Next season will surely be the defining one for Lowe's managerial career so far.
He won promotion from L2 with Bury, then repeated it a year later with Argyle. This season we've stayed up with a couple of games to spare and, whatever the doomongers say, never seriously looked like candidates for relegation. We even flirted with the playoffs earlier in the year.
At times we played fantastic attacking football and beat some of the best in the division. But at others, time after time and far too often, we defended shambolically in a way which would have embarrassed the U10s I used to coach. Lowe and his coaching staff seemed unable to sort this out, even if to all of us watching it seemed blindingly obvious as it smacked us between the eyes.
It's all or nothing with Ryan Lowe. He doesn't do boring or mundane and I applaud him for that. Great attacking football when things are going well, but a shambolic leaking of goals when the wheels come off, heads drop and we literally throw games away.
For all the criticism, Lowes position was never going to be under threat so long as he secured us L1 football for next season, and he's succeeded in that. But next season will be very different. He knows the standard, crowds will be back, he'll have refreshed the squad and the demands and expectation will be significantly higher than this season. I hope he succeeds, I really do, because imho he's the biggest breath of fresh air we've had at the club since the early days of the Hollway era. But we all know how that ended.
He won promotion from L2 with Bury, then repeated it a year later with Argyle. This season we've stayed up with a couple of games to spare and, whatever the doomongers say, never seriously looked like candidates for relegation. We even flirted with the playoffs earlier in the year.
At times we played fantastic attacking football and beat some of the best in the division. But at others, time after time and far too often, we defended shambolically in a way which would have embarrassed the U10s I used to coach. Lowe and his coaching staff seemed unable to sort this out, even if to all of us watching it seemed blindingly obvious as it smacked us between the eyes.
It's all or nothing with Ryan Lowe. He doesn't do boring or mundane and I applaud him for that. Great attacking football when things are going well, but a shambolic leaking of goals when the wheels come off, heads drop and we literally throw games away.
For all the criticism, Lowes position was never going to be under threat so long as he secured us L1 football for next season, and he's succeeded in that. But next season will be very different. He knows the standard, crowds will be back, he'll have refreshed the squad and the demands and expectation will be significantly higher than this season. I hope he succeeds, I really do, because imho he's the biggest breath of fresh air we've had at the club since the early days of the Hollway era. But we all know how that ended.