I mean fair enough if that's your genuine opinion, you're entitled to it.
It's not just me though that thinks it's miles wide of the mark.
Point 5 - Got Bowler back on track as a special Blackpool player after he was not being selected by Critch for the last few games of the previous season. Bowler was sold for £4M.
Bowler's sale was due completely to his performances last season, 45 games in all comps - 7 goals and the intangibles i.e taking people on setting the crowd on fire etc. His 5 or 6 games at the start of this season were not the reason he got sold for multiple millions. Praise also has to go to the guys that brought him in for exactly nowt - now they're much maligned.
Point 6 - Got Jerry Yates scoring regularly in the Championship and his valuation soared to £5M in Oct/Nov.
Jerry is a fan favourite, if we get a few million quid for him in the summer, in reality we need to take it and move on. His peaks are great and take me back to some of my all time cult Blackpool heroes. But his troughs are equally low - Prior to Appleton's firing he'd gone on a ten game goal scoring drought, what if that had carried on to the end of the season because of Appleton, we'd realistically be lucky to get £500k. Before a bit of a purple patch in October again had a 7 game scoring drought. All this was under Appleton - if you're gonna praise him you have to dish out the criticism in equal measure if it applies.
Point 7 - Noticeable improvements in the consistency and contributions of Connolly, Thorniley, CJ and Madine.
This is just your opinion, CJ hasn't looked like a Championship player the whole time he's been with us, Madine!? really? Connolly and Thorneiley looked equally solid under Critchley.
Point 8 -His excellent coaching and player development skills recognised by Arsenal, Man City Wolves and Leeds Utd when they allowed Patino, Fiorini, Rogers, Theo and Poveda to come on loan to Blackpool.
Again, no idea what tangibles you're basing 'excellent coaching' on. We've had loans from Premier League clubs for decades by the same logic Grayson was a an excellent coach because Leicester sent KDH and Wolves Ronan. He really wasn't and those deals as well as the loans this year have mostly stemmed from the upstairs management - although Appleton will have had some input. (People will point to Rogers - but we were in for him last year as well according to reports under Critchley and would have likely gone for him with or without MA)
The easiest counter to this point is clearly the regression several of our contracted players suffered during his tenure. Marvin, a shadow of himself, Grimshaw dropped for not a lot, Thompson came in with rave reviews from Brentford fans and actually played very well in his first couple of games, as Appleton's coaching and development took hold, he became an absolute clown, to the point where it was like starting with 10 men every game. You can also make this case for Carey and Dougall, but they were also struggling under the latter part of Critchley's tenure - still he didn't improve them.
Point 9 - Both Bowler and Rogers, who have previously had experience of Appleton as a Manager and a Coach, were delighted to come to Blackpool in the Jan transfer window. Squad harmony and Not losing the dressing room — Appleton seemed to have had a very good working relationships with all of the Blackpool players, staff and Board. There were no dramas or fall outs.
Sorry this one is truly nonsense. Bowler was rotting in Greece, we were literally the only club he could play for until the end of the season, zero attributable credit to Appleton. Like I said with Rogers above, it might have had a bit of Appleton in it but we've been rumoured to have been after him long before MA arrived. The rest of it is just wishful thinking none of us know what happened behind the scenes. I have my doubts the players were really on board with most of his reign, the extended injury lengths I always found suspicious but its just my conspiracy theory (Plus there were the usual rumours of Madine, Yates ,Grimshaw, Poveda falling out with him)
Point 10 - Totally committed to the job and worked very hard to turn the results around, including coming into work when his child was ill and in hospital.
In a way I agree but, isn't that the basic requirement when you sign a contract of employment? Why are we holding that up as a major achievement, I suspect it's because he had no actual achievements. I'll add having attended Watford away, I was convinced that day, as were many others, he had downed tools and knew he was shortly out of the door. Not exactly working hard to turn results around.
Ultimately, he was a strange appointment, largely driven by circumstances that the club found it's self in. He was never talented enough to manage us at this level and likely never will manage anyone at this level again - which tells you everything. He achieved nothing with us because of this lack of talent and yes, there were several hindering factors but no one will ever find a perfect job with no obstacles, that's why they're so well remunerated.
For all the hinderances and mitigations, the wide consensus is, his ability did not match his position, which meant he needed to be removed from that position in short order. Thankfully he was.
I mention consensus because, generally the people that know the most about a club are its supporters - we live it everyday, they smelt a subpar manager at the outset, generally tried to get behind him, but we all knew what ever the excuses were, if it smells, acts and sounds like a manager out of his depth, that's because it is a manger out of his depth.
