Clement sacked!

[Old Man Andrews]

Fine. You enjoy getting a new manager every 10- 30 games.

Why would a club hold on to a failing manager Ian?

[Old Man Andrews]

Bollocks do we. The club has lurched from one disaster to another since Madejski first sold up. That predates Gourlay and plenty of it happened on Howe's watch.

His record with Burns, Rodgers, McDermott 2, Clarke and Stam are hardly great. I was optimistic, But literally his first action in charge has been to sack the man trying to fix our problems and throw us deeper into turmoil.

Great job Nige.

McDermott won the league, Clarke was brilliant until he had his head turned, Stam was one penalty off the premier league

You call that a failure?

McDermott's second stint.
Clarke was good for about 2 months. Stam had one lucky season and left us far worse than he found us.

Yeah, I call that failure.

Steve Clarke got us to an FA Cup semi final......... Ian just back down, sometimes you have to in life.

[URZZZZ]

McDermott won the league, Clarke was brilliant until he had his head turned, Stam was one penalty off the premier league

You call that a failure?

McDermott's second stint.
Clarke was good for about 2 months. Stam had one lucky season and left us far worse than he found us.

Yeah, I call that failure.

Steve Clarke got us to an FA Cup semi final......... Ian just back down, sometimes you have to in life.

And Paul Clement kept us up. Staying in the championship > Fa Cup

[alfie9]

McDermott's second stint.
Clarke was good for about 2 months. Stam had one lucky season and left us far worse than he found us.

Yeah, I call that failure.

Steve Clarke got us to an FA Cup semi final......... Ian just back down, sometimes you have to in life.

And Paul Clement kept us up. Staying in the championship > Fa Cup

With 8 points from 8 games.

Te three relegated teams were unusually bad last year.

[alfie9]

I guess I just don't understand why Clement was given the benefit of the doubt every single week as we sleepwalk towards relegation while people were calling for Stam's head this time last year. Clement's results are not much better, his transfer window was not much better, and contrary to popular belief our play is hardly any better

[Old Man Andrews]

McDermott's second stint.
Clarke was good for about 2 months. Stam had one lucky season and left us far worse than he found us.

Yeah, I call that failure.

Steve Clarke got us to an FA Cup semi final......... Ian just back down, sometimes you have to in life.

And Paul Clement kept us up. Staying in the championship > Fa Cup

It has nothing to do with a comparison of achievements. Ian didn't think Steve Clarke did anything of note but he did.

[Woodcote Royal]

Jesus Christ couldn't turn this current crock of shite into a winning team . Shame players can't be sacked

Have you watched this team recently?

We have some fantastic young individuals and a decent first 11 that can be picked from a fully fit squad.

A real "crock of shite" of a team would be getting hammered on a weekly basis rather than by the odd goal to sides at the top of the table (Leeds) or fighting to the final whistle to win a point (Stoke)

Our teams used to over achieve but we have now had 5 long, frustrating years of the opposite. We are all rightly pig sick of it but this doesn't change the fact the margins between success and failure are extremely thin in this league and it wouldn't take much to get us up the table to relative safety.

I would have given Clement more time to continue the slow improvement we 've witnessed recently but if he's paid the price for selecting the largely useless and highly expensive Aluko while ignoring Loader and others for far too long, he only has himself to blame. Like others, I sincerely wish him every success in the future and believe it will come to pass.

As alluded to above, the best news here is that Nige (with SJM perched on his shoulder ) is clearly back in charge and we have to back his judgement.

We don't know a great deal about our owners but they have spent a fortune on this club with precious little to show for it. The thought of them bailing on us doesn't bear thinking about and, frankly, it gives me great comfort in believing that our new CEO will not be spending their money lightly and/or wasting it on players who have never looked remotely like justifying their fee/wages and that being compounded by those players being selected week after without justification while others are ignored.

Let's hope this will come to be seen as the week when RFC finally turned the corner.

Onwards and upwards.

[strap]

Surprised and a bit disappointed as he seemed a decent bloke. But it’s a results business. No coincidence the day after Howe was appointed CEO.

Decent bloke or not, statistically he is our worst ever manager after 28 league games. Although Stam is our 2nd best after 28 games so what do statistics tell one?!?

[URZZZZ]

Steve Clarke got us to an FA Cup semi final......... Ian just back down, sometimes you have to in life.

And Paul Clement kept us up. Staying in the championship > Fa Cup

It has nothing to do with a comparison of achievements. Ian didn't think Steve Clarke did anything of note but he did.

Point taken but did Clement do a terrible job here? No, he kept us up, ultimately his job, and whilst he didn't start this season too well, we've picked up some form recently. Has he been a success? No. But has he been "terrible" as you called it, no because he kept us up

[URZZZZ]

Steve Clarke got us to an FA Cup semi final......... Ian just back down, sometimes you have to in life.

And Paul Clement kept us up. Staying in the championship > Fa Cup

With 8 points from 8 games.

Te three relegated teams were unusually bad last year.

I don't believe Stam would have accumulated that points tally. You've got to remember out of those 8 games, we did play 3 teams away from home in the top 6 and a Preston side bouncing outside the playoffs. Albeit the Ipswich performance is the worst I've seen in years

[Old Man Andrews]

And Paul Clement kept us up. Staying in the championship > Fa Cup

It has nothing to do with a comparison of achievements. Ian didn't think Steve Clarke did anything of note but he did.

Point taken but did Clement do a terrible job here? No, he kept us up, ultimately his job, and whilst he didn't start this season too well, we've picked up some form recently. Has he been a success? No. But has he been "terrible" as you called it, no because he kept us up

His recent record is terrible and it wasn't brilliant last season either. I will absolutely concede that him coming in got us a few wins that eventually saved us from relegation but we have ended up going backwards under him and not forwards. He is a Gourlay guy and he would have known the writing was on the wall when Gourlay left.

[Ranty McRantface]

McDermott's second stint.
Clarke was good for about 2 months. Stam had one lucky season and left us far worse than he found us.

Yeah, I call that failure.

Steve Clarke got us to an FA Cup semi final......... Ian just back down, sometimes you have to in life.

And Paul Clement kept us up. Staying in the championship > Fa Cup

I think the other teams around us helped keep us up more than Clement. We should have been relegated last season with the absolute dross we put on display.

[Coppells Lost Coat]

Is 30 games enough to get a view on if the manager is up to the task = probably yes
Is 3 games without Gourlay to prove he is up to the task.... = probably not.

I think most agree that Gourlay was a major factor to our failings, I just dont think Clement had the time to turn things around after he stepped down. However if owners felt the need to change manager now is the perfect time to do so.

[Coppells Lost Coat]

Surprised and a bit disappointed as he seemed a decent bloke. But it’s a results business. No coincidence the day after Howe was appointed CEO.

Decent bloke or not, statistically he is our worst ever manager after 28 league games. Although Stam is our 2nd best after 28 games so what do statistics tell one?!?

To bring back Stam?
26 games left of the season + cup games then new manager in the summer, gotcha.

[Stranded]

The fact is whatever you think of Clement, and I think he was slowly building something, he was Gourlay's guy. Something has been wrong at the club since the PO Final and RG was clearly at the heart of it. With him gone, PC was essentially dead man walking as his "protection" was gone. A defeat or 2 more and he would be gone so it makes sense in many ways to completely wipe the slate clean of the RG era - wouldn't surprise me if Nani leaves shortly too.

In normal circumstances, I would say this was harsh but these aren't normal circumstances. If we want stability under these owners and Howe as CEO then they need to make appointments they trust. They clearly have no trust in what RG put in place, so cut it out now to start anew.

[Ascotexgunner]

And Paul Clement kept us up. Staying in the championship > Fa Cup

It has nothing to do with a comparison of achievements. Ian didn't think Steve Clarke did anything of note but he did.

Point taken but did Clement do a terrible job here? No, he kept us up, ultimately his job, and whilst he didn't start this season too well, we've picked up some form recently. Has he been a success? No. But has he been "terrible" as you called it, no because he kept us up

8 points from 8 games? It was the other teams and their total inability to win that kept us up. The only thing Ill say about Clement is that he is a "lucky" manager on lots of occaisions when we should have lost. He never kept us up. It was "lady luck".

[El Diablo]

Sad to see him go, and would've loved him to be a number two here, to an experienced Manager. Thought he was a genuinley good guy

However results speak volumes & lets face it, we've been pants for months. His inability to shore up the defence has been his downfall, and IMO its not due to the quality of player we have, but down to the coaching, direction & understanding between the players.

Thanks for your effort Paul.

Onwards....

[NotARacist]

Shame. It seemed liked he was just about to turn it around.

[RoyalBlue]

Wrong decision IMO as inherited bloated and injured squad and has never even had the likes of Obita or Harriott to select. Paying for previous poor acquisitions. Only major gripe was that he couldn't wake the squad up from the Stam tedium into any sort of an attacking unit.

List of usual suspects being touted to replace.

Meh.

Come on, he made some pretty dire acquisitions himself. Harriott that much of a game changer?

Nice guy, probably a reasonable coach but a crap manager. Hasn't he managed a total of something like 106 games in total during his managerial career and been fired three times? That says something.

Also if the rumours regarding conduct in a previous role were true then he might always struggle to command the full trust of a dressing room.

[Steve_Upper_West]

Sad to see him go, and would've loved him to be a number two here, to an experienced Manager. Thought he was a genuinley good guy

However results speak volumes & lets face it, we've been pants for months. His inability to shore up the defence has been his downfall, and IMO its not due to the quality of player we have, but down to the coaching, direction & understanding between the players.

Thanks for your effort Paul.

Onwards....

+1

I think the fact he only discovered by default that Jaakkola is our best keeper speaks volumes for his judgement AND Beasant's - perhaps he should also be on his way