Who was mainly to blame for our relegation from League 1 (4 Viewers)

stupot07

Well-Known Member
Mowbray and Slade

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skybluesam66

Well-Known Member
potentially we should be thanking these
Imagine if we had stayed up just, we may still be hovering around 17th in League 1
Instead of all of the fun we have had since then

Mowbray, Venus, Slade - Thankyou for the last 3 and a bit years
 

Orlando

Well-Known Member
It was definitely the owners who were at fault.Mowbray gambled and didn’t get the signings he wanted,but it was the owners who put him in that position.
 

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
We had 36 games left when Mowbray left, lost 4 from our first 10 games ... We couldn't hit a barn door but played decent stuff, not great but decent, players let him down too, turnbull at Bradford away... What a clown

Russel slade is the major contributing factor to our relegation, I know this because if Robins came in after venus or Mowbray even, we wouldn't have gone down
 

Ian1779

Well-Known Member
Mowbray and Slade. Mowbray for setting up with an absolutely atrocious team (even worse when you compare it to the one at the beginning of the previous season) and Slade for being so bad that made Andy Thorn look Guardiola-esque
 

skyblueusername

Well-Known Member
Who was mainly to blame for our relegation from League 1
Craig Bellamy. I can trace all ills concerning Coventry City's plight back to him, I blame him for most things though, getting made redundant can probably be traced back to him as well, it was most likely that c**t who ate the bat.
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
Getting relegated didn't make us better off in 2001 or 2012. We all have fond memories of the L2 season but it was one game away from being a failure. I think most of us would have been happy with Robins getting us back into the Championship within three years regardless of whether we had to drop down to L2 in the process, so it's not as if we needed to get relegated per se.
I think it needed the reset tbh. The other relegations were not that and the positive was that it enabled Robins to assess during the relegation season and start again. That wasn't something we did the other times.
 
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speedie87

Well-Known Member
Always amazes me the slating Slade takes. Mowbray knew when he resigned that him and Venus had failed miserably with the recruitment that summer. The squad was appalling. I remember going to Swindon away on the opening day and fearing the worst. Slade was brought in January with no budget to try and wheel and deal. He had a stab in very hard circumstances and couldn't improve a really poor side.

My issue with Slade was that we were that bad when he took over he was some achievement to make us even worse but he did.
Will let him off for getting us to Wembley though
 

CJ_covblaze

Well-Known Member
Venus and Mowbray have to take pretty much all of it. Between them they made some catastrophic decisions that sealed our fate from very early on. The desire to go after players we had no chance of getting without having any real Plan B was unforgivable. Another issue was releasing a perfectly reliable centre half and selling someone who would’ve been our best player for a pittance so we could sign a centre half who clearly had talent but was years away from being ready.

When it comes to Slade the damage had already been done. What’s remarkable is that he somehow managed to make the situation worse. His signings were a disaster for starters. We needed an experienced defender, he got two and it made the defence look even poorer. I will forever have nightmares of Kevin Foley and Nathan Clarke. The only way how it would’ve been worse is if Lewis Page had stuck around long enough to play alongside them.
 
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SBT

Well-Known Member
I think it needed the reset tbh. The other relegations were not that and the positive was that it enabled Robins to assess during the relegation season and start again. That wasn't something we did the other times.

I think all of that was true for the Prem and Champ relegations too though - or at least in terms of lip service, it was like a weird coping mechanism at times. The difference is that Robins actually went and did it.

I just think it's easy to forget how shit things got in the L2 season, and how close we were to failure. Don't get me wrong, the playoffs were special, I wouldn't trade it for anything. But considering how close we came to being stuck in that league for years, was it really worth it? Objectively speaking/from a pure risk POV, you'd take a boring mid-table season in L1 every time.
 

Saddlebrains

Well-Known Member
Not proud of it but before first game of the relegation season, i made a 50 quid bet with a mate that we woulrgo down and go down by a long chalk.

That squad was wank from minute 1
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
I think all of that was true for the Prem and Champ relegations too though - or at least in terms of lip service, it was like a weird coping mechanism at times. The difference is that Robins actually went and did it.

I just think it's easy to forget how shit things got in the L2 season, and how close we were to failure. Don't get me wrong, the playoffs were special, I wouldn't trade it for anything. But considering how close we came to being stuck in that league for years, was it really worth it? Objectively speaking/from a pure risk POV, you'd take a boring mid-table season in L1 every time.
They didn't get that shit at all, I think it's exaggerated. Lowest league position was 10th after 4 games, otherwise in the top 8 and spent majority of the season in the play off places.
 

SBT

Well-Known Member
They didn't get that shit at all, I think it's exaggerated. Lowest league position was 10th after 4 games, otherwise in the top 8 and spent majority of the season in the play off places.

10th in L2 is really bad! So bad that some headcase ran on the pitch to try and tackle Michael Doyle! We almost missed the playoffs!

Even then, we were one bad game vs Exeter away from going through that all over again. It all seems inevitable now but we'd probably have been smarter to avoid it in the first place.
 
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Deleted member 5849

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They didn't get that shit at all, I think it's exaggerated. Lowest league position was 10th after 4 games, otherwise in the top 8 and spent majority of the season in the play off places.
Yeah, we were alright all through that season. Guess my main shudder is what would have happened if we hadn't gone up... especially when you see what happened to Notts County. Obviously not the same circumstances, but 3/4 of the first season down from the top flight was pretty good, really, until we blew up on the home straight. If we'd gone up that season, the drop could well have been good for us. After that however...

One thing you can say about Robins is we do seem to have the mentality now to step up for the big games, we've had years where we've just caved before that. And thank God we did!
 

JimmyHillsbeard

Well-Known Member
Russel Slade was awful – However, somehow he got us through to the Checkatrade Final, or was it the players, either or it was a friggin miracle!

Even more than this when we were really under the cosh in the semi final vs Wycombe, Slade (or someone) made a tactical change that enabled us to hold on to the lead after Alinfenwa had come on and pulled back a goal for Wycombe. He brought on Callum Maycock (yes really) specifically to play directly in front of Akinfewa and starve him of supply and ease the pressure on the centre halves. It worked and we made the final largely as a result of this change.
 
Writing was on the wall the minute we offered John Fleck pittance to stay with us and he chose to go to a side who finished below us the previous season - and then thought Gadzhev and Andy Rose would fill the massive void left

In hindsight Mowbray should have left the end of the 15/16 season! Failure to get us into the play offs with that squad was criminal and it’s obvious that SISU and CCFC weren’t really for him in the long haul

Venus was a clown and come across really badly cause of the fact he was on the board and appeared at talks to sell the training ground

Slade served up the worst football I’ve ever seen, less said on him the better! If we’d have appointed Robins at Christmas we’d have probably stopped up

And the players were a disgrace as well, worst squad of footballers I’ve ever seen in my life attitude and ability wise - Actually took a personal dislike to some of them, criminal that they escape the stick they deserve cause they won a tinpot trophy no one else was arsed about - Only one I was remotely bothered about keeping was Bigi - that being said in hindsight I’m glad we kept Jones, Stokes and Willis
 

Legia Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
They didn't get that shit at all, I think it's exaggerated. Lowest league position was 10th after 4 games, otherwise in the top 8 and spent majority of the season in the play off places.

We weren't shit, but at times we did struggle to get the better of teams with plainly inferior players, losing as many as 15 league games in the process. The Winter months were the toughest, whereby League 2 pitches were generally poor (including ours), and where refs tended to be lenient to 'plucky' over physical underdog teams who routinely played negatively against us, often taking gamesmanship to extremes.

The team we had though should have gone up automatically, or at least got close to doing so, but instead we only just cemented our play off spot right at the end of the season. The successful end to that season and our subsequent rise definitely flowers some of our memories of the season as a whole. In retrospect however those positive play off experiences probably galvanised the club far more than an automatic promotion would have done, and without that we might not have moved forward as well as we have done.
 

jim20

Well-Known Member
I can never forgive Mowbray, he bullsed up the recruitment and preseason, and then walked, didn’t have the guts to stay and try and turn it around. When he left he made out that he was doing the club a favour by not waiting to get sacked and a payoff as we had no money, yet he tried to sign high end players with that no money! Absolute tool!
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
If Robins had been appointed after Mowbray I doubt we’d have gone down or if we had done, have made it go to the end. He would likely have pursued the same recruitment strategy but started from a higher base in 17/18 and may even have cleared out some of the shite in January 17.

What was clear though is that season saw the most toxic relationship between the club and fans which began to change after Checkatrade.
 

Mucca Mad Boys

Well-Known Member
Mowbray certainly has a lot to answer for, the recruitment that preseason was really poor and with no obvious strategy. Russel Slade won % speaks for itself - terrible. Relegation was pretty much a certainty when Robins came back and he had no transfer window to try and reverse our fortunes.

My attitude to it all is that relegation to L2 served us well in the end. We managed to rebuild a solid team, and managed to secure promotion at the first time of asking. In itself an achievement as it hadn’t been many times over the last 10-15 years, only 2-3 teams managed that I think.
 

skyblueexile

Well-Known Member
who cares - its history - lets shout out for 2021 and even if no where near promotion but playing the same style football
- entertaining that is
I'LL BE HAPPY
 

Mcbean

Well-Known Member
Strangely I immediately thought Strachan

in my time the league one / championship relegations seemed to be associated with loosing points due to financial irregularities as if we were just in limbo just waiting to be saved

thank fuck for Robins
 

TomRad85

Well-Known Member

I shudder at this in our League 2 season
We got promoted so I choose to forget about having the double done over us by both Yeovil and Forest Green. Apart from when I just mentioned it right now.

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Apart from the 2-1 defeat to Notts County in the very next game :p

A game where I thought we were the better side but suffered from a massive lapse in concentration after we equalised

If I’m right the only game we lost after that was Lincoln which was just a ridiculous game dominated by that lump they used to have up top
 

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