Worthington did very well sorting us out in the second tier but couldn't really handle the

Premiership.

First season, 2000-2001: took a team in freefall that had been through five managers in as many years, immediately cleared out the dead wood and ended up keeping us up fairly comfortably.

He made a couple of brilliant low-budget signings - Gary Holt and Adam Drury - and really got the best out of a few of Bryan Hamilton's signings (particularly Nedergaard and McVeigh) to put us on the right track, and they formed the basis of an unfancied team which came within penalties of going up in 2002.

The following season there was little investment in the team - we only signed one player in summer 2002, on a free - and were in the mix for most of the season until falling away towards the end and finishing 7th.

2003-4 - he really excelled at team-building, making a couple of great signings - Francis and Edworthy, later Svensson and McKenzie - recognised Peter Crouch as a quality striker (Crouch was a bit of a figure of fun at the time) and persuaded Darren Huckerby to sign on loan then stay, and then we comfortably won the League.

So far, so good, but we'd seen a few failings - notably the lack of a plan B, a poor away record and a tendency to start slowly - and they really screwed us in the Premiership.

Add to that a failure to recognise his best team, or get much out of our better players - he had no idea how to handle David Bentley (although better managers have failed there), or how to use Helveg or Mattias Jonson: once he finally clocked his best XI it was too late, and four home wins at the end of the season didn't quite save us.

Then it all went wrong: in summer 2005, perhaps rattled by his failures with Bentley, Jonson and Helveg, he went for players who "knew what the First Division was about" and brought in Andy Hughes, Peter Thorne and Jason Jarrett - three of the very worst players to represent the team - and the chance to go straight back up slipped away.

He was lucky not to get sacked in autumn 2005, and by the time he made better signings - Earnshaw and Etuhu - it was too late - we'd lost Dean Ashton and then Robert Green, and all our momentum.

The following season started well and he made two signings - Lee Croft who was decent, and Dion Dublin, an unexpected masterstroke - but it was too late, he'd lost the fans and filled our midfield with garbage, and as soon as it went tits-up again he was out.

So in summary, reasonable on the transfer market (for the most part), works well with certain types of players but not big names (or people who think they're big names), fairly good at team building and will most likely improve you at least in the short term - and has a much better track record than Brian Laws, having kept Leicester up in 2006-7 and done as well as could be expected with Northern Ireland.

Hope that helps - I've always liked the Owls (Waddle and Degryse especially) and hope you're back in the Premiership before too long.

Posted By: Ottosson Foxtrot on December 14th 2009 at 21:13:34

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