost won it against B''ham, but maybe go one further. Would be amazing.

 

Also good to see Luton still going quite strongly in the division below and McGeehan seems to have settled very well... Maybe he''ll go with them next season and go up another level. Would be very good for him

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[quote user="chicken"]Didn''t mean that to sound harsh buddy.

There have been other posts about how well Worthington was doing at York. Not specifically about the last few games.

People banging on about Iwan and Malky are remembering things with skewed hindsight.

Malky was a fantastic stopper, but it pretty much ended there. His distribution was poor and when he left he didn''t have the pace of Fleming. I could be wrong but I believe he was also given the choice, Worthy respected him enough to sit him down and inform him that he wouldn''t be a regular starter in the prem - Malky wanted regular footy.

Iwan was 35. He was a legend, a top notch chap but would have struggled to achieve anything like he did in the championship. It''s worth noting that he went to Gillingham.

[/quote]  Yep, Worthy told Mackay he wouldn''t be needed... the first of many dreadful decisions.  Roberts was a more difficult one, and I can understand Worthington''s decision, but in hindsight, he probably would have been useful squad member given we ended up playing the awful Doherty up front at times.As we saw with Lambert, there is certainly something in keeping together the squad that gets you promoted.

[quote user="chicken"]As much as those two guys were well loved and fantastic Norwich players how much they would have contributed on the pitch during the premiership campaign?[/quote]  A lot more than Doherty, Shackell and Simon Charlton who ended up playing there!!  Malky got promoted twice more from the Championship in the following seasons... that is 2 more times than Doherty and Shackell combined managed in their careers. He would have proven a far superior option to all the players who failed to replace him.

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[quote user="chicken"]Didn''t mean that to sound harsh buddy.

[/quote]  You did backed Worthy and thought he was still doing a great job even after he was sacked, so I will take your opinions with a pinch of salt. [;)]

[quote user="chicken"] People forget we still had the leadership of the likes of Edworthy, Helveg (who had captained his country), Holt, Huckerby, Fleming and a number of other players with experience (some too who had captained at some point in their career).[/quote]The defense massively missed Mackay organising them on the pitch.  I like the way you talk of leadership and yet no mention of Worthy''s choice of Matchday Captain....  quiet as a mouse Adam Drury.

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The Lambert promotion Vs Worthington has been done elsewhere and done to death.

The essential obvious basics to it was that Worthington had a side with players past their best supplemented with the likes of Huckerby, Damien Francis and then Ashton with the young Bently at times too.

Lambert had a squad of young and hungry players. If I recall our over 30''s for Lambert''s squad were Wilbraham and Drury - hardly first team regulars.

Then to Malky. He made 18 appearances for West Ham up until March that season. Again, hardly a first team regular. Watford were pretty much skint and brought him in to lead the younger players. He did well but was exposed for his lack of pace.

Like I say, he was given the choice and he left. Hindsight is fantastic but on purely footballing terms I didn''t disagree with those decisions. As for organizing a defence, Fleming was capable of that, and its no point having a player who can organise a defence but struggle to be good enough himself.

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Getting rid of Malky that season was a HUGE mistake. He was a natural born leader and showed that by playing an important role in three successive promotions. To get promoted in three successive seasons with three different clubs is an absolute massive achievement.

He had a big turning circle and a lack of pace but he would have easily have justified game time ahead of Simon Charlton and Gary Doherty.

Disagree with the person who said Shackell was poor though, he was actually a revelation in that season. We''d have had a much better chance with a defensive trio of Malky, Shackell and Fleming.

As for Iwan, I think he was shot by then, and we have to remember that we were unlucky to have Svensson out injured for much of the season. At that stage Svensson was a far better player than Iwan who has 18 months past his sell by date.

Breaking up that Fleming - Mackay partnership and failing to invest in a top striker in the summer (rather than January) was our downfall that season.

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He didn''t play an important role in West Ham''s promotion. 18 appearances before March when he was dropped and never played again. He was also then deemed not good enough for the premier league and released.

He was a fantastic Championship defender.

He made 14 appearances in the premier league for a reasonably limited Watford side.

He simply wasn''t premier league material. There are plenty of great leaders in the lower divisions - but that quality alone does not make you a premier league player.

As for justifying time ahead of Doherty and Charlton - both were faster and Charlton had premier league experience and had been a consistent performer. The mistake with him was that he was a full back or when played at centre back, did a similar job to Fleming.

We got beaten a lot by pace that season. The presence of Malky for that season would not have kept us up. In fact if you look back at the results - signing Ashton prior to the start of the season would have been the main difference. We only needed to turn one of our many draws that year, into a win and we would have stayed up.

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Kind of agree with you there Chicken, a very good point about needing just that one more win that season and we''d have stayed up (the game that springs to mind was Blackburn at home, November time, where we lead until a stoppage time equaliser from Dickov)

However I think leaders in the dressing room and on the training pitch are vital too and this is where I think Malky or Iwan (or both) would have made a huge difference in keeping spirits up that year when all the squads heads had dropped until we beat Man Utd for that final flourish.

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"As for justifying time ahead of Doherty and Charlton - both were faster and Charlton had premier league experience and had been a consistent performer"

There is a reason why a 34 year old Gary Doherty is playing in League Two and a 34 year Malky Mackay was on the way to his third successive Championship promotion.

Come on now, don''t insult the lad by trying to say that Doherty was a better player, Lambert soon saw fit to get rid as soon as he had a few million to invest.

As for Simon Charlton, whether he had Premier League experience or not he was a 5ft 8" tall left back being played at centre back and was terrible in that position.

It is an insult to even attempt to disagree with the notion that Malky should have played ahead of those two.

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Mackay should have stayed, he was a great leader. He would have stood up and been counted versus Fulham anyway. Roberts was a harder one, we should have realised how much of a gap he was leaving despite being probably too old to have an impact in the premiership and done a better job of replacing him.

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I wonder if he had stayed whether he would have lasted until the last day off the season, probably would''ve left in the January transfer window.

 

 

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[quote user="Le Juge"]. Come on now, don''t insult the lad by trying to say that Doherty was a better player, [/quote]

Doherty was definitely a better player than Malky.

 

People forget (or just don''t know) that Spurs paid a bit of money to sign Doherty and that he actually did well for them until he broke his leg. And then he struggled to get back in. But before that massive injury setback he was doing alright, infact he was a regular in their first team.

 

Don''t think there was any chance someone like Spurs would have coughed up the money for Malky.

 

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I''m glad that Malky and Worthy had their time with this club. I think Malky became a better player in many fan''s eyes after he left but that''s because he was close to our hearts. He was dreadful in the PL for Watford and West Ham dicarded him when they got there. Doesn''t make my appreciate his time here any less though. But why oh why do people still have to continue their personal gripes with Worthy? I''m well pleased to see him doing well at York and his achievements here in the modern era are only eclipsed by Paul Lambert.

 

 

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You realise that the affection nickname ''Ginger Pele'' was given to him by Spurs fans with a heavy sense of irony don''t you? And that he tends to get named in Worst Ever Spurs XI lists?

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