Plymouth Argyle owner Simon Hallett has issued a detailed public defence of head coach Tom Cleverley, insisting the club will stay the course despite mounting pressure and a slide into the League One relegation places.
Hallett addressed supporters after calls for change grew louder during a recent fans’ forum. Argyle sit second from bottom with five wins from 17 league games, and no side in the division has conceded more goals. Injuries have hit them hard, and only two wins in ten across all competitions have fuelled frustration.
Argyle, who lost 3-2 to the Imps earlier in the season, were unlucky not to take something against us. They fought back from 3-0 down to get to 3-2, before a dodgy sending off halted their progress. Since then, they’ve struggled to put results together and regularly leave the field to a round of boos.
In a statement, Hallett said the board had chosen stability over upheaval. He described Cleverley as a young coach with clear principles who inherited a squad that suffered from heavy turnover and a spate of fitness issues. He accepted that it did not excuse results, but said it needed to be part of the wider picture.
“Right now we believe the best route is to keep Tom in post, to strengthen the squad and the staff structure around him, and to correct the weaknesses in recruitment processes that led us to this position.”
The arrival of former boss Derek Adams as director of football last month prompted speculation that he might be positioned to return to the dugout. Hallett rejected that idea. He said Adams had been impressed with Cleverley’s work on the training ground and his standing among staff and players. Adams’ role, he added, would be to add experience to ongoing reviews of tactics, in-game management and structural decisions.
Crucially, Hallett acknowledged that Argyle’s problems went deeper than the head coach. Despite operating with what he says is the sixth-biggest transfer budget in the division, the club endured a turbulent summer in which they failed to secure a proven striker and experienced widespread churn behind the scenes.
Cleverley is their third head coach in under a year, and they are also on their second director of football and second chief executive in that period. Two heads of recruitment have departed, with David Fox recently stepping in as head of football operations.
Hallett admitted that too many decisions had gone wrong over the past eighteen months.
“Over the last 18 months we have made too many decisions that did not work,” he said. “Some of the structures and processes that helped us succeed in previous seasons eroded.
“We changed too much, too quickly, on and off the pitch. Our summer recruitment did not give us the balanced, resilient squad we needed for this division. That is not down to one person. It is the result of collective decisions, and we are collectively responsible for fixing it.”
Argyle remain in the mire, but are only a point from safety at the foot of the division. It’s likely there will be some differences in terms of personnel when the Imps make the trip down to Devon in early February, but whether Hallet’s patience means the same man remains in charge is the big question.
You must be logged in to post a comment.