Robins has to go… (2 Viewers)

napolimp said:

If I continue to walk in a straight line, I'll eventually end up a few miles away. Not really discussion worthy logic, is it.

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Don't let us stop you.

It's thoroughly depressing to be having this chat isn't it? It's very different to previous 'bad starts' as in those times we had injuries and suspensions to the likes of Hamer, Ohare, Sheaf etc.
This time, Sheafs back and we're still no good. I said after Birmingham away last year, this squad has a pathetic mentality and will achieve nothing. They then pulled 2 rabbits out the hat in the cup, beyond belief how we could perform like that with the form as atrocious as it was in the league. The league performances have continued to be ranging from mediocre to abysmal since March.
Personally, I believe Robins deserves time and he's been sold short in the summer. Having said that, we don't know the full ins and outs behind the scenes, and if the players aren't performing for him as unfair as that is, we need somebody in who they will perform for. I will never 'like' this squad or respect any of them as people or players if they get Mark Robins sacked, however it looks like that may have to happen purely in the hope somebody can get a tune out of a very expensive squad. We'd be in a right hole if we lose the majority of our selling power after buying a squad of projects that underperform.
What a sorry state. Give him another month in the hope he can get a few wins and save his job as I despise the thought of him getting sacked.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

Seems to be that MR wanted an assistant and was told to operate with 2 coaches instead?

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I'm sure I saw the Assistant Manager job advertised on CCFC's Twitter feed, but the position was withdrawn and......here we are.

So someone at the club backtracked said "nah, no Assistant Manager here."

Great move that turned out to be.

Macca said:

MR isn't going anywhere King knows he would have a mutiny. Unless he relegates us he will only ever leave of his own accord

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He would get sacked before that came to pass.

There won’t be a mutiny if he’s got a £40m squad sitting in the relegation zone.

Saddlebrains said:

Napolimp and CallyFedora are the same person calling it now

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We're not all so unique that someone publicly pays for our holiday when we have a tantrum on Twitter. Some of us are just numbers on a forum.

Piffle.

Fun fact: We’ve lost as many home games this season in 5 games as Ipswich and Leeds did in total last season combined.

No team finished in the play-offs last season losing more than 5 home games.

Disappointed to read what I am reading but completely unsurprised

MR was very loyal to us through some difficult times, we owe him a bit of loyalty to get us through a bit of choppy water and I have full faith that he will

Bingo!!!!!!

alexccfc99 said:

Disappointed to read what I am reading but completely unsurprised

MR was very loyal to us through some difficult times, we owe him a bit of loyalty to get us through a bit of choppy water and I have full faith that he will

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Like when he left us to manage another club?

Sick Boy said:

Like when he left us to manage another club?

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And what he has done since then hasn't outbalanced that? That is just pure ungrateful, Tony Mowbray for example fucked us off the moment the water got a little bit choppy and everyone thinks the sun shines out his arse

No one is happy with the start to the season and it is unsustainable but if there is one man who has earned a little bit more time more than others to turn it around it is Mark Robins

alexccfc99 said:

And what he has done since then hasn't outbalanced that? That is just pure ungrateful, Tony Mowbray for example fucked us off the moment the water got a little bit choppy and everyone thinks the sun shines out his arse

No one is happy with the start to the season and it is unsustainable but if there is one man who has earned a little bit more time more than others to turn it around it is Mark Robins

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Where have I said it hasn’t made up for it? I’m just pointing out that what you’ve said isn’t 100% correct.

Otis said:

Yup. Exactly.

If the squad isn't good enough (and we are clearly short in midfield), I can't see a new manager being able to do anything different. It will be square pegs in round holes and we will still have a midfield deficiency.

And who are we going to bring in, in defence to stop the leaking of goals?

It will still be the same players.

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I agree but for me on Saturday our work rate and desire was way below that of the opposition. I don’t buy that the players are lazy, or they need Vivesh to give them a bollocking. That doesn’t work certainly not in the long term and deep motivation comes from somewhere else and requires the players to be happy.

Somthing isn’t right though. It could be the players feel that they’re putting the work in but don’t know what to do or have conflicting messages, I’ve no idea. All I know is that every time the ball was loose Saturday they were on it while we watched to see where it was going. Every time we had the ball they harassed us out of possession and when they had the ball they had players moving into space looking for it.

That said, I think it’s too early to take any drastic action. MR has had whatever personal issues and we don’t know the extent of the effect they’ve had. New back room still settling in. The team is capable of good performances when the motivation is there and some of the stats suggest we could push on (xG for and against for example). Add to that our history of slow starts.

Either way I suspect King is going to end up extremely unpopular but that may be for the best.

The best thing King could do is get someone with some actual understanding of/experience in the game to run the club on his behalf.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

I saw lots of quick passing, a cohesive press, and off the ball movement that our players either weren’t clocking or were too slow to chase. It’s how we should be playing.

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This is the kind of thing I’m getting at. We were nowhere near their level with this stuff whether due to motivation or not knowing what the plan was or both. It’s hard to tell what the cause is there.

Sick Boy said:

The best thing King could do is get someone with some actual understanding of/experience in the game to run the club on his behalf.

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Agree, he’s made some good decisions and tried to improve a lot things but feel he needs a director of football he trusts. That’s another wage though.

Cally Fedora said:

Robins isn’t the issue. It’s King. I’m certain, if left to Robins, we’d have signed a midfielder in the summer. We didn’t. We have no cover at right back, we have a lopsided squad.

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We tried to sign 2 or 3 didn’t we?

Sick Boy said:

The best thing King could do is get someone with some actual understanding of/experience in the game to run the club on his behalf.

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That I don't dispute - I like King, he is clearly an astute businessman, an articulate bloke and I don't believe he isn't trying to make a success of it, but a football club isn't a normal business - he could benefit with more football knowhow in his inner circle and perhaps being a bit less hands on

Otis said:

Yup. Sometimes it is very small margins

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I wonder what this thread would have been like if we hung on for a point? Might have seemed like a decent 4 points in two games to build on. We had chances to win the game before they scored although it would Have felt fortunate.

djr8369 said:

I wonder what this thread would have been like if we hung on for a point? Might have seemed like a decent 4 points in two games to build on. We had chances to win the game before they scored although it would Have felt fortunate.

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Losing to a last minute goal, always results in an anger level increase amongst fans. It's so gut-punching isn't it.

So, I do get the vitriol.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

Seems to be that MR wanted an assistant and was told to operate with 2 coaches instead?

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Under Tony Mowbray we only has 1 coach, and he had to insist it got resprayed.

djr8369 said:

I wonder what this thread would have been like if we hung on for a point? Might have seemed like a decent 4 points in two games to build on. We had chances to win the game before they scored although it would Have felt fortunate.

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My opinion beforehand was these two games had to be 4 points minimum. That was missed, admittedly by a small margin.

What is more concerning though is the performance. They did it against Blackburn but then put in lacklustre display on Saturday. They know Robins isn’t in a great position and still can’t perform for him

Those that think we're in a relegation battle can get good odds on that. The bookies have 15 teams more likely to be relegated than us.

PVA said:

Those that think we're in a relegation battle can get good odds on that. The bookies have 15 teams more likely to be relegated than us.

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Tbf didn't the bookies have us as around 4th/5th favourites for league?
Reckon an alien invasion is more likely.

napolimp said:

We're not all so unique that someone publicly pays for our holiday when we have a tantrum on Twitter. Some of us are just numbers on a forum.

Piffle.

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Ah another one getting the insult wrong

Good effort though

djr8369 said:

This is the kind of thing I’m getting at. We were nowhere near their level with this stuff whether due to motivation or not knowing what the plan was or both. It’s hard to tell what the cause is there.

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It’s also not anything special either, just what any team at this level should be capable of.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

It’s also not anything special either, just what any team at this level should be capable of.

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Yeah won’t get anywhere without it. It was this kind of endeavour that cemented our placed in the league. Now Shef We’d are showing us how it’s done with a weaker squad.

djr8369 said:

Yeah won’t get anywhere without it. It was this kind of endeavour that cemented our placed in the league. Now Shef We’d are showing us how it’s done with a weaker squad.

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It was the sort of performance we often saw in the 21/22 season.

Saddlebrains said:

Ah another one getting the insult wrong

Good effort though

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Semantics

PVA said:

Those that think we're in a relegation battle can get good odds on that. The bookies have 15 teams more likely to be relegated than us.

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Bookies don't play football professionally.

Skyblue Bangkok said:

Bookies don't play football professionally.

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They also don't offer large odds generally for teams they think will be relegated

I watched the Spurs game yesterday with a mate here in Copenhagen, he definitely took their collapse better than I took our result on Saturday.

I'm just getting nothing from football at the moment, not a Saturday win since April, that's shocking.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the football department at Cov at the moment, 9 games in.

- There is something fundamentally wrong with the setup at the moment. The new performance director came in in March/April, since then we have made a lot of changes, seemingly positive ones. The issue is people need to see these changes bring positive results and that hasn't happened, quite the opposite.

- I don't see a happy camp there, the players don't seem as tight knit as they have done but again, this could be because we are not winning games or maybe we have lost those big characters? I don't know.

- Robins looks lost and for the first time he seems to have lost a bit of control on the club and how he wants to do things. The new coaching setup is not for me, I called it at the time. It just seems like a bunch of merry men who don't really know their roles and I don't understand the structure, it seems off but again, easy to say when we are not winning games. No idea what happened with Adi but our form dropped off last season after Leeds and I do absolutely recognize last season as part for this awful run.

- My biggest problem I have with Cov in the past 12-15 months is the recruitment. I am not going to overly criticize the scouting department because they've clearly worked hard and I do think we have bought well in some players. However, I know I go on about it again and again but the fact we have not signed the right midfield players and experienced centre backs is unforgivable. These have been the bedrock of our form over the years (Hamer/Fadz) I don't subscribe to "we missed out" or the "deal wasn't right", no. You have a list and you move onto the next one but you get players in those positions.

- It was interesting hearing Robins after the Sheff Wed game, he talked about them having pace and power. Where do we have pace and power throughout our team? Specifically through the middle of the pitch. A little pace and power with van Ewijk admittedly, same with Wright when he is up for it but not power really. I look at EMC, on paper he ticks both boxes but I can't remember being so underwhelmed by a player, a 4m player! Simms again, NO power and not even that quick, Torp, Eccles, Sheaf, etc. Good players but they are not as dynamic as what Hamer was, he darted around the pitch at pace and drove the team on, we have not got that but I saw a few doing it for Wednesday. We have signed a load of technical players who don't seem to know how we should play.

- What is our style? I can't work it out. There was a lot of talk about it in the summer, this new style of football but I don't see it. I see sideways, backwards passing with no real purpose. There was a time when Robins was known for really attacking football, surely we can agree that we are not that team anymore, we are awful to watch.

- Why are we so bad at keeping clean sheets? It's so desperate, we used to love a 1-0 but I go into every game knowing we need at least 2 goals to be competitive, which is not going to get us top half, let alone higher. Thee defenders we have signed have also been poor, they've never really settled down, maybe too many changes? Kitching is someone I really want to like but he makes so many mistakes, Thomas the same but I actually though the latter played well on Saturday. When I think of a solid back line and being hard to beat, I do not think of Lati, Binks, DaSilva... I just don't.

- So far this season I have seen a really good spell against Oxford and patches again Watford, that's it. The Spurs game was decent sure, but in terms of the league, nah. I even said on here after Blackburn game that it was a great result but the opposition were really poor and I still maintain that view, we didn't play like a team who won 3-0, it massively flattered us.

This is just my mental download, I think this break is for Doug to have a good look at this start and not to just replace Robins as I don't think that is actually the issue. I think the issue runs much deeper and we need to realign what the structure at the club is, who's doing what and why.

Preston away is the worst possible fixture but let's hope we can go and give a performance.

Saddlebrains said:

Blues fans said that last season. They were too good to go down apparently as they has new owners etc...

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Yep true. They are also an advert for why changing manager isn't always a good move

Thanks for everything Mark, you've been brilliant and taken our club from the depths of the football league to within a penalty kick of the Premier League, but not all stories have a happy ending. Results have been poor at the end of last and start of this season. Make all the excuses you want, whether it be recruitment, number of coaches, etc. the reality is the manager is picking the team that is going onto the pitch and losing consistently. Results haven't been good enough and I don't see how things improve with the current manager in place.

If I were King I would act now, give the players a new voice and direction to start with fresh, after this international break.

Skyblue Bangkok said:

Bookies don't play football professionally.

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No but they analyse it professionally.

Pricey1984 said:

Yep true. They are also an advert for why changing manager isn't always a good move

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True although you wonder if Tony Mowbray was brought in earlier and was able to continue if they would have stayed up. Sometimes being too cautious can cause it to be too late.