By Nathan Jackson
July 21 2010

Hereford United are one of the sides who have done a lot of business over the summer, including arguably the most controversial management appointments in the League. Simon Davey had caused much controversy over his departure from Darlington and he's assembling a new squad at Hereford, whether it's a good squad is very much up for debate though. It's the start of a new era at Hereford United as it's the first time since 1995 that the Bulls will go into a season without Graham Turner at the club. The former manager and Chairman of the Bulls has moved on to Shrewsbury and how Hereford adapt to this change may spell the difference between another year of League Football, or joining the list of teams relegated in their fifth season of League football.

During his time at Hereford, Turner oversaw two promotions and two relegations, a spell of financial difficulty and several failed Playoff attempts. Rather interestingly the Bulls on actually purchased three players during Turner's spell in charge, Neil Grayson and Ben Smith for £20,000 each and Matt Done for an undisclosed free in 2008.

Turner had initially stepped down from manager at the beginning of last season and left John Trewick in charge. Trewick struggled to get Hereford above the relegation battle and it was little surprise when Trewick was sacked in March. Turner took over for the remainder of the season and the Bulls survived, just. Turner officially left the club on June 11^th when he was announced at Shrewsbury manager. He ended his 730 game stint as Hereford manager with 293 wins, 189 draws and 248 defeats.

Replacing Turner is Simon Davey, a man who showed very little loyalty over the summer. He had been given the job at Darlington when no-one else seemingly wanted to give him a chance following his sacking from Barnsley. However, the first sign of Football League interest and Davey was gone before his computer had even finished logging out. It was a move than enraged the Darlington chairman.

Davey was accused of not even seeing the Chairman face to face to say he was leaving, allegedly resigning through email and that combined with how quickly he left Hereford, really does make you question what his motives are. Is he the sort of manager that will leave as soon as he gets an offer from higher up the League? If that is the case then it could spell disaster for Hereford.

One thing you can't accuse Davey of though is wasting time in terms of transfers. Despite single handedly gifting Davey's Barnsley a victory in the Carling Cup last season against the Imps, Davey gave Janos Kovacs the chance to return to the League. Yes, they've brought in a passionate player in Kovacs, but passion doesn't necessarily make you any good. Other transfers in include Sean Canham and the return of Stuart Fleetwood.

Fleetwood had previously spent a spell at Hereford that included their opening year in the Football League. He replaces Gavin McCallum but Fleetwood in the Football League can best be described as an underachiever. He scored 28 goals in one season in the Blue Square Premier, but has never scored more than 8 goals in one season in the Football League.  He hit just seven goals in 36 games for Exeter in two spells on loan. Infact, since leaving Forest Green in 2008, he has scored just nine League goals in fifty-three appearances.

It's almost irrelevant looking at their results from last season as it's a new manager, near enough a brand new squad and therefore looking deeply into their results from last year would an exercise in futility. However, they have had two rather interesting pre-season results at Edgar Street. They beat Swansea City 2-0 but then lost 4-1 to Swindon, who are in division below Swansea.

I think this could be another year of struggle for Hereford. Davey is far from a proven manager, with a winning record of 32.61% at Barnsley over three years and 30% over ten games at Darlington. Infact, you get the feeling that he will walk out of the club as soon as a bigger club comes along for him and his squad isn't exactly full of players you would consider amongst the best in the division. Relying on Stuart Fleetwood, a man who has only ever been prolific in the non-league, could be interesting.

However, I think that they will relatively easily avoid relegation. I can see them being in the lower quarter of the table for a long time during the season, but I think they've got just enough to be able to avoid the drop, so I'm going to predict they will finish 20^th.

Theimps.ka is proudly associated with

Have Hereford got just enough to survive?

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 21/07/2010 21:05

theimps.ka
21/07/2010 21:05

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