My two penneth on this is that of course , we could move onto our 3rd manager of the season, watch them have a good start and then sack them when they hit a poor little run - rinse and repeat ad infinitum. But if this truly is a project and we accept that Liam isn't the finished article but can improve, I'd be very disappointed if we changed manager at the moment. I also really think that while he didn't make excuses by saying he's missing his 3 main strikers, it is a huge issue. It felt like in January, having improved us so much defensively, he tried to address the forward weakness by bringing in Connolly and finally we had 2 strikers operating in tandem. it showed every sign of working , then Connolly gets injured. He finally gets Tetteh back who also looks like he can play centrally and link up play and then he gets a 3 match suspension followed by an injury. And for those who said why didn't we have a forward on the bench on Saturday, Pelkas was injured and I gather even the totally untried Simms was too? I agree he could maybe have done more to change things but surely we need some patience. Older fans will remember that when Peter Taylor first came in , he stabilised us (like Liam) but then the Spring of his first season we didn't seem to be going anywhere. I remember a depressing defeat at Southend (3-0) after which he offered Adam Pearson his resignation. Pearson apparently told him to get on with it and in the summer he recruited the players who took us to 2 promotions in 2 years. Having said that, this was in the pre Twitter age, and we don't know whether Acun is patient or not. I wouldn't be totally surprised to see Liam go, but personally really hope we invest in him as for me , all in all, he is still doing a very decent job with potential to do better.
Yes, the goal against Reading was a clear demonstration of Rosenior's philosophy. What about the 6 plus **** up goals we have conceded from the same system. If the system isn't working and, certainly at home it usually isn't, then for the love of God , change it!
You're very good at giving long replies complaining I haven't replied to you, then ensuring you get the last word. I thought discussion was the point of a discussion board..
Which 3 do you reckon - our home games? Swansea won't have much to play for when they come here (bit like ourselves), and both Millwall and Watford will have to go for 3 points to cement their play off spots so should both be open to counter attacks.
The trouble is , what is another system that defends well and attacks well? Burnley have a premier striker , The Blunts are their usual aggressive strong robust selves , gets them up but won’t keep them there . The other up North have very strong mobile players . We lack strong durable forwards , and a strong mobile midfield - but if we have our best back such as Connelly , Tetteh etc I think we can out football most - however you still get the feeling they can’t play week after week like Akpom etc do .
Give us Christie, connolly and tetteh for 38+ games and I think we'd be fine. Throw in some reinforcements in the summer and we'll get results.
I'm not suggesting we change the manager and yes I think he's done a reasonable job improving our defence. The next transfer window is going to be critical because at the moment we don't really have a team, just a collection of individuals who get a game when fit. We need some serious conditioning work to get them fit and keep them fit, and some clever signings to fill in the gaps (FFP not withstanding). I don't envy him as it's not going to be easy but he has earned the right to try (IMHO - but I'm not paying the bills). It needs to get a bit more entertaining to get fans in and keep them in but the present situation is not Rosie's fault. I do think the playing system has to be tweaked cos it's far to one dimensional and slow but will probably change with better players.
But it's a poor example. Regardless of what the fans were screaming (they are Arsenal fans after all) he won a trophy in his first half season which, I believe, was their first since that heinous day in 2014. Ferguson's reign started ****e and got worse, only rescued by that fluked FA cup win three(?) years on.
Was definitely not their first since 2014. They won in 2015 and 2017 too. It was a fine example. How many managers get to three seasons to have the chance of turning it around? He didn't make Europe in his first two seasons and then had a reasonable third season before really exploding this year. Most top 6 owners wouldn't have that patience as European income is so vital (as Leicester are finding).
For all the talk of how bad we are and how we can't attack etc, when you watch the highlights of the game back, we actually created a fair bit and the attacking play in those moments wasn't bad at all. The Longman chance was a good counter, nice ball through the gap by Traore, just let down by the finish. The Slater shot in the first half was another break where we sprung on them and Slater after winning the ball back himself was very quick getting up the pitch. The Tufan bar hit was a lovely move across the pitch, the Jones miss was a beautiful one-two between Greaves and Seri, but again let down by the finish and maybe the pull-back by Greaves too. When you take away the emotion of the disappointment at the result, I don't see how anyone can look at those clips and say that we created nothing or that our attacking play is crap. It was really just finishing, again. Stick the strikers into that team and we'll be fine.
Nearly every aspect of football now exists in this perpetual state of requiring instant success. That blended with a propensity for binary thinking and emotional responses leads to a ridiculously high expectation in a very small space of time. With strikers, if they go through a rough patch of not scoring, they're "****." If a goalkeeper makes a mistake "sack him off." (Yes I remember what some of you said about Jak and yes it still annoys me lol). With managers, if there isn't instant success, there are people calling for their heads. Shota wasn't just sacked for results, he'd lost the dressing room and a few players had gone to the board with concerns about a lack of flexibility and communication (which was mentioned at the time). When Liam Rosenior took over, we had conceded 35 goals in 21 games across all competitions, two of those scored by League Two side Bradford City in the cup. We scored 21. Since taking over, we have conceded 15 goals and scored 22. So in the same amount of games, we've conceded 20 less goals and scored one more. Right there, there's your improvement. Yep, we absolutely could be better and some of those draws absolutely should have been wins, as Liam has said. That being said, Liam Rosenior is a young, inexperienced manager. He hasn't looked out of his depth and I think the best approach to take is to think of him the same way you would a player. You get them in, you give them a chance, you don't write them off when times are hard or not going the way you want. Managers develop like players do, they learn, adapt and grow just like anybody else does, we need to afford him the proper time and resources to get the best from the lads. Those without short term memories can see the improvement from before Christmas, the squad does need changes and work is underway on that front and has been since late January. If Acun sacks Liam at any point this season I'll be incredibly disappointed, it would be a very short sighted decision and probably a very unpopular one.
I think Rosey is probably just about expiring his time here. In the modern game managers seem to have a 10-15 game effective life span on average, where things start to become stale performances and results tend to tail off. Most clubs stick with them a good while but ultimately the writing is always on the wall and I would bet less than 5% ever really turn it around and get the team performing again other than the odd 2-3 game spell. So whilst I do think it would make sense to get a new man in for that bounce, our season is effectively over barring an absolute catastrophe, so there’s probably not much point at this stage.
