Never return to a former club they say and sadly this has proven true for Mark Molesley and Weymouth after a 29 game spell during which he did “not meet expectations“.

Paraded on the pitch on April 1st before the Ye0vil home league game, there was mixed opinions from the Terras faithful. For some this was a returning of the messiah on Easter Monday…but for others it was at best a silly risk on April Fool’s Day.

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The impact of his second tenure (or lack of it) could possibly be best described by the fact the day of his unveiling remains out last home league win* to date. (* A win of course forever annotated with an asterisk).

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I try to avoid sharing personal feelings these days (in most aspects of life but especially writing about the club!) but as one that was excited by his return…and hoped it would work…out I am genuinely saddened less than 7 months later he has gone once more.

Is his legacy tarnished? Not for me. I think we can look at at his two spells individually. For many reasons he could not recreate the “perfect storm” that ensured our double promotion last time around and at least we don’t ever have to ask the question “what if” he’d come back…

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Football of course is a cold hearted results business and the stats clearly forced the hand of the board. Today we are 3 places and 5 points from safety (although arguably more with Salisbury just above the drop having played a game less).

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Perhaps to a degree we have sleepwalked into this position in the last few weeks – for some judgement may have been clouded by a great 9 game unbeaten run. However that ended with the defeat to Hornchurch on Saturday…and…only 4 of those 9 games were wins…plus…just one of those wins were in the league!

Over the same period we did go 6 unbeaten in the league – positive surely? But with so many draws we only gained 8 points from those half-dozen games at 1.3 points per game, not good enough when you are trying to pull away from the relegation zone.

Fast forward to today and add a loss v Hornchurch(A) followed by a poor performance against (albeit) high-flying Truro(H) and suddenly things don’t look so rosy. We sit 18th in the 5-game form table and 19th in the 10-game form table.

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So what were Molesley’s “scores on the doors” this time around?…24% wins is not setting the world alight over 29 games but this is buoyed by cup wins. In the league we’ve won just 2 times under Molesley in 22 occasions, only 9%. Credit where credit is due we have drawn a fair few but overall just 0.64 points per game is not good enough and well below the 1 point average needed to even flirt with staying up.

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WHAT NEXT?!?…

There is a task at hand to save our season no doubt and one the board must have felt needs to be wrestled by another manager…a manager who will have 28 games and a possible 84 points to aim for. (They will probably need to get 38 to feel safe and reach 50).

38points from 28 games then at 1.36 a game feels achievable but without wins that “required run rate” will start to creep up and…as we stand after 18 games…we are EXACTLY where we were at this stage during our “great escape” season…

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What will the new guy have to do to turn things around?

Defensively there probably isn’t much wrong but much of that is almost certainly down to Buse in goal. According to Sofascore data he has let in 12 goals against an expected value of 12.2 in the league. Just doing his job you might say but bear in mind that before the Truro game he had only let in 8 over 9 games against an expected 10. In the 8 league games before his arrival we had shipped 14 goals against an expected 10!

Keeping him for as long as possible will be high on the “to do list” for the new managerial incumbent.

In front of Buse our defenders have been pretty solid too – 9 teams have conceded more goals than us this season so it’s clearly the other end of the pitch where the new guy needs to show his charges where the net is.

Chance creation is clearly not the issue as, again according to Sofascore, we’ve created enough opportunities whereby we “should” have scored 20 goals instead of 12. That is a significant difference after 18 games.

And the biggest turnaround needs to be at the Bob Lucas. We are staring down the barrel of a club record for latest maiden home league win of the season!

Latest maiden home league wins…

22/23 – 12th Nov (9th game)

92/93 – 9th Dec (9th game)

And perhaps Tuesday evening showed that people are starting to vote with their feet as 537 is a very poor crowd even for a classic “wet & cold Tuesday evening in November.

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So who will be the new messiah?

In many ways it’s difficult to look beyond Jerry Gill if he throws his hat into the ring. Yes he would be another “returnee” manager but his first stint in 2010 (that lasted about as long as Liz Truss as prime minister) was during one of our financial crises that tied his hands behind his back. He might relish a relatively local challenge at the same level as Bath City from where he was recently deposed after so long in the helm. However he would probably not be cheap so are there other options in the frame?