Is Wade Elliott still the right manager for Cheltenham Town?

Cheltenham Town are languishing 23rd in League One with no goals to their name, and just a solitary point, as a relegation battle looms.

EFL pundit Gab Sutton dissects boss Wade Elliott’s part in the poor start, as calls for him to leave become mainstream.

After Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Exeter, long-serving Cheltenham Town journalist Jon Palmer wrote an opinion column on why he believed it was time for the club to part company with Wade Elliott.

The feature was nuanced, balanced, and fair, but when the most respected independent voice on a club publicly calls for the manager to leave, it does add credence to the sentiment, which can no longer be dismissed as mere hyperbole from a reactionary minority.

As Palmer discussed in his own piece, Elliott has been dealt a difficult hand in both his seasons in charge, and did well to keep the club up in the last one.

Replacing club legend Michael Duff was always a huge ask, especially after the record-breaking final two campaigns under his leadership, and the 2022 departures of Will Boyle and Matty Blair, plus loanees Mattie Pollock, Callum Wright, and Kion Etete.

Elliott’s achievements in 2022/23 were arguably bigger than Duff’s the year before, and the team was more solid defensively that year, despite finishing one place lower in 15th.

This season, the 44-year-old has had a lot go against him, from a double-figured list of injuries, to question marks over the club on an operational level.

The fee received for Alfie May that Palmer described as a perceived “woefully low sum” is potentially defensible on the club’s part, because they convinced the talisman to stay in January last year to help keep them up, on the proviso he would get his move for a pre-agreed fee this summer.

It’s unclear whether the transfer fee was low because neither of the main suitors, Charlton nor Gillingham, met the valuation and the club buckled on their stance to avoid a protracted saga, or because the fee pre-agreed with May was purposefully low, that being the only way the club got him to stay for those crucial five months in the first place.

Either way, it’s understandable the club chose to cash in on their star asset and move forward, rather than keep an unhappy player, but it’s no secret that May’s departure has had a massive bearing on the pitch.

May hit 20 goals last season and 23 the year before, so the loss of go-to firepower has patently been a massive problem for a side that’s not yet scored in the league – and hasn’t seen one of its own players find the net in any competition – but this isn’t just about finishing.

May’s link-up play is excellent, and the Robins were able to create chances at a reasonable rate last season, without having a notably creative midfield.

Elliot Bonds could play a decent pass over the top, but his work was mainly destructive, athlete Ryan Broom had a mediocre campaign, Taylor Perry played a deeper sitting role, while Liam Sercombe’s experience was needed chiefly in his own half as well.

In fact, their most naturally creative midfielder in 2022/23 was probably James Olayinka, and he didn’t exactly tear up trees in his 15 starts.

As such, the comparatively high rate of creativity from the team up against the perceived lack of it from midfield can only be explained partially by the contributions of agile left wing-back Will Ferry, who started fewer than half the league games through injury, and some decent deliveries from right wing-back Ryan Jackson.

Boiled down, May’s individual quality – both creatively and in terms of finishing – meant Cheltenham made their forays into the final third count, so goalless form since his exit could say one of three things, depending on your perspective.

The first would be the simplest, and most obvious observation to an outsider: that Elliott has been unlucky to lose his star player, and it’s had a negative impact that was almost unavoidable.

Secondly, that May’s absence has exposed Elliott somewhat, that he wasn’t even a good in-possession coach last season, but was carried by the forward’s individual brilliance, and now he can’t rely on that, he’s completely out of ideas.

Reality likely lies somewhere in between: that it’s been tough for Elliott to lose his key man and not have much money to replace him, but that part of his job has been to respond to these challenges and come up with new solutions, and he’s been found wanting.

The problem has been maximized by the drop in form from Aidan Keena, whom many hoped could step into the ‘May role’ after an excellent second half of last season following his arrival from Sligo Rovers, but the Irishman hasn’t been able to become that main man.

Keena takes some responsibility for that, inherently, and some have questioned his attitude, but the uninspiring football hasn’t helped.

Town have resorted to hopeful punts down the channels, partly through coaching imperfections, and partly through personnel – that midfield trio of Bonds, Sercombe, and Curtis Thompson in August’s 1-0 loss to Northampton, for instance, was arguably a trifle samey.

Some of that’s down to injuries (Thompson, himself was ruled out on the morning of the 4-1 EFL Trophy loss at Bristol Rovers), while the highly-rated Oli Hammond, loaned in from Nottingham Forest to be a dynamic, creative eight, has also been absent.

While we’re at it, those are two of a whopping 13 players who have been sidelined at one stage or another, including defenders Sean Long, Tom Bradbury, and Grant Horton, wing-backs Liam Smith, Luciano D’Auria-Henry and Ferry, midfielders James Olayinka and Ellis Chapman, plus strikers George Lloyd and Will Goodwin.

The injury crisis has been as bad as it’s been at Whaddon Road in modern history, and the club themselves are responsible for the current position, with the questionable response to Micky Moore’s exit for Shrewsbury.

Rather than begin a rigorous search for Moore’s successor, the club simply went to the familiar figure of Russ Milton, who has been on the coaching staff for the last decade and doesn’t have a background in recruitment.

Steve Evans has Leon Hunter, Gary Caldwell has Marcus Flitcroft, Mark Bonner has Ben Strang: true experts at their profession who know exactly how to give their managers exactly what they need – so is it any wonder Stevenage, Exeter and Cambridge are the ones defying expectations in such an open League One this season, while Cheltenham are floundering at the foot?

In hugely challenging circumstances, Elliott’s side still haven’t been completely dominated in any of their games other than the one at home to Bolton on week two, as well as easily creating the better chances in the first half of the 2-0 home loss to Barnsley, and earning a spirited goalless draw at Portsmouth.

In fact, if it was just the results that were problem, and things looked a little more hopeful in terms of signs of patterns of play coming together and half-chances being created, it would feel too soon to talk about his job.

Even with the massive mitigating factors, though, there’s not much evidence that fortunes are about to turn, and this is an early stage of the season at which the right change could steer the club into midtable, as Burton showed seven games into the previous campaign.

There’s no question Elliott has been dealt a bad hand – but he hasn’t played it especially well either.

The former midfielder looked a little out of ideas in his last interview, and even if we take the various mitigating factors into account, it’s hard to escape the feeling that fresh leadership is required to change the Robins’ fortunes.