All those talking about what he 'inherited' fail to notice that Richardson's results have been abysmally WORSE than Taylor's ... no mean feat!
Persevering with him will be a disaster.
It is time NOW to be sorting out a manager for next season, rather than a broken record who can't even inspire a press conference let alone a team.
Indeed Steve…and LR has had more players available to him after injury than MT did when he left….and yet results have been infinitely worse.
My concern is that if we let him preside over a summer transfer window and a retained / release list it could set us back even further.
For those that want to give him a further period to prove himself, what have you seen that’s encouraged you that he,ll do well for us in the future?
Genuine question, I’m happy to be persuaded that I’m being too harsh and judgemental
Yep, the amount of hate towards MT was embarrassing by a lot of our supporters. TS should have stood by him imo . He sold him the dream with a 4 year deal and plan ., yet failed to support him when it was needed . Always said we wouldn’t get anyone better than Taylor at the time . Not seen anything from our new Head Coach to change my mind .
It goes back further than that. The disdain and snarkiness directed towards ‘that nice mr Warne’ after what he had built here was what was embarrassing. I never thought we would stay anywhere near 8th, and in the end he jumped ship all by himself, but quite a few on here were wanting him gone and openly said so. Sadly what we have witnessed since then is exactly what I predicted would happen, despite a general (not universal) view that ‘anyone but Warne’ would see us elevated to the broad sunlit uplands.
What I hadn’t even considered at the time was that the problems might actually stem from TS himself as some have pointed out on this thread. I find I am reluctantly coming round to that view too. Not merely in the fact that we struggled so badly to entice our first four choices to take the job, which begs the question what was actually revealed to them at interview, as I don’t see any of them as mere time wasters? But also may offer an explanation for the desertion of the entire coaching staff as well as Warne himself.
In such a scenario, if accurate, it becomes irrelevant who the manager is. It’s easy to fall prey to confirmation bias and line up all the things that ‘suddenly make sense’. But when you look at the above, and add in our utter inability to actually persuade decent players to come here at all, it does look bad. The budget limitations are real and are a genuine constraint, we simply cannot expect in demand Championship players to choose us. However, when we miss out on players when in L1, we get told that a higher level of football was the deciding factor, yet we have lost at least two L1 players we targeted this season to other L1 clubs despite our own higher statusl. That’s when it reflects poorly.
Richardson may be worse than Taylor, but that’s not saying anything really. It was still Taylor who signed the players and set the pattern. Until there is a real change in how the club operates we will just be swapping the deck chairs on the Titanic with our fingers crossed whenever we change the boss.
In fact it makes what Warne built up here all the more impressive in hindsight
Excellent post Beaufighter
Warne built a strong work ethic I agree and I had plenty of arguments sticking up for him.
He still got relegated from this league 3 times though.
When he was here apparently we needed a manager who could play a more possession based game with better ball retention and football.
MT tried to do that and the cry was we’ve lost our identity and we need that RUFC DNA.
What is that exactly?
It goes a lot deeper than the manager I wholeheartedly agree however results matter to a point and we aren’t getting any.
Under MT and PW we got results now we are just cannon fodder.
PW deserved more credit than he got definitely.
Mt did not play possession based football. The ball spent more time in the air than a Boeing 737. I agree our real issues are not the managers but the boardroom and until we get some changes there it will get worse. Exactly what has our DoF or COO done in the last three months? Oh that is it convinced TS to install some drains, absolutely awful the running of this club, there is more to running a successful organisation that keeping the finances in check.
Ignoring the fact he inherited not just the players that MT started with, but the lengthy injury list MT finished with, the fact we were a country mile from safety, completely demotivated, a list of players with one eye on their summer release and making sure they were fit for it, and a chairman who didn't back him at all in January after some positive results...
...even the chairman has openly said since that he was brought in for the L1 job.
Context doesn't outweigh all statistics, but it's pretty important when comparing these two and the situations they had.