The thing that worries me the most at the moment is we don't have our usual injuries moan to fall back on. Every other Roland season we’ve been able to point to a knacked Igor or Kashi or Makienok(!) or Henderson or Solly etc, but he only real injuries we have at the moment are to two players who have played about 60 mins between them for us and we can’t honestly say will be integral to our plans. Reeves will struggle to get in past Clarke when he’s fit as it is. Will dropping one of Fosu or Holmes fix us? Sure, it’s a problem that we can’t change games when it’s not working, but the real issue at the moment is how consistently it isn’t working. With our first 11 we shouldn’t be relying on luck to squeak past Gillingham but we’ve been found out troublingly early and we don’t seem to have any ability to adjust to how a game is unfolding. Good substitutions at the right times can change games, I get that, but we’ve gone right back to the Bob Peeters problem again of being unable to play if our holding midfielder is pressed. I’m really concerned because I don’t have the usual safety blanket of telling myself it’ll be ok once the treatment table is unoccupied
A more astute manager would perhaps get more out of this squad but let's face it they wouldn't want to work for RD.
If we do have a bad run of injuries we would really struggle.
I desperately want KAG to be good, but he just isn't and I'm certain his repeated use is keeping out a better prospect. (Could be wrong) I'd have loaned him out til January in the transfer window personally and kept Igor.
I think we could do with being forced to utilise the youth to be honest.
At least then they: A - Get more game time. B - Have a chance to prove their worth.
I think we got too optimistic about our chances this season after 6 games , we've got an ok team , but not a very strong squad, i think Karl knows it and the chickens are coming home to roost as per usual.
I thought we'd do well to get a point before the game last night ( thought it was going to be a defeat) and i know we could have won last night and to throw it away late on is gutting , i'm not surprised, the players need to be tougher mentally and more concentrated and not switch off.
I can't comment directly as I don't go to matches at present but the one frustrating element is it seems every September the manager/coach is one or two players short of a possibly successful team and this shows on the pitch. if it was just this season one could say bad luck on deadline day but it seems to happen every season which, as I say, is frustrating and so the negative comments.
My last game was Wigan at home, so would be unfair for me to comment on the others. However, I still stand by words after Wigan. Although we probably played one of the better teams in this division, I felt we didn't work hard or try enough on the night
After that the next 3 games were Gillingham away, Bury home and Walsall away
Personally, the only game I would've potentially said ok, defeat isn't too bad would've been Walsall. We should've won the other 2
I must admit that with the bitter taste of Wigan being the last game I saw, plus the run of results since, I'm not too happy and think we should be doing better
We need a 'game changer' in the squad that we can bring on. Like Garry Nelson in the past. KAG and Dodoo are not game changers. Remember when we put Jackio on in that Cardiff home game ?
We've got a game changer in Reeves. Hopefully we'll see him on Saturday .
It's looking at the bottom of the League Table and see Plymouth and Gillingham in the bottom 3 , with only 1 win each and thinking, f*cking hell we're the only team to get beaten by these 2 sides and that they are likely to be relegated at the end of the season !!
I personally find myself very guilty of the cliched knee jerk reaction currently. Win and we are going to be promoted, lose and it is vindication of how the ownership strategy and operation is still inherently flawed.
Trying to be more balanced and view this season as a contained single season without being influenced by what's gone before but the past few season's of shambolic failure makes it difficult.
Is drawing away 2-2 and letting in a last minute goal v Walsall seconds after scoring a sure winner a disaster? No of course not...it's football and it happens and is what makes our game so great with the rollercoaster of emotions it takes us on every 90 minutes.
Is releasing a proven striker at this level in Novak without a sufficient replacement at the last hour of an otherwise reasonably promising transfer window football? No it harks of either a) complete incompetence b) football success not being the key priority or c) a significant disjoint and lack of cohesive strategy and communication between the money man in Belgium and the management team in the UK. For what it is worth I think it is probably now a case of mainly c).
I do think that the morons running the club day to day have learned from their mistakes and failures of recent years and have done some good things, including mainly shutting up and not doing any more damage. However instinct tells me the money man still calls the shots and I cannot imagine that anyone in the UK has any real influence.
I would imagine Robinson has to go to Meire to ask for X. She will go to Duchatelet who will say not but you may have Y and then she trots back and says to Robinson this is how it is. In a sort of latter day Kevin Cash scenario without the football success and crowded stadium. Pure speculation of course but then 99% of stuff around this sort of thing probably is.
We are in a "unique" position of having an owner who is funding us who seemingly has no interest in us.
As I understand he has only been to one game in all the time that he has owned us and that well predates any vehement vocal discontent which may give rise for concerns for his safety. His ownership defies logic...he is widely disliked amongst the fan base, makes no money from the ownership and seemingly has no interest in the football side of things and no historical links to us or even the area. He is not even getting the ego boost that many English football club owning grinning pillocks get when they can stand there clapping and looking hugely out of place because their dealings or fortunes has given hem enough money to make national institutions their latest play things regardless of the affect their misdoings may have on generations of supporters who may live for that club.
It's a bit of a quagmire. Something will give and we'll either go up or go down over the next few seasons or continue treading water just ticking over in front of dwindling crowds which the ownership is seemingly content with from the outside. Or hopefully we will get a takeover that is beneficial for the club although unfortunately they seem few and far between in modern football these days given the lack of correlation between required funds and football nous.
Still only a few games in and Christmas will be a good time to assess this season and the next window and then again at the end of the season. Will try and remain optimistic until then and see what happens even if instinct tells me I'm kidding myself and it's more of the same from Operation Clusterfuck.
If you claim to be going for promotion and you're using hard luck as an excuse 3 weeks on the spin (against bottom-half sides) then realistically you're nowhere near being good enough to challenge at the top. .
This. All this shoulda woulda coulda stuff is so dull from supporters and even more so from Robinson especially as he is a man who regularly uses the phrase "no excuses."
I know winning means everything to some people but, apart from the first 30 minutes on Saturday, the team have played some attractive football this season .
It is weird that in a season that we are playing some tidy football, we seem to be struggling against shite sides. (And blown away by the one good side we have played)
Were we not unlucky at Plymouth too? Not a good trait to have in football...
We are "unlucky" because we create plenty of very good chances - but wasteful. Because we don't play with a 2nd striker, frequently there's nobody able to pick up a rebound or loose ball in the box.
Many thought that being a relatively small side would mean we'd be especially vulnerable defending set pieces in our box. And yes, sometimes we are (1st Plymouth goal for example), but it hasn't so far proved to be our Achilles heel.
But IMO our true vulnerability is the ease in which opponents are able to run through our central midfield, when breaking. We've seen it so many times this season - and often costs us a goal, either dragging our full back out of position or allowed to shoot from distance.
Same old story, we've got no arsehole, no guts and crucially the fans have stopped giving a shit.
Couple that with the fact we have spent some money yet still left the squad imbalanced AGAIN and It's easier to be critical from a distanced perspective when you don't care about the players and I think the players have cottoned on to the fact the fans have resigned themselves to this mental old wanker who has turned the club into a circus.
To get out of this division you need to earn the right to play pretty football which is clear is what Robinson wants to do or you keep it simple and have strong effective players with proven fitness records and pedigree.
The players with pedigree are Clarke, Marshall, Reeves, Pearce, Solly, Forster-Caskey and Holmes. None of whom are fit enough for a full season or even 3 quarters of a season.
The other way of doing it is to bring in effective players who stay fit, ball winners, grafters, players who do the simple things well and create a solid base, then you can accommodate and protect the more creative players like Fosu, Holmes and Clarke.
As it is we've got a side stacked with alleged ball players who I don't believe have it in them to be nasty and professional enough to be dominant and win the sorts of tight games that win leagues.
This might be a harsh assessment but it's also an honest one, bear in mind as much as I want the poisonous, divisive, weird regime gone I also want us to be less of a laughing stock on the pitch and be successful. My feelings about the Belgian circus are not result dependant, annoyingly a lot of peoples are
Ten games gone and we are behind the 8 ball in our quest for promotion. It can be rectified with the ability available to the manager, but an unwillingness to change formation may result in his demise.
Lose to Fleetwood on Saturday and he could go the way of Luzon & Slade.
surely you can't be suggesting he get the sack if we lose Saturday, madness
We said the same thing when both Luzon & Slade had a goodish start and then a couple of bad results, this is Roland and despite the fact that they have learnt from their mistakes. Have they? Look at our dealing in the transfer market and our squad, what has been different this season?
Difference is there are no protests at the moment, to this day I still feel that Slade was sacked due to RD lunch being interrupted. We shall stick with KR and as for subject of the thread I think we are being to harsh and that is down to the last few year. We shall still finish top six imo
I think is just a typical situation where people lose their heads. We signed some decent players, we didn't have a bad pre-season and we started well, then all of a sudden we are world beaters. You've only got to look at the poll that was done on here early in the season and the vast majority of people believed we were going to be playoff contenders at the very least. It seems that people have short memories and the slightest sniff of something good, suddenly we are the best team in the division.
Clearly there is a lot of the opposite too, and we aren't as bad a some make out, but there are issues. As usual in these situations, the truth of the matter lies somewhere in between, and to me, we are a mid table side. We do have a decent first XI who are capable of winning games, but there will be teams that get their tactics spot on and keep us out of games, and without the ability to bring someone on to change things, we will just go through the motions and finish the game looking distinctively average.
I don't think we are harsh to criticise. Many warned of the exact problems that we are now having before the season kicked off. The lack of a plan b, the lack of impact substitutes, the lack of a quality striker that could replace Josh when he is not at his best. These are all things that were obviously going to throw a spanner in the works, and if we the fans could see them, then why can the management of the club not?
As per usual, all of these short-comings point squarely at the management and the ownership of the club. I have no doubt that Robinson pleaded his case quite well in terms of bringing in the players he wanted, but as with previous managers in previous seasons he was not backed fully by those with the money. As a result we are finding that the predictions are coming true.
Robinson has to look at himself a bit though. He needs to do some work with the players we have and find a different way of playing when the need arises. As I've already said, we do have some good players, and they must surely be intelligent enough to learn another system. Whilst it may not fix all of our problems, it would put our opponents on the back foot forcing their manager to make some changes on the fly and give us an opportunity to wrestle control of the matches that we are struggling in.
From what Ive seen (online admittedly), we seem to be trying to play some nice football. We are short on striker options for sure, but I think overall we will win more than we lose. I still think we will finish around 8-10th with this squad, but with reinforcements in January we could push for a playoff spot.
We are moving in the right direction on the field, but off it they are wasting their time, they will never win us back...the only real option is to sell.
To answer the question, no I don't think those of us who are unhappy and complaining are wrong. We've had thee-and-a-half-years of disappointment and under-funding on top of an insulting Chief Executive who was aggressive towards the club's supporters from the outset and lost convincingly. Robinson's biggest threat is losing a televised game with a below par performance. Roland is paranoid about the viewing Asian market and it cost Slade his job after the 3-0 humping at Swindon. I don't think there's anything scheduled and the way we are going, the TV boys might see us as even less attractive than they normally do.....be thankful Karl.
Comments
I think we could do with being forced to utilise the youth to be honest.
At least then they:
A - Get more game time.
B - Have a chance to prove their worth.
I thought we'd do well to get a point before the game last night ( thought it was going to be a defeat) and i know we could have won last night and to throw it away late on is gutting , i'm not surprised, the players need to be tougher mentally and more concentrated and not switch off.
I bet they are kicking themselves this morning.
After that the next 3 games were Gillingham away, Bury home and Walsall away
Personally, the only game I would've potentially said ok, defeat isn't too bad would've been Walsall. We should've won the other 2
I must admit that with the bitter taste of Wigan being the last game I saw, plus the run of results since, I'm not too happy and think we should be doing better
Maybe these little wimps need beasting as punishment for not working hard... I mean it works on FM
Trying to be more balanced and view this season as a contained single season without being influenced by what's gone before but the past few season's of shambolic failure makes it difficult.
Is drawing away 2-2 and letting in a last minute goal v Walsall seconds after scoring a sure winner a disaster? No of course not...it's football and it happens and is what makes our game so great with the rollercoaster of emotions it takes us on every 90 minutes.
Is releasing a proven striker at this level in Novak without a sufficient replacement at the last hour of an otherwise reasonably promising transfer window football? No it harks of either a) complete incompetence b) football success not being the key priority or c) a significant disjoint and lack of cohesive strategy and communication between the money man in Belgium and the management team in the UK. For what it is worth I think it is probably now a case of mainly c).
I do think that the morons running the club day to day have learned from their mistakes and failures of recent years and have done some good things, including mainly shutting up and not doing any more damage. However instinct tells me the money man still calls the shots and I cannot imagine that anyone in the UK has any real influence.
I would imagine Robinson has to go to Meire to ask for X. She will go to Duchatelet who will say not but you may have Y and then she trots back and says to Robinson this is how it is. In a sort of latter day Kevin Cash scenario without the football success and crowded stadium. Pure speculation of course but then 99% of stuff around this sort of thing probably is.
We are in a "unique" position of having an owner who is funding us who seemingly has no interest in us.
As I understand he has only been to one game in all the time that he has owned us and that well predates any vehement vocal discontent which may give rise for concerns for his safety. His ownership defies logic...he is widely disliked amongst the fan base, makes no money from the ownership and seemingly has no interest in the football side of things and no historical links to us or even the area. He is not even getting the ego boost that many English football club owning grinning pillocks get when they can stand there clapping and looking hugely out of place because their dealings or fortunes has given hem enough money to make national institutions their latest play things regardless of the affect their misdoings may have on generations of supporters who may live for that club.
It's a bit of a quagmire. Something will give and we'll either go up or go down over the next few seasons or continue treading water just ticking over in front of dwindling crowds which the ownership is seemingly content with from the outside. Or hopefully we will get a takeover that is beneficial for the club although unfortunately they seem few and far between in modern football these days given the lack of correlation between required funds and football nous.
Still only a few games in and Christmas will be a good time to assess this season and the next window and then again at the end of the season. Will try and remain optimistic until then and see what happens even if instinct tells me I'm kidding myself and it's more of the same from Operation Clusterfuck.
Because we don't play with a 2nd striker, frequently there's nobody able to pick up a rebound or loose ball in the box.
Many thought that being a relatively small side would mean we'd be especially vulnerable defending set pieces in our box.
And yes, sometimes we are (1st Plymouth goal for example), but it hasn't so far proved to be our Achilles heel.
But IMO our true vulnerability is the ease in which opponents are able to run through our central midfield, when breaking.
We've seen it so many times this season - and often costs us a goal, either dragging our full back out of position or allowed to shoot from distance.
Couple that with the fact we have spent some money yet still left the squad imbalanced AGAIN and It's easier to be critical from a distanced perspective when you don't care about the players and I think the players have cottoned on to the fact the fans have resigned themselves to this mental old wanker who has turned the club into a circus.
To get out of this division you need to earn the right to play pretty football which is clear is what Robinson wants to do or you keep it simple and have strong effective players with proven fitness records and pedigree.
The players with pedigree are Clarke, Marshall, Reeves, Pearce, Solly, Forster-Caskey and Holmes. None of whom are fit enough for a full season or even 3 quarters of a season.
The other way of doing it is to bring in effective players who stay fit, ball winners, grafters, players who do the simple things well and create a solid base, then you can accommodate and protect the more creative players like Fosu, Holmes and Clarke.
As it is we've got a side stacked with alleged ball players who I don't believe have it in them to be nasty and professional enough to be dominant and win the sorts of tight games that win leagues.
This might be a harsh assessment but it's also an honest one, bear in mind as much as I want the poisonous, divisive, weird regime gone I also want us to be less of a laughing stock on the pitch and be successful. My feelings about the Belgian circus are not result dependant, annoyingly a lot of peoples are
Clearly there is a lot of the opposite too, and we aren't as bad a some make out, but there are issues. As usual in these situations, the truth of the matter lies somewhere in between, and to me, we are a mid table side. We do have a decent first XI who are capable of winning games, but there will be teams that get their tactics spot on and keep us out of games, and without the ability to bring someone on to change things, we will just go through the motions and finish the game looking distinctively average.
I don't think we are harsh to criticise. Many warned of the exact problems that we are now having before the season kicked off. The lack of a plan b, the lack of impact substitutes, the lack of a quality striker that could replace Josh when he is not at his best. These are all things that were obviously going to throw a spanner in the works, and if we the fans could see them, then why can the management of the club not?
As per usual, all of these short-comings point squarely at the management and the ownership of the club. I have no doubt that Robinson pleaded his case quite well in terms of bringing in the players he wanted, but as with previous managers in previous seasons he was not backed fully by those with the money. As a result we are finding that the predictions are coming true.
Robinson has to look at himself a bit though. He needs to do some work with the players we have and find a different way of playing when the need arises. As I've already said, we do have some good players, and they must surely be intelligent enough to learn another system. Whilst it may not fix all of our problems, it would put our opponents on the back foot forcing their manager to make some changes on the fly and give us an opportunity to wrestle control of the matches that we are struggling in.
We are moving in the right direction on the field, but off it they are wasting their time, they will never win us back...the only real option is to sell.