I watched the Spurs game yesterday with a mate here in Copenhagen, he definitely took their collapse better than I took our result on Saturday.
I'm just getting nothing from football at the moment, not a Saturday win since April, that's shocking.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on the football department at Cov at the moment, 9 games in.
- There is something fundamentally wrong with the setup at the moment. The new performance director came in in March/April, since then we have made a lot of changes, seemingly positive ones. The issue is people need to see these changes bring positive results and that hasn't happened, quite the opposite.
- I don't see a happy camp there, the players don't seem as tight knit as they have done but again, this could be because we are not winning games or maybe we have lost those big characters? I don't know.
- Robins looks lost and for the first time he seems to have lost a bit of control on the club and how he wants to do things. The new coaching setup is not for me, I called it at the time. It just seems like a bunch of merry men who don't really know their roles and I don't understand the structure, it seems off but again, easy to say when we are not winning games. No idea what happened with Adi but our form dropped off last season after Leeds and I do absolutely recognize last season as part for this awful run.
- My biggest problem I have with Cov in the past 12-15 months is the recruitment. I am not going to overly criticize the scouting department because they've clearly worked hard and I do think we have bought well in some players. However, I know I go on about it again and again but the fact we have not signed the right midfield players and experienced centre backs is unforgivable. These have been the bedrock of our form over the years (Hamer/Fadz) I don't subscribe to "we missed out" or the "deal wasn't right", no. You have a list and you move onto the next one but you get players in those positions.
- It was interesting hearing Robins after the Sheff Wed game, he talked about them having pace and power. Where do we have pace and power throughout our team? Specifically through the middle of the pitch. A little pace and power with van Ewijk admittedly, same with Wright when he is up for it but not power really. I look at EMC, on paper he ticks both boxes but I can't remember being so underwhelmed by a player, a 4m player! Simms again, NO power and not even that quick, Torp, Eccles, Sheaf, etc. Good players but they are not as dynamic as what Hamer was, he darted around the pitch at pace and drove the team on, we have not got that but I saw a few doing it for Wednesday. We have signed a load of technical players who don't seem to know how we should play.
- What is our style? I can't work it out. There was a lot of talk about it in the summer, this new style of football but I don't see it. I see sideways, backwards passing with no real purpose. There was a time when Robins was known for really attacking football, surely we can agree that we are not that team anymore, we are awful to watch.
- Why are we so bad at keeping clean sheets? It's so desperate, we used to love a 1-0 but I go into every game knowing we need at least 2 goals to be competitive, which is not going to get us top half, let alone higher. Thee defenders we have signed have also been poor, they've never really settled down, maybe too many changes? Kitching is someone I really want to like but he makes so many mistakes, Thomas the same but I actually though the latter played well on Saturday. When I think of a solid back line and being hard to beat, I do not think of Lati, Binks, DaSilva... I just don't.
- So far this season I have seen a really good spell against Oxford and patches again Watford, that's it. The Spurs game was decent sure, but in terms of the league, nah. I even said on here after Blackburn game that it was a great result but the opposition were really poor and I still maintain that view, we didn't play like a team who won 3-0, it massively flattered us.
This is just my mental download, I think this break is for Doug to have a good look at this start and not to just replace Robins as I don't think that is actually the issue. I think the issue runs much deeper and we need to realign what the structure at the club is, who's doing what and why.
Preston away is the worst possible fixture but let's hope we can go and give a performance.