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Ex-Staff Gary Rowett

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1.Gary Rowett

Position: Head Coach
Nationality: England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
Departed: 23rd December 2025 | Departed Posts: 1st Post
Previous Clubs: Birmingham City (Interim), Millwall, Stoke City, Derby County, Birmingham City, Burton Albion
Instagram: garyrowett1
 
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Carpy said:
I agree to a point, but there are other elements to consider as well. But when you get to the end of the season, it's too late by then. Hence why I think the eye test suggests defensively we don't look as unbreakable as a unit as we did last season. And offensively, we are extremely hit and miss. We have 1 striker that can score goals and against a Norwich team who we were more likely to have a close game against than Ipswich, he decided to start the striker probably least likely to score and persist with him into the 60th minute... I don't understand decisions like that.

I could be completely wrong, but I don't think GR knows how best to use the players at his disposal.
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It won’t surprise anyone that I completely agree.

Somebody said above “I don’t know what else we do”. I have a suggestion: play your best forward line for the majority of a game against a team that have previously had zero confidence defensively, and can’t buy a win.

I could have done that. We all could have done that. We’re not bloody football managers.

We have players like BDK who are clearly losing confidence and positivity with every game due to our increasingly direct tactics. He’s not suddenly a crap player.

We have Krastev, who can change a game, but suddenly gets benched out due to the presence of a certain Tyler Goodrham who has done nothing for about 10 months, and is either being put in the shop window (unforgivable) or is ACTUALLY preferred (unforgivable).

We have Mark Harris, who runs around a lot but I wouldn’t trust him to hit the target with any kind of conviction from even six yards out, favoured for OVER AN HOUR in aforementioned game, ahead of a player who has scored more in less than half a season of Championship football than Harris has scored in goodness knows how long.

So, there are three things that we can change approach on. There are more. I don’t have a problem being in the minority with this thinking, but the suggestion that we can do nothing more is so, so far from the truth, perhaps formed by limited examples where we minimised the threat of a few good teams and had a few matches where we were a cohesive outfit for two halves.

Not enough.

If this carries on, with team selection being utterly horrific for games that we have a serious shot in because we’re looking ahead to a game which we have a less realistic shot in, we’ll be down.
 
Mateo Corbo's Tackle said:
It won’t surprise anyone that I completely agree.

Somebody said above “I don’t know what else we do”. I have a suggestion: play your best forward line for the majority of a game against a team that have previously had zero confidence defensively, and can’t buy a win.

I could have done that. We all could have done that. We’re not bloody football managers.

We have players like BDK who are clearly losing confidence and positivity with every game due to our increasingly direct tactics. He’s not suddenly a crap player.

We have Krastev, who can change a game, but suddenly gets benched out due to the presence of a certain Tyler Goodrham who has done nothing for about 10 months, and is either being put in the shop window (unforgivable) or is ACTUALLY preferred (unforgivable).

We have Mark Harris, who runs around a lot but I wouldn’t trust him to hit the target with any kind of conviction from even six yards out, favoured for OVER AN HOUR in aforementioned game, ahead of a player who has scored more in less than half a season of Championship football than Harris has scored in goodness knows how long.

So, there are three things that we can change approach on. There are more. I don’t have a problem being in the minority with this thinking, but the suggestion that we can do nothing more is so, so far from the truth, perhaps formed by limited examples where we minimised the threat of a few good teams and had a few matches where we were a cohesive outfit for two halves.

Not enough.

If this carries on, with team selection being utterly horrific for games that we have a serious shot in because we’re looking ahead to a game which we have a less realistic shot in, we’ll be down.
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Don't disagree but I'm prepared to wait to see if this was a one off aberration or the start of a trend before I'll start calling for the manager's head (which I'll try not to do if we get taken over by the Saudis 🪓)
 
Mateo Corbo's Tackle said:
It won’t surprise anyone that I completely agree.

Somebody said above “I don’t know what else we do”. I have a suggestion: play your best forward line for the majority of a game against a team that have previously had zero confidence defensively, and can’t buy a win.

I could have done that. We all could have done that. We’re not bloody football managers.

We have players like BDK who are clearly losing confidence and positivity with every game due to our increasingly direct tactics. He’s not suddenly a crap player.

We have Krastev, who can change a game, but suddenly gets benched out due to the presence of a certain Tyler Goodrham who has done nothing for about 10 months, and is either being put in the shop window (unforgivable) or is ACTUALLY preferred (unforgivable).

We have Mark Harris, who runs around a lot but I wouldn’t trust him to hit the target with any kind of conviction from even six yards out, favoured for OVER AN HOUR in aforementioned game, ahead of a player who has scored more in less than half a season of Championship football than Harris has scored in goodness knows how long.

So, there are three things that we can change approach on. There are more. I don’t have a problem being in the minority with this thinking, but the suggestion that we can do nothing more is so, so far from the truth, perhaps formed by limited examples where we minimised the threat of a few good teams and had a few matches where we were a cohesive outfit for two halves.

Not enough.

If this carries on, with team selection being utterly horrific for games that we have a serious shot in because we’re looking ahead to a game which we have a less realistic shot in, we’ll be down.
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Great points that I completely agree with.

I still cannot fathom how we started with Mark Harris, who played some international football so would have been less fresh than Lankshear our top goalscorer, who was rested over the international break.

This is the s**t that infuriates me with GR - he's getting the basic decisions completely wrong and is experienced enough to know better.
 
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Mateo Corbo's Tackle said:
It won’t surprise anyone that I completely agree.

Somebody said above “I don’t know what else we do”. I have a suggestion: play your best forward line for the majority of a game against a team that have previously had zero confidence defensively, and can’t buy a win.

I could have done that. We all could have done that. We’re not bloody football managers.

We have players like BDK who are clearly losing confidence and positivity with every game due to our increasingly direct tactics. He’s not suddenly a crap player.

We have Krastev, who can change a game, but suddenly gets benched out due to the presence of a certain Tyler Goodrham who has done nothing for about 10 months, and is either being put in the shop window (unforgivable) or is ACTUALLY preferred (unforgivable).

We have Mark Harris, who runs around a lot but I wouldn’t trust him to hit the target with any kind of conviction from even six yards out, favoured for OVER AN HOUR in aforementioned game, ahead of a player who has scored more in less than half a season of Championship football than Harris has scored in goodness knows how long.

So, there are three things that we can change approach on. There are more. I don’t have a problem being in the minority with this thinking, but the suggestion that we can do nothing more is so, so far from the truth, perhaps formed by limited examples where we minimised the threat of a few good teams and had a few matches where we were a cohesive outfit for two halves.

Not enough.

If this carries on, with team selection being utterly horrific for games that we have a serious shot in because we’re looking ahead to a game which we have a less realistic shot in, we’ll be down.
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I dunno if it’s that simple. We’ve generally been terrible in midweek games and at Wrexham we played the notionally best forwards yet were feeble. Gary was trying to break that cycle and try something different. I imagine he’s as frustrated and puzzled as we are by how inconsistent most of our players are this season.
 
I’ve been thinking about Rowett.
He is obviously very good at doing a certain job over a defined period of time.
The job he did last season was excellent and he has a good future in the game still.

However, I’m of the opinion that he can’t and won’t keep us up this season should he stay.
That’s because I view his football as warfare. No doubt there is reason and planning behind his style but over a longer period of time, it becomes mentally and physically fatiguing and then ultimately, uninspiring. Uninspiring for fans, players and staff.

The 1st season in the champ was indeed a slog, but I see little signs of progress this season. We are easy to play against and end up galvanising teams with low confidence because of our inability to create and execute good chances. I put this down to mental fragility and a lack of athleticism. Couple this with conceding ridiculous goals at this level on a very regular basis, then the outlook is bleak.

We will go down unless there is a change early December and a strong transfer window come January.
 
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werthersoriginal said:
I dunno if it’s that simple. We’ve generally been terrible in midweek games and at Wrexham we played the notionally best forwards yet were feeble. Gary was trying to break that cycle and try something different. I imagine he’s as frustrated and puzzled as we are by how inconsistent most of our players are this season.
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I agree - Lankshear, as well as he's done in general, has really struggled when playing 2 games close together. If Rowett had picked an unchanged team and we'd performed like that we'd all be asking why he hadn't learnt from what happened at Wrexham (plus multiple times last season).

My issue with the team he picked is there were no goals/assists in it whatsoever and limited pace - the starting XI had 1 goal between them (LHarris, Currie assist). It felt too defensive, not because it was Norwich but for any fixture in the league.

My view on the inconsistency is it's mostly physical - to compete our players need to be playing at absolute maximum and they struggle to do that when games are close together. It's largely the difference between top end champ players and lower end in my opinion - technically they can all do it.
 
Bigdwoolly said:
I agree - Lankshear, as well as he's done in general, has really struggled when playing 2 games close together. If Rowett had picked an unchanged team and we'd performed like that we'd all be asking why he hadn't learnt from what happened at Wrexham (plus multiple times last season).

My issue with the team he picked is there were no goals/assists in it whatsoever and limited pace - the starting XI had 1 goal between them (LHarris, Currie assist). It felt too defensive, not because it was Norwich but for any fixture in the league.

My view on the inconsistency is it's mostly physical - to compete our players need to be playing at absolute maximum and they struggle to do that when games are close together. It's largely the difference between top end champ players and lower end in my opinion - technically they can all do it.
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I agree with a lot of that.

However, if he identifies this issue with consistency in physicality, GR must also identify in advance the games where we will get the most benefit from having our best players on the pitch. You might get postponements now and again, but you can generally rely on your fixture list ahead of time. It’s too reactive to do anything else, and reactivity generally fails.

I would argue that having Mark Harris and Goodrham in for both the Middlesbrough and Ipswich games and optimising our forward line with Lankshear and Krastev for Norwich and Swansea gives us better potential for wins in the latter two games and therefore a better shot at higher ppg.

We won’t stay up by drawing two thirds of our remaining games and losing the rest. We could stay up by actually going for wins in the games against bottom half opposition.
 
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ubermeistervonmeat said:
Jeez seriously - this is the problem though - all of these people calling for GRs head but they can't name any (serious) replacement for him who would be likely to do better

Quite a few would probably seriously put Des forward
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Won promotion from the Championship. Best suggestion I've seen on here.
 
Orkney Islands Yellow said:
Won promotion from the Championship. Best suggestion I've seen on here.
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True its definitely the best suggestion seen on here although most of those gunning for GR have been remarkably silent on any sensible replacements- he did indeed win it but quite a while ago now and we are certainly not currently realistically in the market for somebody to take us into the Prem
 
ubermeistervonmeat said:
Jeez seriously - this is the problem though - all of these people calling for GRs head but they can't name any (serious) replacement for him who would be likely to do better

Quite a few would probably seriously put Des forward
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I don't think yellows forum knowledge, or lack of, potential championship/future OUFC managers should be the deciding factor in whether we keep the current incumbent.

People said the same when Robinson was here, it made as little sense then as it does now.
 
werthersoriginal said:
I don't think it's looking bleak at all. We've just drawn with Middlesbrough, it's not like we've lost five in a row.
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werthersoriginal said:
I don't think it's looking bleak at all. We've just drawn with Middlesbrough, it's not like we've lost five in a row.
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So being 3rd from bottom after 17 games is fine and nothing to worry about!?
Bleak might not be the right word but be realistic, we're not in a great place.
I had the absence of Cam for a number of weeks in mind when I wrote it. Hopefully someone will come in and adequately replace him but I don't know who. After BDK and Vaulks there's not much else. A change of formation might do it. We need to start winning some games that's for sure. The game on Tuesday was worrying so I hope GR has had a good think about tonight. Let's hope Pompey and Swansea continue to falter as well.
 
Lose tonight & I dont really see how he remains as .manager, we are hurtling at speed back to league 1 .

The narrative that all is fine and he is an experienced coach doing an exceptional job with a small budget has been a little lost amongst the 3 wins from 17 games .

Tuesday night was the most winnable game we've had for weeks & we didn't get close to them until injury time .

Tactics, team selections & general basic substitutions have just become utterly painful to watch .

If the current results continues come January we will require mid table form just to survive .
 
holdsteady said:
I don't think yellows forum knowledge, or lack of, potential championship/future OUFC managers should be the deciding factor in whether we keep the current incumbent.

People said the same when Robinson was here, it made as little sense then as it does now.
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Spot on, at the time I wanted Robinson out and my answer to who would you want to replace him was "pretty much anyone". Rowett is clearly streets ahead of Robinson as a manager and we aren't underperforming to the degree we were then but it's also naive to assume that there's no one out there who can improve on Gary Rowett.

I said the other day that I hadn't heard of Danny Rohl before Sheffield Wednesday but he took over when they had three points from 11 games and kept them up with almost playoff form for the rest of the season. Plymouth waited longer before making a change last season, apppointing Muslic in January. He went on to win 26 points from 21 games when they had only earned 18 in the 25 before it, if they had made that move earlier they may have stayed up. DIfferent in that they had Rooney for the first part but the point still stands that a two managers who wouldn't be known to most English fans came in and did a job that either kept a team up or would have if the change had been made earlier. It's lazy to assume that because fans can't name someone else that no one else is out there.

I get that Rowett is vastly experienced at this level, especially compared to Rooney at Plymouth, but how long does his name keep him from scrutiny? Most of us would be delighted with a draw tonight and if we manage that then he just matches Buckingham's points total when he got sacked, and most of us agree that was the correct choice. Performances have been better than under Des but also he has a much better squad with fewer injuries to deal with. Five games without a win currently with only three points from those games and three wins all season. It's not wildly unreasonable to want better than that.
 
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4 points in 2 games that people said we wouldn’t pick up anything…. Time to people to get behind the manager and the team… It’s going to be a long season but I think we have a good manager who is the best person to keep us up.
 
Joey said:
Spot on, at the time I wanted Robinson out and my answer to who would you want to replace him was "pretty much anyone". Rowett is clearly streets ahead of Robinson as a manager and we aren't underperforming to the degree we were then but it's also naive to assume that there's no one out there who can improve on Gary Rowett.

I said the other day that I hadn't heard of Danny Rohl before Sheffield Wednesday but he took over when they had three points from 11 games and kept them up with almost playoff form for the rest of the season. Plymouth waited longer before making a change last season, apppointing Muslic in January. He went on to win 26 points from 21 games when they had only earned 18 in the 25 before it, if they had made that move earlier they may have stayed up. DIfferent in that they had Rooney for the first part but the point still stands that a two managers who wouldn't be known to most English fans came in and did a job that either kept a team up or would have if the change had been made earlier. It's lazy to assume that because fans can't name someone else that no one else is out there.

I get that Rowett is vastly experienced at this level, especially compared to Rooney at Plymouth, but how long does his name keep him from scrutiny? Most of us would be delighted with a draw tonight and if we manage that then he just matches Buckingham's points total when he got sacked, and most of us agree that was the correct choice. Performances have been better than under Des but also he has a much better squad with fewer injuries to deal with. Five games without a win currently with only three points from those games and three wins all season. It's not wildly unreasonable to want better than that.
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Not aged well this
 
Wear them down and then bring on the pace/physicality to get something! He’s done very well and his decision making has been very good
 
That dreadful performance midweek against Norwich where we stole a point with pretty much the last kick is looking a blessing in disguise.

That performance tonight was like the players have had a rocket shoved up their backsides. Hunting in packs, non stop energy, pace and numbers in attack.

Well done Gary.
 
Have some of that!!!

Rowett was tactically on the money tonight. His selection and substitutions were unquestionably excellent.

He is a talented manager with a proven track record at this level, he will keep us up.

Hopefully those that have been unable to see perspective and realism in recent weeks are able to enjoy tonight’s victory, in fact I hope they can reflect on a very good week against 2 of the top 6 and a relegation rival with a new manager ‘bounce’.
 
Up The Manor said:
Lose tonight & I dont really see how he remains as .manager, we are hurtling at speed back to league 1 .

The narrative that all is fine and he is an experienced coach doing an exceptional job with a small budget has been a little lost amongst the 3 wins from 17 games .

Tuesday night was the most winnable game we've had for weeks & we didn't get close to them until injury time .

Tactics, team selections & general basic substitutions have just become utterly painful to watch .

If the current results continues come January we will require mid table form just to survive .
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Goodness
 
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