How Long Will BM Last at this rate?????

[Snowball]

I think some miss the point, about whether this manager is a cheap option,
or whether, short-term, another manager can turn things round.

Nor is it relevant what a player or manager has done for us in the past.


In the case of the manager of a team where confidence is shot, where in-fighting
has begun and appears to be increasing, where effort appears to be declining, where
choices seem ever-more odd, where some players, good-enough players are excluded,
where morale continues to fall, where results are slowly worsening, sometimes the
only way to create even the possibility of an upturn, is for someone to be sacrificed.

Usually that is the manager. Very occasionally it's a chairman or a clique of players.



For me, the larger, longer-term issue is this. What if we follow these five poor defeats by poor teams
with heavy defeats, maybe 0-3 or 0-4 to Arsenal, then 6-0 away at Manchester City, then lose at home
to the excellent Swansea team and lose to West Ham?

The structure is then tarnished, the manager goes anyway, no players want to come to Reading in January
and we are headed for the worst or second-worst points total ever and a terrible season next year, still
reeling from the effects of a disastrous premiership campaign. Teams don't just shrug off a disastrous season.
It can go to the heart of the club, affect coaching, management, purchases.

If, OTOH, McDermott resigns and a new manager comes in, that manager gets a grace period, a honeymoon,
where the defeats are not laid at his feet. He can come in and set out a new strategy of building for next
year and the year after while still "giving it a go" this year. The right manager might have connections and be
able to bring better players with that promise.

Relegation? You have Brian McDermott who, rightly or not, will be seen as failing, steering a team which will surely
now have a near-record low points total. His presence will be drastically weakened. He will most probably be seen
as a manger who went a level too high, and/or a manager who got lucky in 2011-12 and stole the league (something
I said last season.)

Or you have a new broom, who comes in, is relatively UN-tarnished and is given the brief to save face this season
while building a new team for the next four.

I have great respect for Brian. I like the bloke. But my head says it's 99% certain he can't change things now.

Had we been 6th-bottom and things collapsed over the last dozen games, THEN the manager might bounce back,
but that is not the case with Reading 2013. We are now W1 D6 L9. That 9 may well be 12 or 13 by year-end.

I don't believe we can bounce back from that. Successive relegations could be possible.

[melonhead]

cant steal a league

(something
I said last season.)

you say alot of things, much of it arse water

[Maguire]

Yeah i'm worried we might lose the next game, like 100-0 and get relegated to the championship which we can then "steal" by earning the most points completely fairly over a 46 game season.

[RobRoyal]

a team which will surely now have a near-record low points total.

Come on, that's not true.

[melonhead]

we are near the record points total now if thats what he means

[Snowball]

a team which will surely now have a near-record low points total.

Come on, that's not true.

IMO we were improving slowly but now look like imploding. Not too hard too imagine a points total around 20.

Not what I want to happen, but we look i serious trouble. I expected a minimum of WDDD from Villa etc
and to get nothing is scary.

[melonhead]

WDDD

lol

[Snowball]

[quote="melonhead"]cant steal a league





Funny, but there are a fair few serious posters who DO think we were lucky last season
and that's why we are struggling now, because the core of the squad was simply not up
to Premiership standard.

Many have dismissed Feds, Harte, Hunt, Church, HRK, Gorks, Ledge, McAnuff, Bryn, Tabb as not good enough
with Cummings and Alf marginal, Kebe inconsistent, Roberts ageing, Pearce maybe too slow...

[Lacoste]

Melonhead, You have the loyalty of a spastic, the brains of a gypsy and the football knowledge of a 10 year old girl.

Give up.

[The Beardy Man]

I think some miss the point, about whether this manager is a cheap option,
or whether, short-term, another manager can turn things round.

Nor is it relevant what a player or manager has done for us in the past.


In the case of the manager of a team where confidence is shot, where in-fighting
has begun and appears to be increasing, where effort appears to be declining, where
choices seem ever-more odd, where some players, good-enough players are excluded,
where morale continues to fall, where results are slowly worsening, sometimes the
only way to create even the possibility of an upturn, is for someone to be sacrificed.

Usually that is the manager. Very occasionally it's a chairman or a clique of players.



For me, the larger, longer-term issue is this. What if we follow these five poor defeats by poor teams
with heavy defeats, maybe 0-3 or 0-4 to Arsenal, then 6-0 away at Manchester City, then lose at home
to the excellent Swansea team and lose to West Ham?

The structure is then tarnished, the manager goes anyway, no players want to come to Reading in January
and we are headed for the worst or second-worst points total ever and a terrible season next year, still
reeling from the effects of a disastrous premiership campaign. Teams don't just shrug off a disastrous season.
It can go to the heart of the club, affect coaching, management, purchases.

If, OTOH, McDermott resigns and a new manager comes in, that manager gets a grace period, a honeymoon,
where the defeats are not laid at his feet. He can come in and set out a new strategy of building for next
year and the year after while still "giving it a go" this year. The right manager might have connections and be
able to bring better players with that promise.

Relegation? You have Brian McDermott who, rightly or not, will be seen as failing, steering a team which will surely
now have a near-record low points total. His presence will be drastically weakened. He will most probably be seen
as a manger who went a level too high, and/or a manager who got lucky in 2011-12 and stole the league (something
I said last season.)

Or you have a new broom, who comes in, is relatively UN-tarnished and is given the brief to save face this season
while building a new team for the next four.

I have great respect for Brian. I like the bloke. But my head says it's 99% certain he can't change things now.

Had we been 6th-bottom and things collapsed over the last dozen games, THEN the manager might bounce back,
but that is not the case with Reading 2013. We are now W1 D6 L9. That 9 may well be 12 or 13 by year-end.

I don't believe we can bounce back from that. Successive relegations could be possible.

I agree with most of this.

I think the arguing over 'stealing the league' is a bit of a red herring. The team that wins it deserves to, doesn't mean they were the strongest team in the league. Does mean they were the most effective when it mattered.

Being effective when it mattered has not been an accusation that can be laid at the door of the this years vintage. Certainly not all McDermott's fault, but for the reasons above it may be easier for him to be the sacrificial lamb.

Whether that is morally right or wrong is a different question.

[Maguire]

cant steal a league

Funny, but there are a fair few serious posters who DO think we were lucky last season
and that's why we are struggling now, because the core of the squad was simply not up
to Premiership standard.

Many have dismissed Feds, Harte, Hunt, Church, HRK, Gorks, Ledge, McAnuff, Bryn, Tabb as not good enough
with Cummings and Alf marginal, Kebe inconsistent, Roberts ageing, Pearce maybe too slow...

seROFLious posters

Only Reading fans could hate themselves for winning the fcking league.

[ZacNaloen]

C'mon people.

There's much more important things to discuss in the u18's match thread.

[Snowball]

Mags, I was chuffed we won the league, thrilled to bits we won the league,
just like any other fan, and I lost my voice when we clinched promotion/the championship

But I worried, because I did NOT think we had great players, or, frankly, a great team.

At Brighton, West Ham, and Southampton we could've and IMO should've, shipped a load of goals and lost heavily
but those sides froze and missed too often. That is, it was less we won those games deservedly
than the opposition blew it. A definite difference IMO.

That did not bode well for the future and more than once, after those games
and other games where we won because other sides blew too many chances
I said we could not get away with playing like that in the Premiership.

IMO West Ham and Saints were much better squads and had better, classier individuals
than us, which meant they had genuine Premiership players at their core. Their additions
just made the gap even bigger.

In the SSC season when we went up and the season after we came down we THRASHED sides
and the win was utterly, totally clearly deserved, 5-0s and 6-0s etc

Like any other fan, if we go away, get hammered and nick a 1-0 I am pleased,
but in the end, not having the class catches up with a team

[Maguire]

At Brighton, West Ham, and Southampton we could've and IMO should've, shipped a load of goals and lost heavily
but those sides froze and missed too often. That is, it was less we won those games deservedly
than the opposition blew it. A definite difference IMO

Went away to big old West Ham and spanked them 4-2 on their own turf. Went away to Southampton in a title decider and stuck three past them.

That's not lucky. Why "should" we have "shipped a load of goals"?? If those side were better at football maybe but they weren't. It's not like Southampton missed a string of sitters and indeed at West Ham we were about an inch away from winning 5-2 when Roberts' cutback was judged over the line.

Brighton - we hit the bar with a free header from six yards. Why not say it "should" have been 2-0?

Don't get me wrong, i don't think RFC played spectacular football last season but we were better at football than any other side in the division and fully deserved the title. West Ham lost 7-2 to us over two games, that's a battering. No amount of revisionism is going to convince me that somehow we fluked it.

[RoyallyFcuked]

Does make you wonder what was offered to Guthrie and Pog to get them here. Clearly Bmc saw something in them and went after them, not with a bag of cash but maybe the assurance of first team football.

Wouldnt agree with that regarding Pog, the only reason he is here is because of AZ and the 40k a week wage (he probably thought he would be starting every week too but im gald he isnt). As for Guthrie, the chance of first team football probably was a reason he came, which is probably why he is so pissed off he isnt getting it.

Pearce not signing a new deal is because of Pog's contact, he would have been saying "If he is worth nearly 40k a week then so am I."
And to be fair, hes got a point.

[creative_username_1]

At Brighton, West Ham, and Southampton we could've and IMO should've, shipped a load of goals and lost heavily
but those sides froze and missed too often. That is, it was less we won those games deservedly
than the opposition blew it. A definite difference IMO

Went away to big old West Ham and spanked them 4-2 on their own turf. Went away to Southampton in a title decider and stuck three past them.

That's not lucky. Why "should" we have "shipped a load of goals"?? If those side were better at football maybe but they weren't. It's not like Southampton missed a string of sitters and indeed at West Ham we were about an inch away from winning 5-2 when Roberts' cutback was judged over the line.

Brighton - we hit the bar with a free header from six yards. Why not say it "should" have been 2-0?

Don't get me wrong, i don't think RFC played spectacular football last season but we were better at football than any other side in the division and fully deserved the title. West Ham lost 7-2 to us over two games, that's a battering. No amount of revisionism is going to convince me that somehow we fluked it.

This. 'Should have' can cunt off*




*copyright Leon 2012

[SPARTA]

"Have heard Arsenal should be Brian's last game. The problems with Guthrie, Roberts and Federici have left the club with no choice."

This is from a usually reliable guy, but we'll see...

[Man Friday]

At Brighton, West Ham, and Southampton we could've and IMO should've, shipped a load of goals and lost heavily
but those sides froze and missed too often. That is, it was less we won those games deservedly
than the opposition blew it. A definite difference IMO

That's what my eyes saw. Same with Everton this season. WIth Sunderland we were were in the unusual position of the oppo taking most of their chances.

[Man Friday]

"Have heard Arsenal should be Brian's last game. The problems with Guthrie, Roberts and Federici have left the club with no choice."

This is from a usually reliable guy, but we'll see...

What's that about Roberts?

[SPARTA]

"Have heard Arsenal should be Brian's last game. The problems with Guthrie, Roberts and Federici have left the club with no choice."

This is from a usually reliable guy, but we'll see...

What's that about Roberts?

He apparently had a go at Brian after the Southampton shambles. Those rumours seemed to be very close when Roberts was dropped last night for an 18 year old.