Manager/Coach Karl Robinson.

[unification]

Do I think Robinson has the ability to guide us to the playoffs whether it be this or next season?
Yes.

Do I think he can get us promoted through them?
Questionable, will never get a better chance than that Wycombe game.

If we got promoted do I think he'd keep us in the Championship?
Not a hope in hell, even with a good budget.

Genuinely interested to hear opinions on those questions.

Playoffs - yes, he’s capable of that and proven it. Winning them remains a different beast.

Promotion - this season, no. There will be two teams better than Oxford for the 2021-22 campaign for the autos. Playoffs are just as tough. It’s a very tough gig getting promoted from this level.

Keeping us up - The point is moot as I don’t think he is capable of automatics nor do I think he has the edge to take us up. However, his one and only season at that level ended in relegation. Teams are yo-yoing between Championship and League 1 more than ever now and sides that have bigger budgets than us come straight back down again. It would be mightily difficult to stay up.

 

[werthersoriginal]

Do I think Robinson has the ability to guide us to the playoffs whether it be this or next season?
Yes.

Do I think he can get us promoted through them?
Questionable, will never get a better chance than that Wycombe game.

If we got promoted do I think he'd keep us in the Championship?
Not a hope in hell, even with a good budget.

Genuinely interested to hear opinions on those questions.

Hmm, I agree it’s hard to be confident he can get us promoted. If he did somehow manage it and had a bit more money I’d actually feel he might keep us up, if he didn’t just sign wingers. He’s capable of instilling good team spirit and going on great runs. He’d then go off somewhere else where he would flatter to deceive.

 

[RyanioBirdio]

Teams are yo-yoing between Championship and League 1 more than ever now and sides that have bigger budgets than us come straight back down again. It would be mightily difficult to stay up.

Millwall, Luton and Coventry have gone up in the last few seasons and not come back down. The latter two actually came up from League Two and went flying past us as part of their rise. Luton have a smaller ground than the one that we play in. Coventry didn’t even have a ground while getting promoted and staying up.

It’s not quite the daunting task many think. Difficult? Sure. But far from impossible.

 

[Manorlounger]

Robinson would never keep us up. Not in a million years. I don't believe he can get us promoted, not without a huge amount of luck.

 

[Carpy]

Get Us to the Playoffs - Yes he can, of course

Get Us Promotion - Very unlikely, he's demonstrated his teams are too inconsistent with bad spells followed by good spells, the latter just about outweighing the other so no autos under him, via the Playoffs, I would say extremely unlikely, I think there have been very few BIG games where we have come out on top and I think this would continue. As others have said, last season was a huge missed opportunity

Staying Up - No for the simple reason that Karl likes to play pretty football, so unless we spend huge, we will try and play pretty football against teams that ultimately have much more capable players than we do, doing this in a one off game, you might get lucky and catch a team on an off day, do it every week, you'll get found out. If he keeps us up the first season... the chances improve

 

[greatunclekip]

Millwall, Luton and Coventry have gone up in the last few seasons and not come back down. The latter two actually came up from League Two and went flying past us as part of their rise. Luton have a smaller ground than the one that we play in. Coventry didn’t even have a ground while getting promoted and staying up.

It’s not quite the daunting task many think. Difficult? Sure. But far from impossible.

And certainly Cov and Luton had a nice mix of lovely players and shithouses- think Hylton, Collins, Ruddock etc.

They left a right bloody mess in the changing rooms mind.

 

[The mighty Aldo]

Millwall, Luton and Coventry have gone up in the last few seasons and not come back down. The latter two actually came up from League Two and went flying past us as part of their rise. Luton have a smaller ground than the one that we play in. Coventry didn’t even have a ground while getting promoted and staying up.

It’s not quite the daunting task many think. Difficult? Sure. But far from impossible.

Agree
If you have the right manager who gets the right balance of players in, we don’t
Bolton might go straight through this year

 

[dickwalton1964]

We’d never go down under Robinson, no chance. It goes without saying he could get us up via play offs, that’s obvious. It’s not exactly beyond the realms of possibility that we can, could have, beaten Wycombe in a one game shoot out or Blackpool in a two legged tie. On another day we win those. As for automatics, I think that’s a tough ask given the resources of at least half a dozen bigger and better equipped clubs at L1 level. No blame could ever be put on KR for not getting us a top two finish, that would be a monumental over achievement.

I think we are about where we should be. Will always give the best in the division a game, will have little runs that give false hope and will have stupid defeats - like Saturday. Not sure what people are expecting ?

 

[unification]

Millwall, Luton and Coventry have gone up in the last few seasons and not come back down. The latter two actually came up from League Two and went flying past us as part of their rise. Luton have a smaller ground than the one that we play in. Coventry didn’t even have a ground while getting promoted and staying up.

It’s not quite the daunting task many think. Difficult? Sure. But far from impossible.

I crunched some stats from this to see how true my claim is. Below is who was promoted from League 1 and who was relegated from the Championship since 2014-15. Teams in bold were the sides who only lasted a season, teams in italics lasted only two. Plenty don't stick at it in the Championship thus proving the difficulty factor - 10 of the 21 teams promoted since 2014-15 have come down within one or two seasons.

L1 2014-15: Bristol City, MK Dons, Preston North End
Ch 2014-15 Millwall, Wigan, Blackpool

L1 2015-16: Wigan*, Burton, Barnsley
Ch 2015-16: Bolton, MK Dons, Charlton

L1 2016-17: Sheffield United Bolton*, Millwall
Ch 2016-17: Rotherham, Wigan, Blackburn

L1 2017-18: Wigan*, Blackburn*, Rotherham*
Ch 2017-18: Barnsley, Burton, Sunderland

L1 2018-19: Luton, Barnsley*, Charlton
Ch 2018-19: Rotherham, Bolton, Ipswich

L1 2019-20: Coventry, Rotherham*, Wycombe
Ch 2019-20: Charlton, Wigan, Hull

L1 2020-21: Hull*, Peterborough, Blackpool
Ch 2020-21: Wycombe, Rotherham, Sheffield Wednesday

However, there is solace to all this for any side looking to get out of League 1. Spending even a season or two in the Championship at least seems to make your chances for getting out of League 1 better for next time. The * sides are ones who despite being relegated managed to bounce back at the first attempt - at least one a season and in the case of 2017-18, all three sides relegated from the second tier made it straight back again the season after.

As said in other threads, I'd love promotion but I would hope that in the event of it occurring 1. the club don't do anything stupid to attempt to keep up with the heavy hitters in that division. £15k a week average is eye watering and 2. that the fanbase accept there is likely to be a lot of defeats and that the second tier is a damn difficult place to be. I worry for @bazzer9461's heart during a routine EFL Trophy game let alone lining up against a moneyed Watford side hellbent on an instant return to the PL! A degree of realism would be needed as over since 2015-16, we've generally won far more matches than we lose.

 

[Millman]

I don't think we have anything left to learn about Karl, he is what he is and he seems to change little. I agree with the others we should not go down on his watch but conversely we will need a chuck of luck to go up.

He recruits good players (even if it is not always in the right positions) and trys to play good football. He works very hard, and has us performing to or slightly exceeding our budget. The big frustration is that often with the tools at hand I can't can't help feeling we should be doing that little bit better. It always feels we are always that one piece short of finishing the jigsaw.

Do not get me wrong reaching the play offs 2 years running is excellent, but the kicker is in those games we never really looked like winning them. I have no expectations of promotion for a club our size at this level. I would love it of course but I am realistic enough to know how hard it is with our resources. What is frustrating though is that we keep coming so close in squad terms and playing terms without actually taking that final step forwards.

Karl himself needs to find that bit extra in terms of squad balance or tactics otherwise he will always be the almost man and we will continue to be consistently inconsistent.

 

[Jolteon]

For me KR is as safe a pair of hands as you can get in this league. We'll play good football, and flirt with the playoffs most seasons. I think this year looks ridiculously tough to reach the playoffs and if he manages it he's done a really good job. We've spent a lot for OUFC, but I still doubt we're remotely close to troubling the top 6 in terms of spending.

I think he's good enough to take us up too - a couple of moments of madness v Wycombe away from it two seasons ago. The autos this year I'd guess will be impossible, and most years extremely tricky unless our new owners pump stupid amounts of money into the team like Wigan have done (and for the sake of club stability I hope they don't). But the playoffs are always a lottery and you could go in with the best manager in the world and still come unstuck by a moment of madness. Who knows, next time it could be us that capitalise.

As for staying up - difficult to judge KR too much on track record. I'd like to think if we went up our budget would be similar/better comparatively to what the franchise had. One thing we can judge on is how we tend to play well against the teams in the leagues above us in cup games, and struggle against the league 1 cloggers - so maybe we'd be ok? It would be a huge achievement to stay up for any manager with an OUFC level budget. Difficult to say for certain if KR would be able to do it, but if he got us up I'd certainly give him the full season to try.

 

[IsleofWightYellow]

Two years of playoffs has, in my view, earned KR the right of our support and patience this season. We all know we are a streaky team, we could easily go on a big run of wins at any point. Let’s wait and see where we finish before judging him - and, for me, another year of playoffs, successful or not, would be good enough for him to stay.

 

[lodeyellow]

Robinson would never keep us up. Not in a million years. I don't believe he can get us promoted, not without a huge amount of luck.

Could this be construed as a “comment of a derogatory nature relating to the Club” according to the Supporters’ Panel’s Expectations for Representatives? Asking for a friend.

 

[Maurice Earp]

Could this be construed as a “comment of a derogatory nature relating to the Club” according to the Supporters’ Panel’s Expectations for Representatives? Asking for a friend.

Well said @lodeyellow

 

[Manorlounger]

Could this be construed as a “comment of a derogatory nature relating to the Club” according to the Supporters’ Panel’s Expectations for Representatives? Asking for a friend.

As I'm not a representative and as that is my personal opinion, no.

 

[Manorlounger]

Well said @lodeyellow

What a good job OxVox committee members are allowed a personal opinion. (engage sarcasm mode)

 

[Maurice Earp]

What a good job OxVox committee members are allowed a personal opinion. (engage sarcasm mode)

View attachment 7183

Yes, Oxvox committee members have always been allowed to express personal thoughts as Oxvox are an independent supporters group

 

[lodeyellow]

Yes, Oxvox committee members have always been allowed to express personal thoughts as Oxvox are an independent supporters group

Well said @MauriceEarp

 

[Manorlounger]

Yes, Oxvox committee members have always been allowed to express personal thoughts as Oxvox are an independent supporters group

As are representatives for the Supporters' Panel when expressing personal options. What is the issue?

 

[bazzer9461]

I crunched some stats from this to see how true my claim is. Below is who was promoted from League 1 and who was relegated from the Championship since 2014-15. Teams in bold were the sides who only lasted a season, teams in italics lasted only two. Plenty don't stick at it in the Championship thus proving the difficulty factor - 10 of the 21 teams promoted since 2014-15 have come down within one or two seasons.

L1 2014-15: Bristol City, MK Dons, Preston North End
Ch 2014-15 Millwall, Wigan, Blackpool

L1 2015-16: Wigan*, Burton, Barnsley
Ch 2015-16: Bolton, MK Dons, Charlton

L1 2016-17: Sheffield United Bolton*, Millwall
Ch 2016-17: Rotherham, Wigan, Blackburn

L1 2017-18: Wigan*, Blackburn*, Rotherham*
Ch 2017-18: Barnsley, Burton, Sunderland

L1 2018-19: Luton, Barnsley*, Charlton
Ch 2018-19: Rotherham, Bolton, Ipswich

L1 2019-20: Coventry, Rotherham*, Wycombe
Ch 2019-20: Charlton, Wigan, Hull

L1 2020-21: Hull*, Peterborough, Blackpool
Ch 2020-21: Wycombe, Rotherham, Sheffield Wednesday

However, there is solace to all this for any side looking to get out of League 1. Spending even a season or two in the Championship at least seems to make your chances for getting out of League 1 better for next time. The * sides are ones who despite being relegated managed to bounce back at the first attempt - at least one a season and in the case of 2017-18, all three sides relegated from the second tier made it straight back again the season after.

As said in other threads, I'd love promotion but I would hope that in the event of it occurring 1. the club don't do anything stupid to attempt to keep up with the heavy hitters in that division. £15k a week average is eye watering and 2. that the fanbase accept there is likely to be a lot of defeats and that the second tier is a damn difficult place to be. I worry for @bazzer9461's heart during a routine EFL Trophy game let alone lining up against a moneyed Watford side hellbent on an instant return to the PL! A degree of realism would be needed as over since 2015-16, we've generally won far more matches than we lose.

I wouldn’t worry about my heart it’s fine. Couldn’t give a toss about the EFL trophy aka P**s pot trophy, am I happy about our last theee games? No I’m not we have on paper what is a top L1 squad but the last three games haven’t showed we have. Has KR got his substitutions wrong recently? Yes he has, did we need a back up for the LB yes we did, do we need another striker? Yes we do.
I know it’s early days and in the next 4/5 games we could be top it’s to early to worry about the end of the season. But the last three games haven’t shown we are capable of promotion.