I'll say it (18 Viewers)

Brighton Sky Blue said:

I don’t see where the wins are coming from if we’re losing to the shittest in this league

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They will come and we have another attacking player coming in next week.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

Answer the question when did we last sack a manager who didn’t deserve it?

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Pressley, don't think he really deserved it

fernandopartridge said:

Pressley, don't think he really deserved it

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He served up some of the worst football I have ever seen from a City side

Brighton Sky Blue said:

Peter Reid
Mickey Adams
Iain Dowie
Chris Coleman
Aidy Boothroyd
Andy Thorn
Steven Pressley
Tony Mowbray
Russell Slade

Which one of them shouldn’t have been sacked?

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Dowie. Mowbray resigned

pusbccfc said:

The money he's spent on those woeful strikers has been a disaster.

1 million quid.

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That's a made up figure. You can't beat him with made up facts

Otis said:

They will come and we have another attacking player coming in next week.

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Another kid who misses sitters

fernandopartridge said:

That's a real figure. You can't defend him with made up facts

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Fixed

Evo1883 said:

I disagree , only manager to bring any form of success to this miserable fan base in 30 years , first season back in league 1 and we are mid table , I’m absolutely positive we are doing as expected and another manager would have no more success with the squad(most players are 2/3 years off being finished articles ) than robins has .

We have to stop firing the gun if things don’t go our way , I like robins , I like what he has done for us over his tenure and I am encouraged by what I see on the pitch a lot of the time

We need to stick by him

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In all fairness the success was squeezing into League 2 play offs and winning those. Our lowest level in many a year.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

A striker who can’t identify a goal scorer or coach his strikers to put away sitters. His changes at Plymouth made no sense whatsoever, again today

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He signed McNulty so clearly can identify a striker. He also signed Leon Clarke

Goals conceded 1st half = 7
Goals conceded 2nd half = 29

What on earth is being said at half time this season?

Otis said:

Agree.

He got us promoted last season and we are midtable this. Hardly seems the grounds for a sacking.

We sink further and start looking over our shoulders, then maybe, but we should have won both last week and this. As Dele Adebola said, we go 1-0 up and that would have been a totally different game and result.

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You mean like Plymouth away?

fernandopartridge said:

He signed McNulty so clearly can identify a striker. He also signed Leon Clarke

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Can’t get any of these 4 to score sitters, gave them all 2 year deals

Jonson Clarke-Wank
Bakafuckwit
Hiwulla
Craplin

xcraigx said:

Goals conceded 1st half = 7
Goals conceded 2nd half = 29

What on earth is being said at half time this season?

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‘Go again’

xcraigx said:

Goals conceded 1st half = 7
Goals conceded 2nd half = 29

What on earth is being said at half time this season?

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Is that right? Really? That's shocking if true.

Surely with those stats you say to your players, keep it tight for the first 5-10 mins. No mistakes, nothing silly. You have to be expecting an onslaught from the opposition. Word MUST be getting around. Too many teams are doing it to us for it not to be.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

Fixed

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It's a made up figure as it is not confirmed, there is not one piece of evidence behind it

mark82 said:

To be fair, he spent best part of a million pounds on strikers this season, that's a lot of money in this division. Saying we are a striker away is pretty much saying he's not performed well enough in his job.

I've always found him tactically frustrating, even last year when we just about met expectation. 3 wins in the last 17 games (15 league and 2 cup) is getting close to a point where those in charge could lose patience.

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So which one is it? He has either wasted that money on players that aren’t good enough/weren’t what we needed or spent it wisely but hasn’t used them in the right way. It’s got to be one of the two hasn’t it?

fernandopartridge said:

It's a made up figure as it is not confirmed, there is not one piece of evidence behind it

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How much do u think Hiwula costed us?

CJ_covblaze said:

So which one is it? He has either wasted that money on players that aren’t good enough/weren’t what we needed or spent it wisely but hasn’t used them in the right way. It’s got to be one of the two hasn’t it?

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Both

CanadianCCFC said:

How much do u think Hiwula costed us?

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Chaplin 500k, Bakayoko 300k, Hiwula 150k plus JCH’s sign on which wouldn’t have been cheap.

CJ_covblaze said:

Chaplin 500k, Bakayoko 300k, Hiwula 150k plus JCH’s sign on which wouldn’t have been cheap.

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Thought Hiwulas was undisclosed

Otis said:

Bakayoko looks like he can score?

You sure about that?

I keep saying. Watch them in the warm-up.

Bakayoko screwed nearly everything wide. JCH blasting them over the bar. Thomas screwing nearly everything wide. Hiwula hit and miss.

And this is with no defenders anywhere to be seen.

It's every week in the warm-up.

Only Jordan Shipley looks anything like decent.

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ironically we were early today and i did watch Oggy set up shots to the left of Cory Addai - unusually they scored most of them and Cory got nowhere near any of them - i emphasize the words "look like " as Hiwula did not look like he could hit a barn door only the opposing goalkeeper who yet again was inspired to MOM status by our wonderful pitch - for Chaplin he is industrious but i think the rest would do him good to come on as a sub

CanadianCCFC said:

Both

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If that’s the case it’s a big worry. FWIW I think all 4 of those strikers offer something and are worthy of a place in a L1 squad. Just not as any team’s 4 first choice strikers.

CanadianCCFC said:

Thought Hiwulas was undisclosed

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They all were. People are just guessing.

It’s frustrating when you think we should be doing better but I think most would have taken or settled for a top half finish after promotion last year.

Let robins build for next season for a proper promotion push and pass judgement then.

CJ_covblaze said:

Chaplin 500k, Bakayoko 300k, Hiwula 150k plus JCH’s sign on which wouldn’t have been cheap.

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None of those confirmed at all.

Otis said:

Thing is though, Nick, we should have won that game and were all over them in that first half.

It's such small margins.

Chaplin misses a header he should have put in. Thomas has a great chance inside the box and hits the ball far too close to the keeper. He then screws another one badly wide.

Enobakhare had the ball in the penalty area and dwells on the ball far too long, the chance lost. Westbrooke had a fantastic chance. The keeper saved it, but it is not hit with enough power.

Enobakhare again gets the ball to the byline and tries to slide the ball in from the tightest of angles rather than punch it across.

ALL in the first half.

It's such fine margins and we could easily won 4 or 5 nil today.

Second half WAS dreadful though.

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You could say that about so many games Otis, the issue for me is simple. We are not learning from our mistakes and therefore it is like taking candy from a baby when playing us.
Opposition manager to players
"At set pieces crowd their keeper"
"Go out all guns blazing at the start of the second half"
"Don't worry about conceding chances, they will miss"
"Wait for the misplaced pass in midfield and pounce"
Sound familiar?

Calmed down a bit now, agree with most of what Nick says. Don’t think we should go sacking another manager though.
Just a trivial point,could someone show our players how to take,and defend throw ins. Still drives me mad at how inept we are at such simple things.

PVA said:

We're not playing well at the moment, I don't deny that.

But I have seen enough this season to know that we're not far off being a decent side. We are a newly promoted team and we're 12th, that's not bad.

We are a goalscorer short of being decent.

There is no point in getting rid of Robins. We've been sacking managers for years and it's got us nowhere. Robins has a long term plan in place and is signing lots of young players.

Let's actually give a manager a chance at building something rather than getting back on the manager merry go round.

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Best post for a longbtime

riyadhskyblue said:

You could say that about so many games Otis, the issue for me is simple. We are not learning from our mistakes and therefore it is like taking candy from a baby when playing us.
Opposition manager to players
"At set pieces crowd their keeper"
"Go out all guns blazing at the start of the second half"
"Don't worry about conceding chances, they will miss"
"Wait for the misplaced pass in midfield and pounce"
Sound familiar?

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Oh yea a manager is really going to say "don't worry about chances they'll miss"

Really harsh on chaplin. Hes only 21 with still time to develop. Yeah Probably should have scored today, but Hiwula should have had a hatrick, JCH Should have also scored.

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stupot07 said:

Really harsh on chaplin. Hes only 21 with still time to develop. Yeah Probably should have scored today, but Hiwula should have had a hatrick, JCH Should have also scored.

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Agree. I have constantly defended Chaplin and continue to do so.

I honestly believe he will come good. He's still young and will develop I'm sure.

Nick said:

Unless he makes a miracle change next week he needs to go and take Chaplin with him

It's embarrassing, he looks lost

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Disagree ffs we got promoted. Give the guy a chance to build a team. Changing managers has clearly worked for the past 20 years

I'm not one who subscribes to the "stability brings success" mantra - I think success brings stability - but at the same time you can't just go and make changes every five minutes because things aren't going as well as you hope-think they should. You do have to give people a chance to put together a long term project, and with the investment in the u23 if a new guy comes in and doesn't rate them we've got quite a lot of deadwood to try and offload or pay up at quite a cost.

Also, given that we're practically at the end of the transfer window if we were to sack MR anyone coming in is still left with the same strikers unable to hit a barn door. And given the stadium situation that might well put off a number of potential managers.

Last year I expected play-offs and we won them. This season had you said hovering around the play-offs/top half I'd have said that's acceptable, even if I'd hoped we might be able to use the momentum to push on more and challenge again. At this moment I don't think we're in massive danger yet and I would give MR more time to rectify it. In a month or two and we're sliding down the table then I might think he's taken this project as far as he can and it needs a change. We're nowhere near as bad as our relegation season two years ago. We had a winning streak a few months ago that we were lucky to go on, but at the same time we could've won the last three games at a canter with a clinical striker.

I'm not overly bothered about him not ranting and raving on the touchline - every personality is different but having said that there are definite deficiencies in the way we play, tactics, subs etc which MR has to be held accountable for and I can definitely see the argument of MR just being too stubborn to acknowledge them.

As I said we're a clinical striker short of a decent team IMO, but MR is responsible for signing pretty much all of them, and some of them didn't come cheap for L1 - they should be enough of a finished article at L1 level for the prices we paid, not W-I-P's. I think this is part of why he seems lost and clueless at the moment - what he's seen of these players during scouting and on the training pitch clearly doesn't translate to gameday and he can't understand why and he's run(ning) out of funds to try another player, and if they can't stick the ball in the net from some of the chances we miss what hope have we got? Maybe he needs to suggest we shoot from long range a bit more (especially of days of poor, wet weather or windy/sunny conditions affecting the keeper) and see if we get the rub of the green with a deflection or spilled shot.

Also, the argument of what on earth happens at half time and the disparity between first and second halves is alarming. You do have to ask question on motivational ability, but I often find that's down the individual and no-one can really improve it. Maybe a few of them need a bot of tough love and given a kick up the arse rather than an arm round the shoulder, just to get a 'fuck you' extra effort reaction out of them.

Too often he's played the strikers too far apart and causes us to struggle to get forward. He seems to want to defend any lead rather than extend it and even manages to make subs of forwards that are defensive (i.e. JCH the other week).

He doesn't seem able to bring a Plan B to a particular game and just sticks with what he's doing even with the subs, changing like for like. Why change a left back with three minutes left in a game you're chasing? Opposition managers make changes that alter the shape and dynamic of the team and therefore the game, but MR seems to have this mindset that how the game starts is how it will go for it's entirety - if we outplay the opposition for the first half hour then we'll outplay them the entire game and the opposition won't have anyone or anything available to them to alter that fact.

Subs tend to be left too late and/or are entirely predictable and almost seem decided in advance. So they don't affect the game positively for us. His refusla to ever sub Chaplin is now bordering on idiocy and if Chaplin is too fragile mentally to take being subbed then it says all we need to know about him, and should to MR too. It takes a brave man to accept you may have made a mistake with the transfer, but that is what MR has to be (even though he has roundly criticised Bakayoko and used him as a scapegoat pretty much since he arrived).

So while I don't think it's time to sack him, there are definitely things that would result in him being given a warning, and if by the end of March he's hasn't shown an ability, or even willingness, to try something different during a matchday, this is most definitely a conversation that needs to be revisited by the end of March in case we do feel a change is needed and give someone time to access the squad and see what/who they want to change in the summer.

For me, in the short term maybe we should consider taking the transfer funds for another forward and consider bringing in a full-time striking/ finishing coach for the rest of the season?