David Artell

Mm.

And, um, our old friend Dave Artell, um, overseen pretty gradual im- improvement since he came in then as well.

Um, are we kind of at a point now where for you as fans it needs to be ending with that promotion, with that, with something to show for it now, or is that where the expectation levels are right now?

I think so.

And, um, I th- I think with some of the signings, I think some of them clicked in, clicked into gear quite nicely.

Some of them took a little bit of time, but we, we gradually just got better as a squad throughout the campaign and ultimately that's what propelled us to, to where we are.

Um, look, Dave Artell, I've got huge respect for him.

Um, he's obviously been a class manager.

Nicky Hunt was meant to be playing, so I didn't know until half an hour before we were going out to warm up.

Dave Artell pulled me and was like, you're starting.

Honestly, it was the most nervous I've ever been in my life.

I hated every minute of it.

They all left, didn't we? And we obviously didn't replace them with the quality that we had.

And obviously we had a lot of young players coming through.

Dave Artell probably had to give a lot of debuts to young players and stuff.

You can obviously see from the season before and in the second season, we were just a young team, inexperienced team, and we've lost all of our best players.

Yeah, it, it's just really, really frustrating.

That, that team over the last two games because I, I do sort of agree with Artell, I think the Newport c- game can be taken slightly differently.

But over the last two games it's not a team I recognize.

Um, it's a team that looks like it has senior pros that are out of form, young players that have not quite got up to the speed of things yet.

It's twice on the spin that's, that's obviously a thing now and he's not heard any sort of...

And he's not seen a, a positive reaction from that which would slightly concern me.

Um, I know maybe I'm guilty of reading too much what Artell says in interviews there because you're naive if you, if you do listen too much to what Artell says in interviews.

Take Maldini being knackered and needing a rest last week as a case in point.

Of course, there's a, there's a incentive to do so, having picked up, uh, a positive result today.

Of course, Grimsby Town's start not as, not probably as good as you would've expected it to be this season, but we know u- under David Artell they've been, uh, a, a tough side, uh, at, at this level.

So to get a result there, uh, when they were struggling a little...

Uh, to get a result at home to, to Grimsby, rather, when they've been struggling a little bit, is a good result, uh, for Port Vale, and they'll be very, very keen indeed to try and back that up, uh, against Chesterfield, I'm sure.

What's this? Another episode in a week.

Uh, y- y- you guys are being treated a bit like the other week when you got the David Artell exclusive in which myself and, uh, Ryan did.

Uh, another mention for that, go and check it out.

Um, although I'll probably not, uh, mention the form that's happened after that because, uh, from the past three games after that, uh, just the one win and two defeats.

Um, and I won't blabber on for too long about it.

I know that obviously Port Vale have got previous with Dave Artell and all that sort of stuff, so there might be a little bit more of a added bonus there with that one.

Um, but I think for anyone going into this game thinking it'll be a routine win for Grimsby as I've thought probably the last few weeks certainly would be.

I've started to sort of reassess that a little bit and, uh, started to sort of calm expectations a little bit I think over the last few weeks.

Like, what does that mean? Like, that alone is such a weird idea, and, like, it, it really plays into, um, what I think is one of the biggest, like, fallacies in football, where it's where people seem to, to see a manager as the club, as if they are intertwined and they are the same thing.

And I talk about it a lot, but one of my favorite quotes ever of, in, in football and management and this kind of this, this space was when Dave Artell was appointed Grimsby Town manager And he said that the reason he took the job was 'cause one of the, one of the questions he asked the owners of Grimsby when he was appointed, when, in the process was, "You know, what is the plan here? Because, you know, I, I can't be the plan." And the reason why he took on that job is 'cause he knew and he felt like he was just one part of a far bigger idea of how they were gonna progress rather than everything being, being lumped with him.

So the whole notion of like, [laughs] you know, these managers could take us this far, but this guy could take us this far is, I think is very, very misguided u- unless you're going to put the building blocks in place to enable those managers to achieve.

Um, you know, the manager himself or themselves cannot just be the whole plan that you expect to take you on a certain trajectory.