Where has that dressing room gone?

[Franchise FC]

I think what did for Rodgers was the 2 steps forward 2 steps back we experienced. We really looked like improving and moving up the table. Then what happened? Crystal Palace and Scunthorpe. It was not unreasonable to hope for 6 points from those 2, with our recent home hoodoo broken. What happened? 1 point, and our recent progress appeared to have been undone.

Federici cost us against Palace although I agree that Rodgers got his team selection wrong, but we should have absolutely hammered Scunthorpe and put in a very good performance. Since we sacked him although we were the better team at Bristol, we only equalised in injury time as opposed to leading for most of the game and having it to throw away in the first place, were lucky against Swansea to get a draw and were an absolute shambles at Plymouth.

But according to the reports, radio, etc., and I admit I don't see enough games to have an opinion, the fact that the team have been a shambles is no change from a significant proportion of the previous games.

This would suggest that although McD is not the answer, BR wasn't either.

[Royalee]

The team weren't a shambles before, they played some good football but a combination of defensive errors from 'experienced pros' like Ingimarsson and our lack of options up front (spurning a good 5 or 6 excellent chances per game) were costing us. Now it's the same apart from we're not creating anything and are even less of a unit at the back, meaning we never look like winning games as opposed to coming very close in some and winning others - Scunthorpe, Sheffield Wednesday, Blackpool, Coventry.

[marcusopp]

Anyone who has played football will know that no player wants to lose. I don't think dressing rooms can be lost (unless the key gets lost!).
All season we've not looked like we know what we're doing, loads of confusion, formation changes 3 times a game, the same 11 only fielded twice in succession. It's all about continuity.
Rodgers made some decent attacking signings, and poor defensive ones.
As someone mentioned on another thread, he was out of his depth, McD is not a manager, but at least restored a formation that the players are familier with (4-4-2).
Our squad is half decent, if we get a steady, boring manager in, we'll stay up. If we get another novice in, we could continue to struggle.
I still believe that BR just wanted to remove all traces that SC ever existed, so no one would compare them.

[The Quiet Man]

The team weren't a shambles before, they played some good football but a combination of defensive errors from 'experienced pros' like Ingimarsson and our lack of options up front (spurning a good 5 or 6 excellent chances per game) were costing us. Now it's the same apart from we're not creating anything and are even less of a unit at the back, meaning we never look like winning games as opposed to coming very close in some and winning others - Scunthorpe, Sheffield Wednesday, Blackpool, Coventry.

Conveniently forgetting we shipped 4 goals at home to a very average palace side and were buried at half time (with two BR signed centre backs on the bench) which just confirmed BR wasn't going anywhere fast and wanted yet more players to come in after the previous magnificent seven failed to gell into a team. Look at our pattern of results for the season and we are back on course, a really sh*te performance at Plymouth (worse than QPR but not by that much in terms of player stupidity) after a couple of half decent ones - Bristol City a game we should of won (how many times have we said that this season) and Swansea which was a reasonable draw and probably better than our performance at their place earlier on.

Ingimarsson may be sh*te but earlier on this season everyone was lamenting the lack of a captain on the pitch which I presume why he gets to play and BR thought that the sun shone out of Pearce's arse. BR made one reasonable signing in Mcanuff and one good loan signing in Bertrand, with one journeyman signing in Rasiak who could be decent and the rest have been indifferent or poor including Cummings. As for the kids they have shown why they weren't in the first team earlier and BR presumably agrees with SC about Henry & Davies as he loaned them out.

PS I would now agree with you that McDermott is not the answer - he makes the same mistakes as BR ( like both relying on Gunnarssson being able to play two consecutive games)

[Arch]

But sacking him in the way it was done seems uncharacteristic of our club...

This is worth dwelling on. The club don't make managerial judgments the way many of us do, by looking at the results on Sky Sports. The decision was made by people who work in the same building as the manager and had recently had a major meeting with him in which he made a presentation about future plans. Sacking him was a costly and hazardous decision and is unlikely to have been taken lightly or simply because the results graph had briefly dipped back downwards again.

[leon]

The team weren't a shambles before, they played some good football but a combination of defensive errors from 'experienced pros' like Ingimarsson and our lack of options up front (spurning a good 5 or 6 excellent chances per game) were costing us. Now it's the same apart from we're not creating anything and are even less of a unit at the back, meaning we never look like winning games as opposed to coming very close in some and winning others - Scunthorpe, Sheffield Wednesday, Blackpool, Coventry.

Conveniently forgetting we shipped 4 goals at home to a very average palace side and were buried at half time (with two BR signed centre backs on the bench) which just confirmed BR wasn't going anywhere fast and wanted yet more players to come in after the previous magnificent seven failed to gell into a team. Look at our pattern of results for the season and we are back on course, a really sh*te performance at Plymouth (worse than QPR but not by that much in terms of player stupidity) after a couple of half decent ones - Bristol City a game we should of won (how many times have we said that this season) and Swansea which was a reasonable draw and probably better than our performance at their place earlier on.

Ingimarsson may be sh*te but earlier on this season everyone was lamenting the lack of a captain on the pitch which I presume why he gets to play and BR thought that the sun shone out of Pearce's arse. BR made one reasonable signing in Mcanuff and one good loan signing in Bertrand, with one journeyman signing in Rasiak who could be decent and the rest have been indifferent or poor including Cummings. As for the kids they have shown why they weren't in the first team earlier and BR presumably agrees with SC about Henry & Davies as he loaned them out.

PS I would now agree with you that McDermott is not the answer - he makes the same mistakes as BR ( like both relying on Gunnarssson being able to play two consecutive games)

Absolutely spot on. We need a strong experienced manager to shape this side to lose less than we win and if that means p*ssing a few off then so be it.

At this point in time desire for long ball/passing/direct wing play is irrelevant. We have to stay up. Don't care how - if we have to (gulp) bring in someone like Sanchez to keep us up then whatever.

Ok maybe not Sanchez...

[Ian Royal]

We really have to stop conceeding so many soft goals. If we can just steady the defence it will allow us a platform on which to build. Then we can be more confident about winning when we actually score. Which is fairly regularly.

We can't build that platform with only one full back and two horriffically slow centrebacks playing though. Nor can we make up for the defence's deficiencies by dropping a midfielder back to cover them, because it just leaves us over-run and exposed in the middle. Which is how it becomes so easy for teams to just run through us like we aren't there.