gareth cronin

[Martinho II]

gareth cronin was appointed our new boss today. what were yer observations of him when he was with ye?

[stann]

First off, a lovely chap, always approachable, and (mostly) happy to talk football and his own views of it with the fans.

After that, you'll find there's a range of opinions down here about his abilities.

Personally I think he's one of the more decent managers, still very much learning his trade though.
His style was pretty cautious in nature though, and one of the criticisms when here, brought into sharper focus by his successor being very much the opposite, was that he held his players back somewhat, not allowing them to play freely.
We also played a fairly, em, direct brand of football under him, again, especially in comparison to now (recent Shels game aside :D).

At the risk of looking silly come the end of the season, I think he's a perfect appointment for ye as ye are now. He'll stabilise and organise the team, get them hard to beat and then push on to start clawing your way back up the table, and all the time learning as he goes.

And whoever made a comment on another thread about ye not having the money for him is way off the mark. He's well able to operate on money fumes, and got us to within a match of promotion on a shoestring.

[DRDoc]

, and got us to within a match of promotion on a shoestring.


I wouldnt consider waterfords budget last season to have been shoestring

[stann]

It was, specially after the mid-season readjustment shall we say.
Of course I'm talking in comparison to the teams they were battling for the top spots, not the Kildare or Wexford type budgets.

[DRDoc]

Compared to those also seeking promotion last season - i still would not consider it anywhere near shoestring

[blue til i die]

Compared to those also seeking promotion last season - i still would not consider it anywhere near shoestring

Why??

What kind of budgets had Dundalk, Shels and Fingal last season?

[stann]

Substantially larger. :)
And I mean substantially.

[DRDoc]

Fingal perhaps - but dundalk, and shels budgets were very similar to waterfords

Waterfords budget would have also been larger than a number of premier division teams

[stann]

Ah look, not going to drag this out anymore, this is my stop.
You're well off on Shels, slightly less so on Dundalk. Depends what you term similar maybe.
And as for the Premier, only UCD, not 'a number of'.

[DRDoc]

Well, firstly. dundalks budget was larger than shels last season, secondly waterfords and shels were very similar, comparable, whatever term you wish to use

Thirdly - certainly at the very least there were 2 premier clubs with smaller budgets than waterford last season

So to say Cronin was working on a shoestring budget is complete and utter nonsense

I would term this years budget as shoestring compared to that of fingal and shels - both those clubs have increased their budget from last season, whereas Waterfords has been slashed

[GalwayRed]

I would term this years budget as shoestring compared to that of fingal and shels - both those clubs have increased their budget from last season, whereas Waterfords has been slashed
We havent increased our budget from last season its actually been reduced.

[L.T.F.C.]

Fingal perhaps - but dundalk, and shels budgets were very similar to waterfords

Waterfords budget would have also been larger than a number of premier division teams
Fingal's was huge! humongous!

[blue til i die]

Any one actually have a idea of what budgets Dundalk, Shels and Fingal had last season? Or is all this just from guessing?

[Longfordian]

At the risk of looking silly come the end of the season, I think he's a perfect appointment for ye as ye are now. He'll stabilise and organise the team, get them hard to beat and then push on to start clawing your way back up the table, and all the time learning as he goes.

And whoever made a comment on another thread about ye not having the money for him is way off the mark. He's well able to operate on money fumes, and got us to within a match of promotion on a shoestring.

Interesting. I'd agree with you, what's needed is just to stabilise things and just start making some bit of steady progress. Sounds like a potentially good appointment, I know he impressed the last time he went for the job when Alan Gough was appointed and he would have got it apparently but they couldn't agree on money at the time.