SOD is sticking to his guns, no u - turns, no changes, he will remain consistent in his approach, "This was an approach I strongly believed was right. I still do.." ' BRISTOL City are without a win in nine League One games this season, but head coach Sean O'Driscoll is not for turning. Frustrated by a series of disappointing results, some Robins fans are beginning to question O'Driscoll's methods. Yet O'Driscoll is sticking firmly to his football principles and will not be moved by pressure from outside. Not only is O'Driscoll against performing a policy U-turn, he is hell-bent on adhering to City's 'five pillars' of community, academy, financial prudence, facilities and recruitment. "We haven't had a league win yet and some people think I'm saying the same things over and over when we haven't had the results to back it up," said the Midlander. "We are in a results industry and I know there are a lot of frustrated people out there at the moment who just want football matches to be won, regardless of how we do it. "But I have to remain consistent in what I'm saying to the players and supporters in terms of what we're trying to achieve and how. "In any walk of life you have to learn from mistakes and tweak plans as you go, but if you're making fundamental U-turns in what you say you believe is important, and you alter course to suit others just because you haven't seen immediate results, then it begs the question why did you start along a certain path in the first place? "When I first spoke to the club about this job the message was clear. The club wanted to go down a different route than it had over the past few years. Financial prudence and control, academy and youth development and player recruitment/talent identification were key elements of the club's new Five Pillars approach. "This was an approach I strongly believed was right. I still do. Everything we've done since the end of last season has fitted with this approach. "We've exercised financial prudence, balancing the books with player sales, we've targeted and recruited young players with potential for development and we've promoted the use of academy and Under-21 players into the first-team squad. "The players have bought into this and I know a large percentage of supporters have." O'Driscoll attributes City's failure to win a league game to individual mistakes and lack of concentration. But he remains committed to working to improve the players at his disposal, rather than making wholesale changes in pursuit of a quick fix. "When you look at the reasons we haven't picked up as many points as some of our performances have perhaps deserved, it hasn't been because of a lack of effort, confidence, morale or work-rate," said O'Driscoll, who came out in defence of his players following Saturday's 1-1 draw against Colchester United. "The boys can't be faulted for any of those things in any game we've played, including Shrewsbury Town last time out here at Ashton Gate. "One goal has proved the difference in all our league defeats so far, bar Peterborough United, and we've conceded far too many decisive goals in the last ten minutes. Bradford City's equaliser came in the 80th minute and Coventry City, Wolves and Swindon Town all got winners in the last five minutes. Extremely valuable points were lost at the death. "Individual mistakes and a lack of concentration have played a big part in our failure to keep a clean sheet in the league so far, so what do you do about it? It's all well and good saying we have to cut out the mistakes – of course we do – but how do you do it? "Managing a group of players is a constantly delicate balancing act. If you drop a player every time they make a costly mistake, the players won't know if they're coming or going. If the player that replaces a dropped player then makes a mistake, do you then drop them, too, and restore the original player? "Why should that original player then want to do well for you when you've punished him for what could have been an honest mistake? No one sets out to drop a rick and players that do cost points need to be shown support and encouragement to improve, not ostracised." That's it then, we continue as we are and we had better get used to it, unless.......... http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/story-19872756-detail/story.html#axzz2gSPWhV2p
Well, all of this latest round of philosophy lectures has served us very well so far.........not. In truth it's actually hard to disagree with some of what he says, BUT the longer this winless streak goes on, the more people will turn against him, and will also start voting with their feet even more. Good to see he admits it's a results driven business..! Personally I think we still have a thin squad, and even if we win a game before Xmas we'll do well to finish half way down the table, and the majority of the money we got for Albert, Davies and co has not been reinvested in improving our playing staff.
