Steve Evans - that good?

Two days ago it was announced that Steve Evans and John Radford would be meeting to discuss next season. Evans wants a budget that will support Mansfield in being promoted. Radford will more than likely match his ambition.

A lot of Mansfield fans are quickly jumping on the Evans' bandwagon. However, Evans' ability is overstated.

In recruitment, Evans criticised the quality of his predecessor's signings and argued that Murray's recruitment was inadequate. However, I believe that the opposite is true. Evans has signed a number of players, including Jake Kean, Hayden White, Joel Byrom, Ben Whiteman, Alex MacDonald, Shaq Coulthirst and Yoann Arquin. Not that many of these have been hits. Mal Benning, Krystian Pearce and Rhys Bennett, Murray's former signings, have been the standout performers, ensuring that Evans inherited a good set of defenders. Up front, another former Murray signing, has been excellent. Our greatest shortcomings have been in midfield. In fact, it is in larger part Murray's signings which carried us to the cusp of the play-offs.

Evans' tactics, team selections and in game management can be questioned. On paper, the Stags have looked strong. Coming out onto the pitch, the players usually look up for it and are pretty solid, but particularly at home against the better sides, the primacy of Evans' direct style have been clear. Either Evans does not have the personnel to play football in midfield (in which case, his recruitment should be called into question), or Evans' style of play is agrarian and will not support a promotion push. In addition, his substitutions are usually slow coming but the greatest oversight has been his refusal to play Matt Green centrally. Green is a much better player than Shaq Coulthirst and any manager worth his salt would have Green firing again.

So one final point, Since Evans took over on 16th November, the Stags have averaged 1.61 points per game. Over 46 games, this would tally at 74 points. When Adam Murray parted, the Stags were averaging 1.19 points per game. Over 46 games, this would have tallied at 55 points. Obviously Evans has a much better points per game yield, but I still don't think it is that good because of the reasons above.

So while this may not be popular with other Stags or Evans, I think that Evans, or at least his narrative of him being an excellent manager deserves some scrutiny. In my view, his reputation is now so great that he can't fail but to succeed with the resources he is provided.

I can see the opposing arguments, but what do others think?

I apologise for the length of this post but you should read the way they talk about him on our forum.

He is a lardarse bellend

THE LAST WALTZ said:

He is a lardarse bellend

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The antics don't work at home.

Think you're lucky to have him. Think he'll get you up within 2 years if he sticks around

Impish said:

Think you're lucky to have him. Think he'll get you up within 2 years if he sticks around

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I think he probably will too. But I don't think he could do it on a midtable budget.

With a budget - and he'll get one next season - he'll achieve. Without a budget I don't think he'd be any better than most Division 4 managers.

He's slaughtered his predecessor recently, despite Murray not being provided the budget that Evans will get. He famously bought up the best talent in the Conference, to win that; I'm certain that he'll do something similar next season.

One thing that he better do is get us promoted. That's not Stags fans demanding achievements: that's us after listening to him for months banging on about how good he is. No excuses if Radford provides him his obligatory bigger budget.

Wouldn't worry, now Radford has his man that knows how to achieve with money, he will happily throw his money at you again.

Yes, Steve Evans brought the conference title with Crawley (like nearly every team that was winning the conference in those years) but in previous seasons he kept us mid table when we had no money. One season we finished around 8th and our top striker was Charlie Adeamo. Ask Grimsby fans how good he actually was/is.

His style is direct but he does like his players to pass the ball around up front.

He will overspend on players who are not worth it in mid season but his pre season buys are normally pretty good.

I will accept he is a bellend though.

Casey

Evans is an incompetent tosspot who will write himself cheques until the owners cotton on to his game. Then he'll be looking for a way out and a new place to steal a living. If he were in a proper business he'd have been banged up by now.

Evans only succeeds because he has good budgets. He doesn't overachieve as a manager. Admittedly, you have to spend it wisely and do the job but he doesn't back himself to improve players and teams. He'll get a bounce from players for a bit, but long term it isn't what he's about.

His comments a week or so back basically admit that.

Stringy said:

I apologise for the length of this post but you should read the way they talk about him on our forum.

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More to the point, do you realise that you structure your posts like GCSE history answers now??

Casey said:

Yes, Steve Evans brought the conference title with Crawley (like nearly every team that was winning the conference in those years) but in previous seasons he kept us mid table when we had no money. One season we finished around 8th and our top striker was Charlie Adeamo. Ask Grimsby fans how good he actually was/is.

His style is direct but he does like his players to pass the ball around up front.

He will overspend on players who are not worth it in mid season but his pre season buys are normally pretty good.

I will accept he is a bellend though.

Casey

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I don't know what is worse, the fact that we never gave Ademeno a proper fitness test or the fact that he wasn't our most ridiculous signing when down in the Conference. Evans was laughing all the way to the bank with that one.

Some of his tactics at home have annoyed me, play shaq and danny Rose who are no taller than 5ft 10 and lumping it Upto them through long balls.

We seem to have lost points from winning positions of regular positions.

The fact is he's always there with money, but the one thing he always does is achieve. Just because you have money doesn't mean you actually go up. That's what he's good at

Son of Cod said:

More to the point, do you realise that you structure your posts like GCSE history answers now??

I don't know what is worse, the fact that we never gave Ademeno a proper fitness test or the fact that he wasn't our most ridiculous signing when down in the Conference. Evans was laughing all the way to the bank with that one.

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It's done lots of strange things to my personality... maybe it's even eroded it

He's an excellent manager at this level and his win ratio suggests that. I don't think recruitment is his best skill, he must have signed 100 players while with us and maybe 20 were successful but he makes up for that with great motivational skills and getting the best out of each player and we always seem to win big pressure games as well which shows what kind of winner he is. I think we would still be in the championship tbh if we still had him.

Has he taken credit for individual players doing things yet? Someone would score a volley and no doubt Evans would say he told him to start doing them in games the day before

Stupid twat. I'm sure he can get results at a low level but he loves himself so much it's embarrassing.

He's got lots of 'good friends'.

"I was speaking to my good friend Paul Ince (etc etc) the other day", "The great Sir Alex Ferguson once told me, when I was sat having a coffee with him at his house...".

Loves a name drop.

Steve Evans is a twat, but he's a good manager at this level. I think that's very fair considering his record and it's not like he's always had a huge budget as stated in this thread, I remember him doing well with Crawley without the big money signings.

His transfers have been a mixture, Coulthirst, Kean, Arquin, have been poor signings but the rest have been pretty good and have had a huge play in the fact we just missed out on the play-offs instead of a relegation battle. One thing for certain is that he's a big improvement to Murray, who actually made good signings but tactically was abysmal.

He's no all mighty god though, as described on Stagsnet!!!

He will get you up but will near enough bankrupt you in doing so, how has Jake Kean been for you I was hearing good reports and noticed he's kept a lot of clean sheets for you. I expect he'll stay with you if you want him.

I really like Kean and I don't understand where the reports of him being poor are coming from, unless I've missed something blatantly obvious. He is calm and I don't ever feel as though a mistake is likely.

He's really good at getting a strong hand to low shots. There's been at least three instances I can think of where's he's stopped a nailed on goal with a save I didn't expect him to make.

All you need is the one and only DANNY ROSE!

Good to hear can't see him having a future with us as he was only ever brought in as 3rd choice at best, think he'll join you on a free in the summer.

Casey said:

Yes, Steve Evans brought the conference title with Crawley (like nearly every team that was winning the conference in those years) but in previous seasons he kept us mid table when we had no money. One season we finished around 8th and our top striker was Charlie Adeamo. Ask Grimsby fans how good he actually was/is.

His style is direct but he does like his players to pass the ball around up front.

He will overspend on players who are not worth it in mid season but his pre season buys are normally pretty good.

I will accept he is a bellend though.

Casey

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I don't know how good this Charlie Adeamo is, but Charles Ademeno was dogshit.

I think Evans is a good manager for Mansfield and I expect him to sweet talk Radford into pushing the boat out with a big budget.

To be honest, with Matt Green Goal Machine, Mansfield should really be challenging higher anyway. Feed the Green and he will score etc.

Evans has always benefited from big budgets. He had the same at Rotherham etc. I do think however, he tends to set his teams up in a way that makes them hard to beat

Youpies said:

I think Evans is a good manager for Mansfield and I expect him to sweet talk Radford into pushing the boat out with a big budget.

To be honest, with Matt Green Goal Machine, Mansfield should really be challenging higher anyway. Feed the Green and he will score etc.

Evans has always benefited from big budgets. He had the same at Rotherham etc. I do think however, he tends to set his teams up in a way that makes them hard to beat

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Feed the Green and he doesn't always score, that's one of our problems under Evans in the latter half of the season. Had we a decent forward we'd have made the play-offs, but hey-ho. The Mansfield fans are very divided about him - for me we should have farmed him off to Lincoln when they made a bid in January.

Shaq was poor and I hope we don't bring him back from Peterborough. Danny Rose I like, a lot - but he wasn't played properly - though he's great in the air for a lad his size, lumping it upfront to a 5ft 8 (or whatever he is) lad when you're up against 2 6ft plus defenders was pointless.

Stringy said:

I really like Kean and I don't understand where the reports of him being poor are coming from, unless I've missed something blatantly obvious. He is calm and I don't ever feel as though a mistake is likely.

He's really good at getting a strong hand to low shots. There's been at least three instances I can think of where's he's stopped a nailed on goal with a save I didn't expect him to make.

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I agree, can't see what people don't see in Kean, he's a good keeper, very solid - him and the defence next season should be pretty decent.

I hope he'd be one of the first we go for.

It's good that Sheffield Wednesday loaned him to us, in fairness, both Sheffield clubs are which is good of them.

Don't rate Kean at all, we should be able to do better.

We had three goalkeepers on the books, two were are shit and one was ancient.

Conker said:

Don't rate Kean at all, we should be able to do better.

We had three goalkeepers on the books, two were are shit and one was ancient.

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We have had the most clean sheets, 11, in the whole league and Kean has kept 10 of those. Whats he done wrong? Hardly anything. Hes a very good keeper for this league.

Defence been brilliant, Kean was a improvement on Shearer but we should be doing better.

Watch his play, he's scared of leaving the goal line, does not command the box at all.

Conker said:

Defence been brilliant, Kean was a improvement on Shearer but we should be doing better.

Watch his play, he's scared of leaving the goal line, does not command the box at all.

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An organised defence usually comes from the keeper talking to them.
If by "does not command the box" you mean you can't hear or see him screaming at players then oh dear. Ive thought he's been doing well but will trust who ever evans brings in