On the drive back last night, I was thinking about how lucky we've been with the last two managers.
And luck might be the wrong word but in this day in age, it's tough to get a manager who is so aligned with your club, gets the ethos, is supported by the board and is loved/adored by the fans.
We've had two in a row...
Robins, despite some potential limitations, was a generational manager for us. Galvanised the club from top to bottom and dragged us up through the leagues with so much turmoil going on in the background.
Lampards then come in with a few fairly questionning the appointment it was made and has totally taken us up another level. I know we're still in the same division but everything just seems a step up this season. Work rate, desire, skill levels, consistency etc and the fans are totally bought in.
Like I said, luck maybe isn't the right word but there's not many clubs are our level who have two brilliant managers in succession.
Let's be honest after the shite we've been through we deserve it, but arguably the best time to support the club has been from the Checkatrade Wembley win to now. Even when we won the FA Cup it was a blip. We had some solid top half seasons to follow, but nothing like the excitement of now. A season or two with the entertainers in the late 90's too, before inevitable relegation being the only other highlight.
We've had something every season with either an improvement on the one before or in the only season that didn't happen, we had a Wembley FA Cup semi final (and were cheated out of another visit, but I'll let it go one day). We're not only doing well, we're playing great football, in front of full home and away crowds, with a team and manger who get it and an owner who knows what he's doing off the pitch, things have never looked brighter.
...I'm just waiting for it all go spectacularly wrong!
It's picking the right one at the right time. Robins (alongside Adi) was perfect for us to galvanisde the club & fans and climb from the depths of the football league. Now Lampard (and coaches) is the next leg up, in terms of playing style, player pull and also "outside" awareness/visiblity.
I think it was on this board someone mentioned about the two different styles designed to achieve the same outcome. With Robins it was siege mentality and we're the underdogs, give everything fight for the cause and that worked. Now with Lamps it's, let them worry about us, you're all good players and we're the better team, so doing it with confidence and being more relaxed. Obviously merits in both and the players need to have that quality to be able to show it however it's driven out of them, but quite a contrast.