Brian: The right decision?

[Cureton's Volley]

he had lost a lot of the dressing room

Worst. Cliche. Ever.

Privy to conversations within the inner sanctums of the Madejski Stadium are we?

And your assertion that we were heading for a midtable finish without the signing of Roberts could in some way be seen to be a fair one.....but it totally disregards the context of the 5th place finish the season before. And of course BMc had to sell his best player - the player whom we had built our team around the previous season - in successive summer transfer windows and still took us to 5th place and then 1st place. Compare that to the generous-looking budget Adkins has spaffed on ageing, crocked left backs and overweight unfit wingers.

People 'pining for McDermott' could - as you say - be seen as 'sad'.....but belittling his achievements whilst bigging up the supposed superior football we are playing under Adkins in the face of the dull and uninspiring reality is downright tragic. Under Brian in his last 12 months alone we had West Ham and Saints away, two of the most gripping and clinical performances I have ever seen from Reading and even in that last, chastening season we still had some belting games such as a 3-4 against would-be Champions Man Utd. In 8 months under Adkins we've had, what, 45 pleasant minutes of football against Watford. And that has been just about it really in terms of excitement. Still, as long as we win 55-45 in terms of possession stats eh

Top Nobbing

[winchester_royal]

The point I'm making is that just because Brian is doing well at Leeds that doesn't necessarily make it so that he'd have led us to glory this season. A fresh start with new players that he didn't have entrenched opinions on was the best thing for him imho, and it doesn't come as a huge surprise to me that the one player he took with him to Leeds has had a pretty atrocious season thus far.

No-one knows how good or bad Brian would have been this season.

The argument is that we have to stop making excuses for Adkins - that just makes us as deluded as the club. I've heard/read all sorts of nonsense about Adkins, not least from Adkins himself. IMO, we're a demotivated mess and it doesn't matter how much of a shift Pog puts in, or what possession stats we have, or that Guthrie can play a Hollywood pass every now and then - the fact is the club is sliding away from the reality that we are in the championship and we aren't entitled to get promoted from it. I believe Adkins is cruising as much as the Team Board is at the moment - desperately looking for chinks of light rather than addressing the problems at hand. That makes him a suspect manager in my book.

I repeat I have no idea if Brian could do any better, but I thought he was a decent manager with a ropey team in the championship last time. I feel a bit sorry for Adkins - he's been set up to fail (but he took the job when he knew it was set up to fail), but the time has come for him to get his head out of the clouds, lower his expectations, motivate the team and not come home from a tricky away game contented, when we could have won it with a stonewall penalty. If he don't care, why should we?

And the Noel Hunt analogy doesn't work. The last time we gave away all the club players who cared about the club was under Burns and we took years to get over that.

You literally didn't respond to anything I said.

Anywho, where's this idea that McDermott's working with no money come from?

This summer at Leeds he brought in 4 players (+2 loan players) for a combined net fee of around £2m. While we brought in 3 players (+1 loan player + 1 short term contract player) for a combined net fee of minus £3m. Granted the Leeds wage bill is lower, but then again ours is full to the brim of injured/regressing older players that Adkins was saddled with and lower league punts that we wasted our money on in January. Meanwhile there's plenty of quality players in the Leeds squad that are on big money, the likes of McCormack, Byram, Kenny, Austin, Tonge, and Warnock for example. Not to mention the fact that they're list on injuries doesn't come close to ours. I'm not sure the job Bri has at Leeds is a whole lot tougher than the one Nigel's got on his hands here.

[Sanguine]

Sometimes things just run their course and a fresh voice is needed.

Id agree if we were talking about Coppell - he went stale a good year before he left.
Brian hadn't gone stale. A club is a club. It isn't just a manager. Anyone could see the club was a mess last year and it wasn't just McDermott. He was the fall guy for a number of people. Probably the same people who leaked a photo of us talking to a player in the transfer window and then made a story out of it.

I will say again that Brian was dreadful in the Wigan game, but surely everybody has bad weeks?

That's not an opinion shared by all, in fact many (not me, I'd add) were calling for his head before Xmas, and before he was sacked. Brian's tactical nous had been up for debate for some time - he was beginning to be seen as a pretty one-dimensional manager, perhaps a bit void of the ideas required to take our team further forward.

[floyd__streete]

I think the issue many people have is not with Adkins himself per se (although the bloke makes it very difficult to warm to him really with endless psychobabble) but the snobbery from some regarding the percentage football we played before. Sure, it wasn't successful for us in the Premier League but a club like Stoke has made it work for many years now at that level.

We've had the previous regime summed up as 'panic and hit & hope' football on the page before. We 'panicked and hit and hoped' our way to a play off final and a championship and some of our very best FA Cup results since the 2nd world war. And now the failings of the current turgid football which is creating so few chances from open play is being blamed on 'McDermott's old boys' looking 'very uncomfortable with the ball at their feet'. Seems to me that the Adkins apologists are the ones who are expert at goalpost manoeuvre

[Sanguine]

I think some people just like watching good football, and that's what Adkins promises/promised. As I wrote on the Nigel thread, I don't think he has the squad he wanted, my personal view is that it was taken out of his hands a bit, and now he is short of all of the players he needs to create a team playing the way he wants them to. In that sense, only three league defeats this season, with a handful of good displays, and a half against Watford where we looked like Barca, isn't an awful return, it's just not quite what looked possible when Adkins came in last season and immediately got us playing differently, and, arguably, better.

[Wimb]

I think the issue many people have is not with Adkins himself per se (although the bloke makes it very difficult to warm to him really with endless psychobabble) but the snobbery from some regarding the percentage football we played before. Sure, it wasn't successful for us in the Premier League but a club like Stoke has made it work for many years now at that level.

We've had the previous regime summed up as 'panic and hit & hope' football on the page before. We 'panicked and hit and hoped' our way to a play off final and a championship and some of our very best FA Cup results since the 2nd world war. And now the failings of the current turgid football which is creating so few chances from open play is being blamed on 'McDermott's old boys' looking 'very uncomfortable with the ball at their feet'. Seems to me that the Adkins apologists are the ones who are expert at goalpost manoeuvre

^^^^ agreed.

Some of the football under Brian was every bit as exciting as the tippy tappy style we've seen lauded up in recent years.

Take a look back at some of those games at the back end of 09/10 with Gylfi in the side and us playing 4-2-3-1, bloody great entertainment. The argument that Brian only knew 1 style of football and we were 'doomed' with him just doesn't hold up.

Sadly for whatever reason after promotion he failed to get the right players in, had some utterly stupid backroom problems and just made some baffling panicked decisions that made his sacking sadly inevitable.

However as Mags said, to just judge his abilities based on a lacklustre 7 months in the Premier League isn't doing anyone justice.

[melonhead]

i think good football is subjective, and you and alot of people seem to have been dragged into the view that tika taka is the best type of football to watch.

it isnt.
it might be when you have messi as the fulcrum, but even then ive seen quite a few barca games that were incredibly tedious. 80+minutes of knocking it around at the back, probing into midfield, then passing back again does not a good football match make, even if it does result in a really nice goal in the remaining ten minutes the ball ends up in the box.

the reason the premiere league is the most popular is that it doesnt really do that style of football, and if we continue to push it down that route we wont have the most popular league in the world any more.

[Zana Badawi]

. I'm not sure the job Bri has at Leeds is a whole lot tougher than the one Nigel's got on his hands here.

Im sure Brian's job is a lot easier tbh.
Leeds have done their two or three years in denial - Brian has joined them at a good time - or as good a time as joining a team like Leeds can be.

Im sure we're agreeing on quite a few things, but I don't believe that Brian having an easier job makes him a worse manager than Adkins or validates the opinion that it was the right decision to let him go. Its all guesswork, of course, but I really cant see a bright future for Adkins AT ALL. I don't especially dislike him, but I fail to see that he's actually done anything and, even worse, Ive lost faith that he will actually do anything in the future.

[floyd__streete]

Take a look back at some of those games at the back end of 09/10 with Gylfi in the side and us playing 4-2-3-1, bloody great entertainment. The argument that Brian only knew 1 style of football and we were 'doomed' with him just doesn't hold up.

Good of you to bring up 09/10, m8. The second half of that season - in contrast to the absymal fare under Rodgers - was as an enjoyable time following Reading as I have had; 4s against Derby and Preston, 5 against Sheffield Wednesday, 6 against Peterborough (as opposed to Wednesday and Peterborough scoring 5 and 6 against us, of course )

Then Gylfi was sold . And yet as you say we still somehow got to the play-off final the following May With that 'panic and hit & hope' football

Percentage football which creates chances & goals > Guthrie taking a short pass from Pearce and pinging a 25 yard pass towards HRK and out of play.

[Zana Badawi]

i think good football is subjective, and you and alot of people seem to have been dragged into the view that tika taka is the best type of football to watch.
.

My favourite game last year was Man United at home. It was a ludicrous game and we lost it. We went for it though.
Not a touch of tika taka in sight.

[winchester_royal]

'Greed that the fast paced football centred around dynamic wingers that we played in the better McDermott periods was fantastic to watch. The problem for me though, was that we just didn't see any of that last season. The games we did win came through grinding results out with heroic backs-to-wall efforts, usually with a late goal or two thrown in, rather than pulsating displays. Teams knew how to stop us, so when it came to the crunch matches against the teams around us the opposing managers consistently got the better of BMc because we didn't have a plan B. I have no doubt that given the chance again he'd do things differently, but there were too many wounds to heal for it to have been here.

There needs to be a hybrid of keeping possession when it needs to be kept, and getting the ball forward quickly when there's space to be exploited. Fulham away last season was the perfect performance in that respect, and the reason I'm feeling underwhelmed this season is because we haven't seen enough of that performance mirrored in the way we've been playing this season.

[Extended-Phenotype]

I think the issue many people have is not with Adkins himself per se (although the bloke makes it very difficult to warm to him really with endless psychobabble) but the snobbery from some regarding the percentage football we played before. Sure, it wasn't successful for us in the Premier League but a club like Stoke has made it work for many years now at that level.

We've had the previous regime summed up as 'panic and hit & hope' football on the page before. We 'panicked and hit and hoped' our way to a play off final and a championship and some of our very best FA Cup results since the 2nd world war. And now the failings of the current turgid football which is creating so few chances from open play is being blamed on 'McDermott's old boys' looking 'very uncomfortable with the ball at their feet'. Seems to me that the Adkins apologists are the ones who are expert at goalpost manoeuvre

Seems completely illogical to discredit a decision made at a point in time previous to information unobtainable at that time, i.e. the future. Hence, using information in advance of the event of Brian's sacking, e.g. McD's success or Adkins failure, is a weak tool for attacking the decision - unless of course the criticism was aimed at the club's crystal ball or time machine. In the absence of either of those, it seems fair to apply the maxim: hindsight is a wonderful thing.

As for passing football vs direct football, I think the concern is more with what type of football will help us compete better in the Premier League. Direct didn't work. Barcelona football is not really what we are likely to be aiming for. More confidence on the ball, keeping possession better, having more of a range to our passing, trying to break through teams while in command of the ball rather than reducing the last third to 50/50's - it's just about learning a stronger game of football.

It's not really about making it look nice and passing it around for an eternity.

[winchester_royal]

. I'm not sure the job Bri has at Leeds is a whole lot tougher than the one Nigel's got on his hands here.

Im sure Brian's job is a lot easier tbh.
Leeds have done their two or three years in denial - Brian has joined them at a good time - or as good a time as joining a team like Leeds can be.

Im sure we're agreeing on quite a few things, but I don't believe that Brian having an easier job makes him a worse manager than Adkins or validates the opinion that it was the right decision to let him go. Its all guesswork, of course, but I really cant see a bright future for Adkins AT ALL. I don't especially dislike him, but I fail to see that he's actually done anything and, even worse, Ive lost faith that he will actually do anything in the future.

Hey hey hey hey. I don't think Brian is a worse manager than Nigel. I think they're very different managers with different strengths. My point was merely that using the work Brian is doing at Leeds as a stick with which to beat Adkins is not totally fair.

I think we'll eventually see progress under Nigel, it's far too soon to write him off, but my confidence is based more on his record at previous clubs than anything we've seen this season I'll admit.

[melonhead]

'Greed that the fast paced football centred around dynamic wingers that we played in the better McDermott periods was fantastic to watch. The problem for me though, was that we just didn't see any of that last season. The games we did win came through grinding results out with heroic backs-to-wall efforts, usually with a late goal or two thrown in, rather than pulsating displays. Teams knew how to stop us, so when it came to the crunch matches against the teams around us the opposing managers consistently got the better of BMc because we didn't have a plan B. I have no doubt that given the chance again he'd do things differently, but there were too many wounds to heal for it to have been here.

There needs to be a hybrid of keeping possession when it needs to be kept, and getting the ball forward quickly when there's space to be exploited. Fulham away last season was the perfect performance in that respect, and the reason I'm feeling underwhelmed this season is because we haven't seen enough of that performance mirrored in the way we've been playing this season.

we saw plenty at the start, where our swashbuckling style was hugely entertaining. its just we kept getting hammered.
agreed on the hybrid. love bayerns high pressing/counterattacking style

[winchester_royal]

'Greed that the fast paced football centred around dynamic wingers that we played in the better McDermott periods was fantastic to watch. The problem for me though, was that we just didn't see any of that last season. The games we did win came through grinding results out with heroic backs-to-wall efforts, usually with a late goal or two thrown in, rather than pulsating displays. Teams knew how to stop us, so when it came to the crunch matches against the teams around us the opposing managers consistently got the better of BMc because we didn't have a plan B. I have no doubt that given the chance again he'd do things differently, but there were too many wounds to heal for it to have been here.

There needs to be a hybrid of keeping possession when it needs to be kept, and getting the ball forward quickly when there's space to be exploited. Fulham away last season was the perfect performance in that respect, and the reason I'm feeling underwhelmed this season is because we haven't seen enough of that performance mirrored in the way we've been playing this season.

we saw plenty at the start, where our swashbuckling style was hugely entertaining. its just we kept getting hammered.
agreed on the hybrid. love bayerns high pressing/counterattacking style

Chelsea was a gr8 performance, if we'd played in a similar fashion all season we'd have stayed up. Aside from that? I still have the memories of insipid away displays at the likes of Southampton and Sunderland, rolling over at home to Spurs etc. I guess the biggest issue was that we wingers available to us just weren't good enough to consistently get the better of top end Premier League full backs.

[Hoop Blah]

I think the issue many people have is not with Adkins himself per se (although the bloke makes it very difficult to warm to him really with endless psychobabble) but the snobbery from some regarding the percentage football we played before. Sure, it wasn't successful for us in the Premier League but a club like Stoke has made it work for many years now at that level.

We've had the previous regime summed up as 'panic and hit & hope' football on the page before. We 'panicked and hit and hoped' our way to a play off final and a championship and some of our very best FA Cup results since the 2nd world war. And now the failings of the current turgid football which is creating so few chances from open play is being blamed on 'McDermott's old boys' looking 'very uncomfortable with the ball at their feet'. Seems to me that the Adkins apologists are the ones who are expert at goalpost manoeuvre

Percentage football has it's limitations yes, and the fashion is to love away from it as the game evolves and so should the tactics you employ, but, having said that, if McDermott had made his limited style of football work, as Pulis did at Stoke, then he wouldn't have got the sack.

His limited style was too limited and his deployment of his resources too ineffectual so he paid the price after being given more than a fair crack of the whip.

[Zana Badawi]

. My point was merely that using the work Brian is doing at Leeds as a stick with which to beat Adkins is not totally fair. .

I agree, but the converse is true as well. Looking for holes in McDermott's record at Leeds is no marker of his ability versus Adkins. I think the fact he took Hunt to Leeds is irrelevant to be honest. If he'd taken Shorey, however, then I think that would be a black mark against his name

I think we'll eventually see progress under Nigel, it's far too soon to write him off, but my confidence is based more on his record at previous clubs than anything we've seen this season I'll admit.

I don't. I don't think he's grasped the predicament we're in.

[Man Friday]

I think the issue many people have is not with Adkins himself per se (although the bloke makes it very difficult to warm to him really with endless psychobabble) but the snobbery from some regarding the percentage football we played before. Sure, it wasn't successful for us in the Premier League but a club like Stoke has made it work for many years now at that level.

We've had the previous regime summed up as 'panic and hit & hope' football on the page before. We 'panicked and hit and hoped' our way to a play off final and a championship and some of our very best FA Cup results since the 2nd world war. And now the failings of the current turgid football which is creating so few chances from open play is being blamed on 'McDermott's old boys' looking 'very uncomfortable with the ball at their feet'. Seems to me that the Adkins apologists are the ones who are expert at goalpost manoeuvre

Percentage football has it's limitations yes, and the fashion is to love away from it as the game evolves and so should the tactics you employ, but, having said that, if McDermott had made his limited style of football work, as Pulis did at Stoke, then he wouldn't have got the sack.

His limited style was too limited and his deployment of his resources too ineffectual so he paid the price after being given more than a fair crack of the whip.

Fair crack of the whip? With virtually feck all money to spend? Do me a favour.

[floyd__streete]

Percentage football has it's limitations yes, and the fashion is to love away from it as the game evolves and so should the tactics you employ, but, having said that, if McDermott had made his limited style of football work, as Pulis did at Stoke, then he wouldn't have got the sack.

Of course, goes without saying.

If only the signings had been better, eh. McCleary & particularly Gunter performed poorly in terms of higher-end value signings. BMc & Hammond take the wrap for that. And then in January we spent (IIRC) £300k on Akpan and a little south of £1 million on Blackman. Absymal signings, but does AZ really expect us to believe in hinting that we had more resource available ("we should have done more in the transfer market" - his shifty and immortal words when unveiling Adkins) that the manager somehow chose to go for bargain-basement crap instead? I somehow think that AZ had given up the ghost a little by January tbh and you can understand why to an extent given how far adrift we were.

Bottom line is: signings weren't good enough. But neither was the budget sufficient. Stoke meanwhile invested heavily to get to their level of comfortable survival.....includings, ironically, several million on Kitson and Sonko....

[Man Friday]

I think the issue many people have is not with Adkins himself per se (although the bloke makes it very difficult to warm to him really with endless psychobabble) but the snobbery from some regarding the percentage football we played before. Sure, it wasn't successful for us in the Premier League but a club like Stoke has made it work for many years now at that level.

We've had the previous regime summed up as 'panic and hit & hope' football on the page before. We 'panicked and hit and hoped' our way to a play off final and a championship and some of our very best FA Cup results since the 2nd world war. And now the failings of the current turgid football which is creating so few chances from open play is being blamed on 'McDermott's old boys' looking 'very uncomfortable with the ball at their feet'. Seems to me that the Adkins apologists are the ones who are expert at goalpost manoeuvre

Seems completely illogical to discredit a decision made at a point in time previous to information unobtainable at that time, i.e. the future. Hence, using information in advance of the event of Brian's sacking, e.g. McD's success or Adkins failure, is a weak tool for attacking the decision - unless of course the criticism was aimed at the club's crystal ball or time machine. In the absence of either of those, it seems fair to apply the maxim: hindsight is a wonderful thing.

As for passing football vs direct football, I think the concern is more with what type of football will help us compete better in the Premier League. Direct didn't work. Barcelona football is not really what we are likely to be aiming for. More confidence on the ball, keeping possession better, having more of a range to our passing, trying to break through teams while in command of the ball rather than reducing the last third to 50/50's - it's just about learning a stronger game of football.

It's not really about making it look nice and passing it around for an eternity.

What you really don't grasp is that a team that is assembled for around £10m will get hammered very time against a team that spends hundreds of millions of pounds if that team attempts to outpass the more expensive, and therefore superior-skilled, side. It's so obvious I can't believe it needs saying. We had no choice but to play counter-attacking football with the squad of limited players we had in the PL. 2 plus 2 = 4. Every time.