Of course they are not but neither am I getting carried away that Robbie has been as good as some appear to think.
To be fair, I was just responding to whoever said it was "unfair" to blame the players. I agree that RDM hasn't been the Messiah - I think his main attribute has been that he isn't AVB as far as the players are concerned. Robbie's made some good tactical calls in the big cup games, but he's got it wrong in the league on the whole. Having said that, I think the team he selected for the league game with Liverpool gave a clear indication of where he felt his priorities lay.
When AVB left we were 3-1 down to an in form Napoli and we are now in the final having beaten the current holders, Robbie has revitalised the players and rotated them sensibly which deserves massive credit considering the mess we were in. The league has been hard to fix due to how many games we've played. Like I said, we should definitely give him one season to prove himself, this way we don't spend a **** load on buying someone out of their contract and giving them ridiculous wages too, I can't think of anyone who I'd rather have other than Mourinho anyway!
Drogs,the point is that Robbie has to be able to motivate the players for the league as well. Yes we have had a lot of games but hopefully we will every season as we have many seasons before.It is a poor excuse to use. Stoke,QPR Villa and a lucky win against Wigan do not fill me with any confidence for his ability to manage in the Prem. I would suspect his inability to win int he Prem is why WBA got rid too.
Honestly...this is bollocks. We have won one final, are yet to play in another, and have been outdone by teams that on merit deserve it more than us this season in the league...we haven't even come close to beating our league or local rivals, pre or post AVB. He's had two months to rotate a squad that was bereft of ideas and latterly fitness and you say he can't do it, purely on the basis of scoring 0.2 points less per game in the league than someone who took pre-season and 8 months in charge of the current campaign? Ffs.
FFS nothing. What you and others are saying is that big cup games for which all the players should be motivated anyway means Robbie has done a good job when the bread and butter is the league in which he did worse,yes only by 0.2pts/game but still worse than a manager the players wouldn't even play for. What shall we do,win the CL and hope we do it again next year to get back in because we don't have a manger who can cope with the league? (back2back CL,can you imagine the bitterness then)
Absolutely seriously. Because at the stage he took over, the CL was his major goal, or put more succinctly, Abramovichs' major goal. This meant too often he had to play his mostly " B " team in the PL and keep most of his "A " team for the CL. The FA cup just happened to work out against opposition that may even have downgraded it on their schedule, and when the chance to win it came, he went for it. It has often been posted previously that NO team in the PL is currently strong enough to win all 3 Comps. We may well have made a mistake in going all out for the FA and CL at the cost of the PL. That's club policy, not managers failings when he is under orders .
Spot on SW6. Our team was not and is not good enough to win the PL, even with Jose as manager, Guardiola as his assistant, Hiddink as water boy and RDM as chief cook and bottle washer and AVB as hatchet man.
What people haven't mentioned (I think) is the amount of games we played in the last 2 months and the amount of rotating that had to be done plus the loss in the last few weeks of both Cahill & Luis plus the suspension of Ivanovic. something had to give and it did.
