KIWOMYA HAS GOT PLENTY OF THINGS RIGHT
I'm starting to feel a bit sorry for Chris Kiwomya - it seems as though no one else can consider his short reign as Notts manager without focusing, almost pathologically, on the team's inability to kick the ball in the other team's goal. Or, in recent weeks, their inability to get anywhere near said goal. Now, i'm not trying to absolve Kiwomya's tactics of any blame in what has been some pretty stodgy, uninspiring displays, merely to suggest that they are understandable.
One of the things people seem to have been demanding more than anything else in recent weeks is an 'experienced manager' - I would suggest that the early signs from Kiwomya's reign bear all the hallmarks of one of these fabled men of wisdom. Maybe he could even be mistaken for a less visually repugnant Iain Dowie. Cast your minds back to mid February, when Keith Curle was sacked, and the lack of firepower had taken a little bit of a back seat, replaced by whinging about the team's inability to defend set pieces and all round frailty - we were, frankly, leaking goals like we wearing a metaphorical colander on our head.
Now, listen to any 'experienced' new manager when he gives his first interviews and he will stress one thing and one thing only - keeping it tight, building a team from the back, becoming solid. This is mainly because unsuccessful teams are usually the ones that have Ashley Eastham at centre back, but also because it is the best way for a manager to get off to what would be a 'solid' start, as Kiwomya learned painfully in his maiden match at Stevenage. Notts were progressive, expansive and created a plethora of chances, spending the vast majority of the match camped out in the opposition's half. We missed them all and conceded two infuriatingly silly goals from Stevenage's only two real forays into Notts territory - in the first and last minutes. Having witnessed that, any one of the 'experienced' managers out there would've done what Kiwomya has and focused on tightening up at the back and solidifying, just take Simon Grayson's start to life at Preston North End, which has been built on sorting out a previously leaky back line.
Notts are yet to concede from a set piece during Kiwomya's reign, aside from two penalties, and have conceded just three other goals in this period, including a wonder strike from Bury's Steven Schumacher and an unfortunate Haydn Hollis own goal. We have also kept four clean sheets in our last six matches and haven't conceded twice in one game since that Stevenage match, a record that any team in the division would be satisfied with. I dare say that had one of these 'experienced' managers led us to such a record then they would be credited with excellent organisational skills having been able to turn around the defensive mess that Notts were under Keith Curle so quickly - particularly considering much of this has come with Haydn Hollis at the back, someone whose absence might as well be put as an epithet on Curle's Meadow Lane tomb, such were the calls for his introduction.
Of course, this has come at the cost of any kind of attacking fluidity and threat and I have been as vocal as anyone complaining about that - we aren't good to watch. Kiwomya, however, clearly noticed the issue of a lack of goalscoring threat and tried to rectify it, but the rushed, short term signings of John Cofie and Jacob Blyth didn't work out. With a few months to find the right man, he has to be given the chance to sort things out going forward. That Notts' one truly creative midfield player, Alan Judge, clearly has his head all but cemented in the Championship ahead of his inevitable summer move is only making things worse - all in all, it isn't hard to see why Kiwomya thought that tightening up defensively was the best way to gain results in the short term.
As it stands, we will go into the summer with a back five of Bartosz Bialkowski, Julian Kelly, Gary Liddle, Dean Leacock and Alan Sheehan that looks solid, dependable and in-form - plus the emerging Hollis and Manny Smith, a man who we definitely haven't seen the best of, in reserve. With a midfield that also looks quite good near to it's own goal, Kiwomya has the base on which to build that every new managerial appointment preaches that he is going to aim for. Everything depends on his ability to replace Judge, add some genuine left-sided width and, of course, much better quality up front on what is likely to be a reduced budget, but he has as much chance of succeeding in that as anyone else.