Manager/Coach KREXIT: The 'Robbo Out' thread.

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When you finish 3rd but lose the play-offs, and the next season you're battling at the wrong end of the table (where we've been for most of Karl's reign), then where's the progress? The success (even in a season littered with poor runs of form as per) points to an outlier rather than a trend.
we havent been there for 20 plus years
 
Of course. Regardless of the opponent, to crumble like that and to make those changes whilst the game did not ask for it would have had many of us frothing and knashing. The collapse was a shambles. ‘Disgusting’ KR quite rightly called it.

My point was that if we’d ended up with the same number of points from the three games, the sudden ‘Robbo Out’ movement wouldn’t have occurred. I think that the emotion of the derby has tipped people over the edge.

FWIW, I’m fairly stoical about KR. I like bits of what he does, I’m critical of others. I’m realistic where we are as a club, the resources we have and what we have to do to 1. survive as an entity and 2. continue to progress. In an ideal world I’d still have MApp at the helm being part of the buy-and-develop model but since he’s left we have KR who buys into it too. I’m comfortable with that and we have a steady if frequently frustrating man in charge.

Agree with almost every word.

Almost. 'Steady' is not a word I'd use to describe Robinson though, even if his achievements are!
 
Don't be ridiculous, whatever we achieved last season was Robinson's doing.

Or do you want to blame Denis Smith for Brian Talbot being s**t?

Using the past 20 years of the club's history to try and paint a moderate success as a huge one is what irks me. No one can use this '20 years' nonsense as a reason why Robinson himself should stay when Wilder was the one who led the club's turnaround and Appleton took us from 8th in League Two to 8th in League One in three seasons.

And as I've said before, a 'record finish' is pointless in this context if it doesn't either end up in a promotion or a sustained push next term.
 
Don't be ridiculous, whatever we achieved last season was Robinson's doing.

Or do you want to blame Denis Smith for Brian Talbot being s**t?
I for one agree, last season was Robinsons achievement, but this season so far and the summer transfer window are also his, and he doesn't seem to like taking ownership of those...

I would be more than happy sitting in mid table playing nice enough football with maybe the distinct possibility of flirting with a playoff place, I expect this even more so when the previous season we finish 3rd. That currently isn't happening or even looking likely to happen, hence why I wouldn't be adverse to a change being made.
 
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I am not sure what we can read into last seasons finish because of the way in which last season did finish. We were on a great run at the end just before lock down (but a lot of the teams we had just beat were not that great). If the season had continued I wonder where we would have ended up. at a guess it wouldn't have been quite as high as we did finish (still a good season overall but not as great is it is currently being held up). For me though despite the league position even last season at times we were inconsistent. Plus as always we did have a slow start.

I think the term inconsistent sums up KR perfectly. He makes mistakes, we all do, but his pride or stubbornness gets in the way of quickly fixing them (how many times has this forum suggested the fixes for issues before he implemented them, sometimes games later). What is worse though due maybe to his huge self belief he does not seem to learn from his mistakes. As the saying goes those who do not learn from their mistakes are destined to repeat them. So here we are after another poor start (this time much worse than last) waiting for KR to put right the mistakes he made (and he I think is doing that now). I don't think KR is a manager who will ever change. Sometimes what he does will click and we will have a good season, other times it will not and time taken to fix it will condemn us to a poor season.

I don't see things changing any time soon. So all we can do is sit back and hope that KR keeps on pulling it together so we finish mid table.
 
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I am not sure what we can read into last seasons finish because of the way in which last season did finish. We were on a great run at the end just before lock down (but a lot of the teams we had just beat were not that great). If the season had continued I wonder where we would have ended up. at a guess it wouldn't have been quite as high as we did finish (still a good season overall but not as great is it is currently being held up). For me though despite the league position even last season at times we were inconsistent. Plus as always we did have a slow start.

I think the term inconsistent sums up KR perfectly. He makes mistakes, we all do, but his pride or stubbornness gets in the way of quickly fixing them (how many times has this forum suggested the fixes for issues before he implemented them, sometimes games later). What is worse though due maybe to his huge self belief he does not seem to learn from his mistakes. As the saying goes those who do not learn from their mistakes are destined to repeat them. So here we are after another poor start (this time much worse than last) waiting for KR to put right the mistakes he made (and he I think is doing that now). I don't think KR is a manager who will ever change. Sometimes what he does will click and we will have a good season, other times it will not and time taken to fix it will condemn us to a poor season.

I don't see things changing any time soon. So all we can do is sit back and hope that KR keeps on pulling it together so we finish mid table.
Spot on.
 
The coaches
Covid
Play off defeat
Minimal pre season
Losing key players through injury
New signings not hitting the ground running
Key players from last season seriously out of form
Stop start season so far so unable to build momentum
No fans allowed in stadiums
So apart from the playoff defeat, pretty much the same issues all other teams have had to deal with then?!?
 
My local team seemed to have coped pretty well in the same circumstances.
 
I don't see things changing any time soon. So all we can do is sit back and hope that KR keeps on pulling it together so we finish mid table.
All I would say is that the people spending their money on keeping us in business won’t keep doing that if all we end up with is bad starts followed by purple patches in the new year, every season. There are more reasons to be concerned with what’s happening on the pitch than merely points on the board. There needs to be more than just, “Oh, God, Karl’s lost the plot again... hopefully we can have a go at finishing in the top half if it gets ironed out quickly enough, and he gets bored of people not rushing to kiss his a**e.” Even billionaires won’t keep throwing a few million quid a year at Groundhog Day.

This is three seasons on the spin that we’ve started poorly - that isn’t a coincidence. It can’t keep being bad luck over that long of a period. That is a flaw in the design and in the process, and I think at this point that even the staunchest of apologists should really be able to at least go, “Fair enough, he’s doing something wrong repeatedly and should sort that, clearly at least some of it is his fault.” If we had even a bang average opening 8/9 games last season we would’ve gone up automatically with how everything went, cruelly. Given there is legislation in place this season regarding what happens if the calendar can’t be completed, this is definitely not the season to mess about at the start. This season of all seasons there should be no taking for granted that we have 46 games, and that there’s loads of time dawdle along. We can’t keep dropping to the back of the pack and expecting a late surge every single time, because the day will come when the legs and the lungs just can’t get going. A lot of gambling goes on under the current regime. Let’s gamble on being able to pull out of a tailspin if idealism fails early on; let’s gamble on not having more than five or six defenders so we can have loads of attacking players; let’s gamble on being able to use players in unfamiliar positions because they’re good enough to simply adapt; let’s gamble on having enough technical ability that a lack of experience or grit doesn’t become an issue... it’s just endless betting on red. It’s all very exciting when it comes in, but sooner or later it won’t come in enough.

For context of how bad this season’s start is - in 18/19 we had 13 points after 15 games. We currently have 14 from 14 with the league leaders up next. We are almost matching that pain storm of a start stride for stride, and it made the entire season thoroughly unenjoyable. This time, though, we’ve stacked it after a playoff final when we’ve had a manager in place for nearly three years, who gets to do basically whatever he wants and has had more contracts than he’s had full years of service, rather than coming off the back of a rather strange takeover and Pep’s six months of chaos. Comparatively this is arguably the worst start of them all, particularly when you consider that we’ve humiliated ourselves against the scum for good measure. It’s been a massive, massive failure of an opening third.

I said a while ago that I didn’t think we would get relegated this season and I stick by that, but that isn’t really good enough even if it comes true. If we get to January and there’s more a**e wiggling, and lots of “Oooooh, the board need to show me they’re serious and have ambition” then we really are in trouble, because that suggests nothing will change.

Over to Karl.
 
All I would say is that the people spending their money on keeping us in business won’t keep doing that if all we end up with is bad starts followed by purple patches in the new year, every season. There are more reasons to be concerned with what’s happening on the pitch than merely points on the board. There needs to be more than just, “Oh, God, Karl’s lost the plot again... hopefully we can have a go at finishing in the top half if it gets ironed out quickly enough, and he gets bored of people not rushing to kiss his a**e.” Even billionaires won’t keep throwing a few million quid a year at Groundhog Day.

This is three seasons on the spin that we’ve started poorly - that isn’t a coincidence. It can’t keep being bad luck over that long of a period. That is a flaw in the design and in the process, and I think at this point that even the staunchest of apologists should really be able to at least go, “Fair enough, he’s doing something wrong repeatedly and should sort that, clearly at least some of it is his fault.” If we had even a bang average opening 8/9 games last season we would’ve gone up automatically with how everything went, cruelly. Given there is legislation in place this season regarding what happens if the calendar can’t be completed, this is definitely not the season to mess about at the start. This season of all seasons there should be no taking for granted that we have 46 games, and that there’s loads of time dawdle along. We can’t keep dropping to the back of the pack and expecting a late surge every single time, because the day will come when the legs and the lungs just can’t get going. A lot of gambling goes on under the current regime. Let’s gamble on being able to pull out of a tailspin if idealism fails early on; let’s gamble on not having more than five or six defenders so we can have loads of attacking players; let’s gamble on being able to use players in unfamiliar positions because they’re good enough to simply adapt; let’s gamble on having enough technical ability that a lack of experience or grit doesn’t become an issue... it’s just endless betting on red. It’s all very exciting when it comes in, but sooner or later it won’t come in enough.

For context of how bad this season’s start is - in 18/19 we had 13 points after 15 games. We currently have 14 from 14 with the league leaders up next. We are almost matching that pain storm of a start stride for stride, and it made the entire season thoroughly unenjoyable. This time, though, we’ve stacked it after a playoff final when we’ve had a manager in place for nearly three years, who gets to do basically whatever he wants and has had more contracts than he’s had full years of service, rather than coming off the back of a rather strange takeover and Pep’s six months of chaos. Comparatively this is arguably the worst start of them all, particularly when you consider that we’ve humiliated ourselves against the scum for good measure. It’s been a massive, massive failure of an opening third.

I said a while ago that I didn’t think we would get relegated this season and I stick by that, but that isn’t really good enough even if it comes true. If we get to January and there’s more a**e wiggling, and lots of “Oooooh, the board need to show me they’re serious and have ambition” then we really are in trouble, because that suggests nothing will change.

Over to Karl.

But but but, what you're saying can't be true because we finished 3rd last season!! It was our highest finish in the last 20 years which is all down to Karl!!

(This was sarcasm if you didn't get it.)
 
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Maybe its the change of personnel under Karl maybe no Faz has changed him.
 
But but but, what you're saying can't be true because we finished 3rd last season!! It was our highest finish in the last 20 years which is all down to Karl!!
It’s because we keep gambling on injury prone/past it/players that haven’t played regular games for months and then have to get up to speed or we have to rectify in January. Players take months to get up to match fitness and unfortunately we cannot wait that long. Yes, you could probably cope with one or two, but not four or five. It’s why it always makes me laugh when Karl says we’ve been unlucky with injuries!!
 
But but but, what you're saying can't be true because we finished 3rd last season!! It was our highest finish in the last 20 years which is all down to Karl!!

Is it not fair to say that BOTH are true.

Under KR we start badly, take a dozen games to understand where people should play, get them fit and firing, but once they do then we get to see the kind of team that got to the quarterfinals of the league cup, destroyed West Ham, gave Man City and Newcastle plenty to worry about, and finished 3rd in the league.

All of which is down to Robinson. The very good AND the very bad.

What we need to look at is WHY? Yes he loves to gamble in the market. We have to remember that last season he brought in Fosu, Gorrin, Moore and Forde who were all gambles to a certain extent. Certainly many were questioning them on here. This year we had Atkinson, Clare, McGuane, Shodipo, Winnall etc. Most have had difficult starts (or barely started at all). But we are now seeing Atkinson, Clare and McGuane finding their feet and could end up being very good players for us.

We've also had a number of injuries. Mous, Winnall etc are down to having older players, but Ruffels (shoulder) and Brannagan (eye) are really bad luck. As is the situation with Cooper. You can account for these, and of course they happen elsewhere, but it's still been a very difficult couple of months.

So whilst it's fair to say that something is badly wrong at the beginning of each season, it's also fair to say that Robinson is the man to get us out of this situation too.
 
I agree - and hope the same is true this season, it's taking longer than previously - but surely he has to look at how he structures preseason and the recruitment? If you are ten games or more into a season before your team actually starts playing, then you've given yourself a huge mountain to climb.

I'd also say that crediting a man for getting us out of a situation that he gets us into in the first place is a bit odd! And while yes, we sell players, and yes we have 'churn' - we are by no means unique in that. Other teams seem to to able to start a season in a more organised way than we do under KR.
 
Shodipo is not proving the signing we expected after a bright start.
Hanson is a really expensive flop on a long term contract who we can’t readily get shot off.
We seem to specialise in signing injury prone players. There was so much hype over Sam Winnall. Now we are stuck with a misfiring Taylor and a crock. I’d like to see a striker on loan who can help.
We have a striker in Dan Agyei who performed well against Portsmouth and also looked good in the few desultory minutes he got against Ipswich. Maybe give him more of a chance? I’m not saying start him, just give him 20-30 mins at the end of a game!
 
Just listened to yesterday's forum on Radox. Might be way off the mark but KR's unusually abrupt answers sounded like a man battening down the hatches.
 
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Maybe we should be asking the Owner what he is expecting from Robbo. Last year we flogged Whyte (as well as losing Nelson), then Baptiste and Fosu and got away with it, this year we have flogged Dickie. Maybe getting away with it is Plan A.
 
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