Can we go on a run?
Why not.
Comfortable day at the office(hopefully)
3-1 win
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Can we go on a run?
Why not.
Comfortable day at the office(hopefully)
3-1 win
I never expect any game to be "comfortable", Robin. Our recent matches against Derby have produced some decent football, so I'm hoping for same again.
I am reasonably confident the improved defensive solidity will continue, though.
I am torn between 1-0 and 2-0. Heads or tails?
OK: 2-0.
(Incidentally, if I went to a Derby fans-site, I bet I'd find lots of mutterings and grumbles about Cocu. He's exactly the kind of young, smart, modern, forward-thinking manager that has been touted for us, but he hasn't produced much consistency yet).
Derby lost a decent manager in the summer, hence they are not the same team this season.
For me though, that isn't the main reason. They had half a team of loan players playing last season, who have all gone back to their parent clubs, and almost all of those young lads are making a big impression in the Prem this season. Once you take a manager, and half a team who where all on loan out of a side like Derby, its inevitable they will not hit the heights of last season.
Not sure I heard anyone touting for anyone like Cocu? Never managed here before.
But if they had, would it have been a huge gamble? All 3 managers who won promotion last season had 2 seasons of Championship experience behind them? Only one had done a full season (Blackwell, who had only managed the season before) and that's between 3 managers.
Most fans I heard mentioned Hughton? Who is neither young, modern or forward thinking?
I'm not sure anyone can say with any degree of certainty who will come in and do anything.
Things are better with us, but we are only really where we should be. I do feel we have possibly had our bad run for the season now, and although we will lose games along the way, I don't feel we will have one bad continuous run of results.
But we are a more settled set of players, manager and club than Derby who have had alot of upheaval.
I take those points, Champs, but what I was really referring to was the fact that Mowbray has regularly been described as a "dinosaur".
Cocu, on the other hand, is under 40, and won the Dutch Premier League twice with PSV.
That gives him exactly the profile that many Rovers supporters were calling for.
You know my take on this. I think far too much is invested in this notion that a manager is the be-all-and-end-all of success. Cocu may turn out to have a glittering career. Far more likely is that he will be like 90% of the men in the job: "good" with one club; "terrible" with another. Or "hero" one season; "useless" the next.
Has Mowbray suddenly become brilliant again? Of course not. Was he dreadful during the bad spell? No.
Football is complex and dynamic. Success from one game to another is dependent on many, many factors, and managerial input is just one of them.
In the end, the manager carries the can for a sustained period of disappointing results. I suspect TM was very close to the edge ten days ago. That is the nature of the job, and everyone knows it. Even so, I will never suscribe to this bunkum that it's "all down to the manager".
Another recent example: Cowley got the job at Huddersfield, and "turned them around", winning Manager of the Month after only a few weeks in charge. Since then? Two points from four games, and an absolute thumping on Saturday. So has he suddenly become a "bad" manager? No - he is a victim of football reality. This is a very even Division, probably leaving aside Leeds and WBA. Beyond them, I would say any four from about 15 could occupy the play-off places, including us.
There will be no magic formula for getting there, though, which is why I just groan when I see fans saying, "If only Mowbray did "A", "B" [success!] would inevitably follow".
This is the purest drivel. If it was that simple, I could be a world-beating manager.
Sorry Aucks, TM has stopped experimenting with tactics that his players struggled to adopt because they were constantly played out of position. That was solely his doing and his fault.
Some employers would see it as gross negligence.
Dinosaur?
Yes, undoubtedly, he doesn't understand the new technology that tracks players performances. He often struggles to compete when opposition managers make substitutions and change tactics.
Maybe one day we will find out why he suddenly stopped his stupid tinkering?
In any job, public services excluded, the manager is entirely responsible for the performance and results of their department.
Can't agree. Downing has been very successful "out of position' in the last two matches, and Williams made a very decent fist of the switch to centre-back.
We were pretty poor against Barnsley but won with a bit of luck on our side. That was enough to restore a bit of confidence, as we saw against Brentford.
I think that element of "confidence" was a far bigger factor in our successful week than "positions". The modern player has to be much more flexible in that respect, anyway. Chris Samba made a more than useful centre-forward at times!
In any case, I don't really buy that we had loads of players in the wrong spot (Bennett aside) - except by default.
If you have (as we do) half a dozen players who would prefer the No. 9 shirt, all but one of them are going to miss out! However, if they are amongst your most threatening attackers, you might well want to try to squeeze them in. Hence this third forward playing wide business. I don't really care for it myself either, but Gallagher did it well last time around, and before we went on the bad run, he had two very good games in that position this season.
I have never disputed that in the "can-carrying" sense, and I actually said that Mowbray was on the brink of the sack.
However, it is such a simplification when it comes to sport.
When I had a bad game (a regular occurrence!), be it in football, cricket, rugby or hockey, I never once said or thought it was the manager's fault.
Blaming individual mistakes, refereeing decisions, unlucky breaks, the performance of the opposition, etc, etc, etc on someone who isn't on the pitch is simply ridiculous.
Agreed. All he is doing now is what most people who go every week asked for, as we could see it. Bennett not playing at RB. There are quite a few. Armstrong not playing centre forward. Dack playing as a striker. Its not science. Stop playing people completely out of position. Stop changing the team around every single week. He was making big mistakes. Now it's hopefully stopped. Nothing at all about being good one week, of bad the next.