Robins - CWR (1 Viewer)

Brighton Sky Blue said:

We have spooged nearly £1 million on 3 strikers. 1 can't hit a barn door from 6 yards, another gets erections from offside flags and the other is played out wide. All to replace a guy who was scoring for fun in the league below and who could definitely put away sitters.

Recruitment did us 2 years ago and it's fucking us over again.

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Here we are. Only three weeks ago there were several posts praising the strength in depth we have in the squad and now we’re back to the recruitment in the summer was awful again.

28th October 2018 - were tearing the league up and off to Wembley again.
28th November 2018 - the post-mortem is in full swing.

Very knee jerk reading through from a disappointing result, it’s frustrating yes but looking back over the last 8 weeks in reality how much luck did we use seeing out some of them games in October that put us on the run and false impression of turning that corner that’s always been tricky to negotiate round.






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Earlsdon-Loyal-Blue said:

Here we are. Only three weeks ago there were several posts praising the strength in depth we have in the squad and now we’re back to the recruitment in the summer was awful again.

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The recruitment up front was clearly panicked.

If you skim over it and look at the midfield and strikers you can see why November was frustrating and not gone as many hoped November would go after a fruitful October.

Look at last nights side It’s very young, inexperienced, weak and unbalanced and strikers unbalanced too. It lacks physicality too.

Hiwula for large parts of the season has looked uncomfortable playing left wing but his ability to carry the ball at pace is why he remains suffering and struggles massively with the defensive aspects but hit some form with goals

Doyle is at the latter end of his career and might not of been expected to be used and relied upon as much he has been given the fitness/personal troubles to Kelly and Ogogo. We all know his limitations.

Bayliss is a talented young man and is having to adapt to the step up to a more physio and competitive level and played a lot of football in the space of just 12 months. He’s off the pace and looked tired late September early October prior to his minor hip injury. Decision making, form and consistency in games is a massive issue right now

Thomas is a live wire with pace in abundance, another who’s finding his feet in L1. Decision making has improved a lot but goals when in good positions are lacking but it’s all a learning curve.

JCH is being asked to reinvent himself as a target man as his physical look is the only thing about him and his game that suggests he can pull it off. He’s strength and power at times but isn’t a natural at the role and adapting to working alone often.

Chaplin is young, playing under a heavy price tag, expectation and filling the boots of a man who like him had a slow start to last season but the goals came. Confidence now looks short despite 4 goals already playing a different role to at Portsmouth.

It’s a building process that won’t happen overnight


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riched1992 said:

You are a very strange un !!!!
Fuck off one minute, Cody the next????
I dont know whether to take issue with you or if you are simply just a bit nuts.
The only Cody I can think off who has had anything to do with us is Cody McDonald????
If there is a youth player out on loan then I havent heard of him, so i cant pass comment

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steve82 said:

28th October 2018 - were tearing the league up and off to Wembley again.
28th November 2018 - the post-mortem is in full swing.

Very knee jerk reading through from a disappointing result, it’s frustrating yes but looking back over the last 8 weeks in reality how much luck did we use seeing out some of them games in October that put us on the run and false impression of turning that corner that’s always been tricky to negotiate round.






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Yep. Welcome to Knee Jerk Central.

steve82 said:

Very knee jerk reading through from a disappointing result,

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This kind of comment really pisses me off. It’s not a reaction to the result is it? It’s the manner of it. Shit argument

Nick said:

How was it knee jerk?

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Because it's such fine margins at times isn't it.

Didn't see the game, but from what people have said we could have been at least two goals to the good at the break.

That happens and we probably go and win the game. We of course didn't and ended up losing badly.

Doesn't suddenly make us a crap team. We only just finished a brilliant run of several successive wins.


Not directed at everyone, but some now are saying how bad a side we are and I think the reality is we are just an average side.

It was just knee jerk thinking we were Amazing after a winning a few games, and thinking we had an Amazing squad.

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stupot07 said:

It was just knee jerk thinking we were Amazing after a winning a few games, and thinking we had an Amazing squad.

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Exactly the notion this squad is anywhere near promotion material is laughable.

The best player is on loan from a championship club as he’s not good enough for the championship

Nick said:

How was it knee jerk?

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It isn't. The issues with Doyle have been evident since the Wimbledon game. He can't cope under pressure anymore. He barely wins a 50-50, can't keep up with anyone else with 2 legs and keeps getting dumped on his arse dithering about on the ball or arriving too slow to challenge well. Any agility he had is gone and he's getting deeper and deeper in an attempt to give himself more time on the ball. There were times in the 2nd half he was playing balls forward into our CBs!
I don't think the squad is that bad though, majority of our players look like comfortable L1 players with a couple of talented youngsters thrown in - enough to flirt with the outside play off places over the course of a season anyway, 6th to 10th place ish. Not even that bothered by the spunking of this million on 3 WiP strikers, what really frustrates me is that with promotion to a higher league we missed a golden opportunity to replace Doyle and give him a coaching/sub role.
Portsmouth and Sunderland aside (and even they were not overly especially impressive) this league is bang average again but all we've done for the last 9 games (and I know we scraped a run together with a few late goals) is the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

stupot07 said:

It was just knee jerk thinking we were Amazing after a winning a few games, and thinking we had an Amazing squad.

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Yep, exactly.

There was talk of not only playoffs, but automatic promotion too.

Some get carried away far too easily.

We weren't world beaters then and we're not relegation material now.

Think we are okay side at the moment with some frailties.

Nick said:

It wasn't a fine margin, we were awful

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Not talking about last night though, Nick. Talking about the reaction following the winning of a few games and then the losing of a few games.

Otis said:

Because it's such fine margins at times isn't it.

Didn't see the game, but from what people have said we could have been at least two goals to the good at the break.

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Yes we could have but it wasn’t a fluke that we didn’t. We are too ponderous. Take ages to engineer a shot even from clear cut opportunities. We were v poor yesterday not unlucky.

JimmyHillsbeard said:

Yes we could have but it wasn’t a fluke that we didn’t. We are too ponderous. Take ages to engineer a shot even from clear cut opportunities. We were v poor yesterday not unlucky.

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Not saying we were.

It is something that can be ironed out in training all this.

Just how many one on one (or clear run through on goal) has Thomas had tthis season?

How many times have we screamed for players to square it when players have been in much, much better positions to score.

Looks like last night we could have easily been a couple of goals up. You don't take your chances though you expect to be punished and punished we were.

Don't think anyone is claiming we were unlucky are they?

Just that we need to be more clinical and a lot less wasteful in front of goal.

At he start of the season I was happy to just stay up.

However, I’m grtting frustrated at the amount of chances we miss. We’re a clinical goal scorer away from pushing on here. Look at Madden and Evans - I’m sure someone said last night that they cost less than Bakayoko together.

I’ve had a sleep now! So I’m over the loss. Remember we stumbled into the play offs in the league below. A bit of perspective is needed.

Frustrated yes, no need to panic though

Nick said:

It's not being carried away though. I didn't get carried away or think we would win the league.

It's the basics that everybody but Robins can see. It's the fact if things aren't working we have no idea what to do.

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It is rectifiable though you would have thought.

I do like Robins, but he does worry me at times in sticking to the tried and trusted.

A few things jump straight out at most people and they are really simple.

Doyle needs to be rested for some games. Chaplin and JCH need to play closer together. We don't get enough bodies into the box at times.

We see it time and time again, but nothing much seems to change.

I still have faith in the bloke, but wonder if sometimes his stubbornness stops us moving forwards as a club.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

The recruitment up front was clearly panicked.

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Some of the signings so far haven't quite clicked, I agree. This isn't directed at you personally but the yo-yoing on here and the cov fans forum on facebook, from strength in depth to poor summer recruitment, after a couple of wins or a couple of defeats is exasperating.

Last month, we won 5 in 5, this month we've done poorly. We're still finding out feet in a higher division and I would of happily taken midtable this season.

I'm not doing the whole recruitment appraisal because frankly it's boring and it's been done to death already on here but it's clear the team is still gelling.

On Chaplin:

- Chaplin, who I think will get at least 15 goals this season, is coming deep to receive the ball because our midfield is struggling to link the play from midfield to attack. Without Bayliss driving forward, the link between midfield and attack is nearly non-existent. Doyler is currently taking a lot of blame for it and I think he needs a bit of a rest but I think the biggest problem is coming from the wings.

The key role of the winger is linking up with the strikers and Hiwula and Thomas are not linking up, at all. Hiwula because he's a striker playing out of position and Thomas because he's a raw 19 year old, with frustrating end product, that just takes the shot on again and again and again - without scoring. If someone can find the stat of how many crosses or key passes have been delivered by Thomas or Hiwula this season, I would love to see it and I'm confident it will be very low.

I agree with the constructive criticism, that Chaplin shouldn't drop deeper to hunt for the ball. Firstly, because he's a poacher and we want him in the box and on the shoulder of the last defender, not stood on top of Bayliss. Secondly, because this is taking Chaplin further away from Clarke-Harris, which then makes JCH look ineffective when there's nobody to pick up his flick ons or hold up play.... but the main reason Chaplin is doing this is because of the midfield and our inability to link to attack and it's totally reliant upon Bayliss, who opposition teams are then singling out.

- McNulty (a class act) scored his 28 goals in League 2. Chaplin is playing a league above and has more goals than McNulty had this time last season.

- Chaplin's 21, McNulty is 26. McNulty has 5 years experience on the game over Chaplin. To expect Chaplin to come in and immediately take the reigns from McNulty is unfair, particularly when McNulty was on fire for the second half of the season. I was just as excited as everyone else when we signed Chaplin but we've got to give him a chance to adapt to the team and vice versa. Chaplin's 3 months into a 4 year deal and has gone from being a squad player to our central striker. I'm convinced Chaplin will come good.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

That is true but I don't recall him missing quite this many gilt-edged sitters. More concerning is the same style of play as last year where MR is slow to make changes and when he does they are either like for like or, as tonight, nonsensical. You really don't need to be a tactical mastermind in these shit leagues but he sure knows how to make heavy weather of it. Made Joey Barton look like Guardiola tonight.

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well yeah we all miss mowbrays football

but i have faith in robins, last time there were runs of form where we felt we wernt good enough but then we would turn it aroun and learn from our mistakes etc

normally i am distraught after a loss but tbh las tnight i officialy gave up on autos. so now just focussing on playoffs which is still doable.

but time for robins to earn his money

also if we get 5 wins 2 draws and 2 losses from every 9 games we will easily do it!

JimmyHillsbeard said:

Yes we could have but it wasn’t a fluke that we didn’t. We are too ponderous. Take ages to engineer a shot even from clear cut opportunities. We were v poor yesterday not unlucky.

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We are very static in attack as we don't pass and move through the opposition's defence. This ponderousness comes through the lack of fluidity, players are stood still, waiting for the ball never sure if it is coming - it's a symptom of the way we attack through Bayliss and Thomas individually dribbling. The oppo's defence backpeddles and stops on the edge of their own box, strikers have no room to run in behind and we are reliant on individual skill to break down the opposition. We did it last year too for the first half of the season, with Jones and Nazon, but we got away with it in L2 to an extent because Doyle was a year younger and the standard was poorer, so we kept clean sheets. It was partially successful because we were in and around the playoffs but we were very 1 dimentional and reliant on being individually better than opposition instead of beating them as a team. Only in the last 10 or so games did the reins come off and we looked like a quality side from 1-11.

Any manager is going to look at us now and just play deep because are formation is toothless against it - we have to get a plan B going when teams do that. Burton played high against us first half and Thomas almost got in on mulitple occasions, they came out 2nd half, dropped deep and dominated us because it nullifies our attack, stretches the midfield battle in their advantage as ours is being covered by a skinny 19 year old and a 37 year old who is only comfortable on the toes of his defence.

steve82 said:

28th October 2018 - were tearing the league up and off to Wembley again.
28th November 2018 - the post-mortem is in full swing.

Very knee jerk reading through from a disappointing result, it’s frustrating yes but looking back over the last 8 weeks in reality how much luck did we use seeing out some of them games in October that put us on the run and false impression of turning that corner that’s always been tricky to negotiate round.






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I said it after we had won 5 in a row there is nothing in it in between the teams in this division they could have been 5 draws or 5 losses we were never going to be in the playoffs this season.hopefully pick up enough wins to stay up this season and kick on next season

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I was as pissed off as anybody last night because we missed gilt edged chances in the 1st half and were awful all round in the 2nd but we are a young team adapting to a higher league and I'd have snapped your hand off for the opportunity to be within touching distance of the playoffs going in to December.

The team is evolving and adjusting to one another and I'm convinced that will come to fruition eventually. We're going to have bad games, we had loads of them last year and manged to finish 6th, but at least we seem to have a coherent plan of how we're developing.

Higher up on this thread I noted "We only just finished a brilliant run of several successive wins."

The truth is 2-3 of those 5 in a row we were lucky to win and since then (including cup games) we are now 6 without a win. The signs were not good that we can show any reason why that form should suddenly turn round either.

rob9872 said:

Higher up on this thread I noted "We only just finished a brilliant run of several successive wins."

The truth is 2-3 of those 5 in a row we were lucky to win and since then (including cup games) we are now 6 without a win. The signs were not good that we can show any reason why that form should suddenly turn round either.

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I totally agree.

Been some of our wins and draws where I don't think we've deserved it at all.

The more recent results seem more suited to what we deserve to be honest.

Sloppy midfield and wasteful upfront.

Has he even surfaced yet?

Liquid Gold said:

I was as pissed off as anybody last night because we missed gilt edged chances in the 1st half and were awful all round in the 2nd but we are a young team adapting to a higher league and I'd have snapped your hand off for the opportunity to be within touching distance of the playoffs going in to December.

The team is evolving and adjusting to one another and I'm convinced that will come to fruition eventually. We're going to have bad games, we had loads of them last year and manged to finish 6th, but at least we seem to have a coherent plan of how we're developing.

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That is true but I do think that some of the late winners have been somewhat fortunate - I expect us to finish lower mid-table personally.

Earlsdon_Skyblue1 said:

Has he even surfaced yet?

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Surfaced from what?

I have looked at most team in this dvision and apart from Burton, Portsmouth & Sunderland the rest have got fuck all (us included) i have been to games and thought we are in control of this no problems and then we make a mistake and its all goes pear shaped. we can can finish in a Play Off position but we have to learn to concentrate and cut the mistakes out.

Warwickhunt said:

I have looked at most team in this dvision and apart from Burton, Portsmouth & Sunderland the rest have got fuck all (us included) i have been to games and thought we are in control of this no problems and then we make a mistake and its all goes pear shaped. we can can finish in a Play Off position but we have to learn to concentrate and cut the mistakes out.

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We would need to start scoring more goals in order make them, IMO.

Earlsdon_Skyblue1 said:

Has he even surfaced yet?

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Still going at it?