Cloughie1975
John Robertson
I agree with most of that-but I think we would have gone down with Calderwood.Davies II vs Mcleish, though the Mcleish era is one which most necessarily would have been eviscerated from memory because it was so short, so shite, and futile because we already had a better manager. We almost made the play offs the last day of that season and were only just outside them when he got sacked.
I would say also that Warburton after Montanier and indeed Karanka after Warburton were obvious improvements as well, though that Montanier/Warburton season was a bit strange, we scored and conceded loads as well as loads of Bertie reds so matches could easily go either way with the odd goal from 5/6, and ultimately we were quite close to going down when it mattered having not spent any time at all in the bottom 3 during the course of the season. But then on the other hand there was an obvious improvement under MW even though we could never defend under him either, we looked less chaotic but at the same time ended up being lower down in the league. But the Karanka time was a definite improvement - we brought in a lot of players in both windows but it was better than silly little Scottish boys like cumdog and fanny mckay which MW got in, and players like Lolley and Grabban who took us to the next level and made us largely more a top half/play off contending side save for a season under Hughton. In terms of improvement on league position the Lamouchi season was definitely progression on the Karanka/O'Neill season too, though I don't think Lamouchi was an improvement on O'Neill, but then I think it's clear he was an interim.
I think aside from Hughton every Marinakis appointment has been an improvement on the other, and you can see easily why they did go for Hughton, it just didn't work out here. Although there are other examples such as the above where a manager has been an improvement on the predecessor, the ones you have provided are clearly the most obvious.
Calderwood is a funny one though, and perhaps other than Hart in for Platt the only one of the Doughty era which was actually progressive save for Davies in for Calderwood. Actually I think that season we were showing signs of improving towards the end of the Calderwood era. Having Lee Camp and that other lad we loaned (Carl Fletcher I think) in mf was experience in what was largely a young squad anyway with not much CH experience - that 1-1 with Derby, and actually the City cup game and Norwich win were under Pemberton as caretaker, though Billy took us to the next level he was backed well with players. Indeed, though, Earnshaw whose goals were key was a Calderwood signing. I think if we'd not twisted there we would have stayed up but not as easily and definitely not 2 play off finishes in the seasons after.
It's interesting how many appointments have been a step down though especially in the Doughty and Fawaz eras, or more an equivalence.
We had the whole Hart - Kinnear - Megson sketch, and whilst Kinnear did a short term job and gets a fair amount of unfair stick on here, he did turn it around initially and wasn't backed. That 2nd half of the season we had Louis-Jean still at the club and Williams and the plan was clearly for Evo to win it, give it to Williams who did something with it and drove us on, Commons turned out to be a decent signing but not used much initially, and there was all the talk about Reidy and Daws, we had to play kids who weren't good enough liek Robertson, and I doubt Kinnear had envisaged that level of squad investment coupled with the ST publicity. Megson was simply an unmitigated disaster who should have been nowhere near the club to begin with. Then we had the whole Davies - McClaren - Cotterill sketch where again the replacements got worse.
Fazza started well with SOD then ended up McLeish (crap) then Davies II (OK until he went mental) then Psycho (crap but hard to say so because he was a club legend) then Dougie (about the same level but did klopp all either and isn't liked for succeeding Psycho) then we ended up with Monty (almost took us down).
The 2-4 home reverse against Doncaster over Christmas (his final game) had relegation written all over it.