Why Should McDermott Have Been Given A Chance?

[photographer]

The Thais want to go to the Premier League. Everyone knows this. Why should the Thais give Brian millions to spend considering the crap he has brought into the club every season he has been with us (Blackman, Akpan, Kermit, Manset, Shorey, etc).

And why should the Thais trust him to coach, manage and inspire premier league players when Brian has fallen out with Premier League players (remember Guthrie?), saying that they prefer Adkins to McDermott. He has proven this season that he couldn't inspire the premier league players on loan here, as shown by their performances on the pitch. If Brian can't inspire premier league players to beat Huddersfield, then why would the Thais 'give him a chance' to pour even more of their money down the drain?

If the Thais were here for the short term, they would have kept Brian here for a comfortable and stable future of mid-table positions every year, while they rake the cash in from REP. Thankfully, from Brian's sacking, it looks as though that's not the case. Not only do they want to go to the premier league. They want to stay there. Something McDermott could never offer.

Brian didn't give European Championship winner Daniel Carrico a chance after just 5 months at Reading. Why should we give Brian a chance to waste money on his useless transfers? We all know McDermott is terrible at scouting and managing players.

Good job Thais

[Top Flight]

I don't know why I'm biting your bait fisherman but if you want to go to the Premier League and you don't have a lot of money to spend then who better than Brian?

He has won the Championship title and won promotion to the Premier League and he has managed a side to a Play-Off Final where they were only 90 minutes away from promotion to the Premier League. He achieved title success with players like Cummings and Harte, Leigertwood and Gorkss. He has to be a fricking genius to achieve that level of success with those types of players.

You will begin to understand what we have lost in the seasons ahead as the club continues its slide under incompetent Thai leadership.

You will only realise what you have truly lost when it's gone. Now it's gone, just watch the decline and potential ruin of Reading FC. It won't achieve the league positions that Brian achieved with us, just watch and learn.

[Brian McDermott]

Crikey. A thread that isn't overly pro-mcdermott?? It won't go down well here.

Best thread i've seen in ages, absolutely spot on.

Top flight, you've got to stop using words like "genius" when you are describing Brian. He failed in the prem for us, he failed at Leeds, and he failed for us the 2nd time around.

Top flight, would you want a striker who 4 years ago had an absolute blinder in the championship, but has since had 3 awful seasons? Probably not.

We won't decline further, Reading FC wont be ruined, and we'll achieve the league position that Brian achieved with us without too much trouble (17th).

[Libertine]

Why?

Because he has shown he can get results at this level.

Why hire him in the first place if the owners had no confidence in him doing the job?

How can someone succeed or fail based on 5 months and a squad put together by people other than himself?

One of the keys to success is stability. Continually hiring and quickly firing coaches belies an instability within the club.

[photographer]

This level isn't good enough. Otherwise the owners would have got Colin instead. They want someone who will take Reading to the next level and succeed in the Premier league, like we had with Coppell.

It was clear that Brian was a Madejski appointment, not to do with the Thai owners (why would they even care about some random former manager who was a failure in the premier league). The Thais trusted him to do the right thing for the club, but now thankfully they know better and are purging the club of Madejski puppets and best pals to start afresh.

[loyalroyaldaz]

Its a fair question i suppose but the real one should be why did they give him the job in the first place?
Who at the club told them he was the man when quite clearly he wasnt?

He was and is decent bloke but limited in ideas and tactical nouse.
He was never the right man for the job after Clarke but somebody thought otherwise.

[Brian McDermott]

Why hire him in the first place if the owners had no confidence in him doing the job?

I think they did have confidence in him. They must have said to him in the interview, "you need to make improvements, because we're pretty rubbish at the moment".

6 months later and we've gotten worse in pretty much every department? He has to be held responsible. Sack him all day.

If they said to him "Brian, don't worry about this season, it's a write off", then yeah, it's a harsh sacking. But I doubt very much they said that.

All McDermott (2nd time around) did was make Steve Clarke look like a good manager.

[Rollerbob]

The Thais want to go to the Premier League. Everyone knows this. Why should the Thais give Brian millions to spend considering the crap he has brought into the club every season he has been with us (Blackman, Akpan, Kermit, Manset, Shorey, etc).

And why should the Thais trust him to coach, manage and inspire premier league players when Brian has fallen out with Premier League players (remember Guthrie?), saying that they prefer Adkins to McDermott. He has proven this season that he couldn't inspire the premier league players on loan here, as shown by their performances on the pitch. If Brian can't inspire premier league players to beat Huddersfield, then why would the Thais 'give him a chance' to pour even more of their money down the drain?

If the Thais were here for the short term, they would have kept Brian here for a comfortable and stable future of mid-table positions every year, while they rake the cash in from REP. Thankfully, from Brian's sacking, it looks as though that's not the case. Not only do they want to go to the premier league. They want to stay there. Something McDermott could never offer.

Brian didn't give European Championship winner Daniel Carrico a chance after just 5 months at Reading. Why should we give Brian a chance to waste money on his useless transfers? We all know McDermott is terrible at scouting and managing players.

Good job Thais

+1 Thread of the day. Photographer, you should post more often.

[Libertine]

Why hire him in the first place if the owners had no confidence in him doing the job?

I think they did have confidence in him. They must have said to him in the interview, "you need to make improvements, because we're pretty rubbish at the moment".

6 months later and we've gotten worse in pretty much every department? He has to be held responsible. Sack him all day.

If they said to him "Brian, don't worry about this season, it's a write off", then yeah, it's a harsh sacking. But I doubt very much they said that.

All McDermott (2nd time around) did was make Steve Clarke look like a good manager.

So he was fired because he wasn't a good alchemist? I mean he couldn't turn the shower of shite he was given into gold in 5 months. I viewed Brian's tenure as him assessing what he had ( a shower of shite) and deciding who to keep and who to let go. He was not given a chance to build something here. I am not saying he was the right choice, what I am saying is he was not given a remotely fair chance.

I see we're (our owners at least) are at it again signing players before we have a manager in place. As of now none of the moves/decisions the Thais have made fill me with confidence that they know what they are doing...including hiring and firing a manager within 5 months. If that doesn't scream "we don't know what we're doing" nothing does...

[Maneki Neko]

millions to spend

stop it, please
youre killing me.

[Maneki Neko]

carrico was injured for much of his short stint here by the way

[Ian Royal]

The Thais want to go to the Premier League. Everyone knows this. Why should the Thais give Brian millions to spend considering the crap he has brought into the club every season he has been with us (Blackman, Akpan, Kermit, Manset, Shorey, etc).

Roberts, Le Fondre, Harte, Leigertwood, Gorkss, Griffin, Khizanishvili etc etc And that's before you consider the excellent players he identified for Coppell.

Every manager makes duff signings. Every manager. They aren't going to give anyone many millions to spend so it's a bit of a moot point. The Thais want to go to the Premier League? Well a manager who's secured promotion to the PL with the club would seem a fairly sensible option then wouldn't he.

And why should the Thais trust him to coach, manage and inspire premier league players when Brian has fallen out with Premier League players (remember Guthrie?), saying that they prefer Adkins to McDermott. He has proven this season that he couldn't inspire the premier league players on loan here, as shown by their performances on the pitch. If Brian can't inspire premier league players to beat Huddersfield, then why would the Thais 'give him a chance' to pour even more of their money down the drain?

Ok, so one player. McDermott didn't do a great job in the PL. But then he was being shafted at the time. And we're not in the PL. We could always sack him if we got there. And at the time, he was a very inexperienced manager. I'd expect him to have learnt from those days and do a better job now.

IIRC the only Premier League players we had on loan were Vydra, who has barely played in the Premier League, Piazon who has barely played in the Premier League and Hector, who was only technically a Premier League player. The one thing you couldn't criticise Vydra for was effort, his end product was bollocks and he was shot in the head, but he almost always put the work in. Piazon was a kid who wasn't up to it. Hector did fine. And these are all players that Clarke signed and who had the same level of performance under Clarke. So it's hardly a McDermott issue.

If the Thais were here for the short term, they would have kept Brian here for a comfortable and stable future of mid-table positions every year, while they rake the cash in from REP. Thankfully, from Brian's sacking, it looks as though that's not the case. Not only do they want to go to the premier league. They want to stay there. Something McDermott could never offer.

I don't doubt the Thais aren't here for just the shortest term possible. I also agree they do want us to succeed. That doesn't mean they have a clue what they're doing. McDermott didn't have to keep us in the Premier League, we aren't there and we aren't getting there any time soon.

Brian didn't give European Championship winner Daniel Carrico a chance after just 5 months at Reading. Why should we give Brian a chance to waste money on his useless transfers?

Carrico wasn't fit when he was here, and once we got relegated he was never going to stay. We couldn't afford him and he didn't want to be in the Championship. You'll note that Carrico got no more game time under Adkins and was let go under Adkins. So clearly not a McDermott issue.

The issue here is that once you appoint a manager, you have to give them a proper amount of time to make a difference. Sometimes things pick up immediately. Sometimes it takes six months to a year. There are plenty of examples out there. And there are loads of examples of clubs who sack managers frequently and frequently underperform as a result. THe club desperately needed continuity and stability. Instead we've lost the manager and the DoF in the space of a week.

If the Thais were unsure of McDermott, they should have had the balls to tell Madejski, Hammond and Howe to do one and appointed someone else. Once they appoint him, they have to back him. It could just about have been excusable to sack him immediately at the end of the season, but not two to three weeks later.

This isn't about McDermott, he just happens to be the man affected. This is about a non-existent plan for the club beyond - "lets get to the Premier League" How? "Er... hire manager and do well? Lol"

This may well work out. We may have a good season. But that will not be because of good judgement - of which the Thais have displayed extremely little - it will be down to luck.

We all know McDermott is terrible at scouting and managing players.

Oh. It's a joke. Hi-larious.

[Maneki Neko]

Every manager makes duff signings. Every manager. They aren't going to give anyone many millions to spend so it's a bit of a moot point. The Thais want to go to the Premier League? Well a manager who's secured promotion to the PL with the club would seem a fairly sensible option then wouldn't he.

djemba djemba
veron
bebe
obertan
kleberson
forlan

etc

[blueroyals]

Why did we give Adkins or Clarke a chance?

[sandman]

OP supports my belief that Reading fans are utter oxf*rd.

[Ian Royal]

Genuine question.

Can someone who thinks this was a good idea explain why we were right to keep Clarke, whose record after 25 league games in charge at the end of the season was:
P25, W6, D7, L12, F22 A33, GD -11

Compared to sacked McDermott, who's record after 25 league games at the end of the season was:
P25, W6, D7, L12, F25, A34, GD -9

Bare in mind Clarke got a massive 3 extra points in his last six games, thanks to an unlikely final away win.

And were you clamouring for Clarke to go this time last year?

Personally, I thought the team as a whole looked better under Brian than it did at the same stage under Clarke.

[royalp-we]

Because maybe BMcD made promises which he failed to deliver?

Just an idea

[Ian Royal]

Because maybe BMcD made promises which he failed to deliver?

Just an idea

What, and Clarke didn't? You think he came in saying, "Don't worry, I'll take the team from 16th to 19th, I know that's what you want!"

By the time McDermott had come in, most of the damage had been done. And a team of loanees is far more likely to drop performance at the end of a meaningless season, in fact I believe the drop in places was broadly similar - Clarke about three places to 19th, McDermott about 4 places to 17th. Clarke actively made us worse than we were under Adkins without those problems.

Compare and contrast.
Clarke signed Yakubu and Appiah, then barely played either who got, what? 1 goal each?
McDermott signed Kermorgant and Rakels (owners influence) who got 3 each plus some assists.

[royalp-we]

But maybe Ian, just maybe, Brian stated in his interview, alongside JM and NH, that he will get the current squad to finish the second half of the season strongly.

He failed miserably at that. Sometimes it really is that simple.

[Ian Royal]

But maybe Ian, just maybe, Brian stated in his interview, alongside JM and NH, that he will get the current squad to finish the second half of the season strongly.

Sometimes it really is as simple as that.

So your answer is some baseless assertion about what bland statements McDermott may have said in his interview, which Clarke obviously couldn't possibly have done?

It's not a great answer if I'm honest. I was hoping for something a little weightier.