Three very good seasons at the club, didn't do a lot wrong, and built a good relationship with the fans after joining from 'the other side'. He was a good shot stopper and ruled his penalty area. I still don't know why he left or became out of favour with Paul Trollope, but he left and has done well for Crewe. He last played in May 2009, and since then we have only had one 'proper' permanent goalkeeper who played regularly in Scott Bevan.
Agree he was a v good shot stopper and part of the promo side so deserves credit,however he often flapped at set peices or corners,at the end he was finding it difficult to get out of his six yard box so there was a large gap between the defence and him which led to the opposition exploiting this critical area and scoring to many goals. In the interest of fairness the defence and mid field were not helping his cause so perhaps this led to a lack of confidence support that he needed so its not just down to his frailties. Good crowd pleaser. COR
As for players that should have been retained I am sure that Stevie Elliot and Stuart Campbell will feature high on this list. They may have both gone due to politics and I am in control (Chuckle) on Campbells side however,when Paul Buckle was appointed as the club's new manager he made it clear that Campbell had no future as a player at the club,most fans felt he should have been retained as Manager or coach with a Lenny alongside him similar to Trolls following relegation especially as the supporters were behind he would not have done any worse than the other two who followed on dreadfull choices. Elliot may have been to expensive,however the real reason was that the new manager wanted a complete clearout regardless of how good the player was.So he recruited 17 new players and froze the existing ones out (my way or the highway) Ok if you are Sir Alex Ferguson but laughable in our league so he let Elliot plus others depart. Elliots not done badly at Cheltenham and Campbell at the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Both these players would have and should have been retained in the services of the club(in my opinion). COR
I think the problems for both Bristol clubs were not entirely due to perfomance capabilities on the pitch. Unless things have changed over the last few years, both sets of players socialise with each other to a certain extent. IMO there has been a serious attitude problem which has influenced the way that both team's players have performed on the pitch. In other words there have been serious breakdowns in the required discipline of the personnel in both dressing rooms. It would appear that John Ward eradicated this disease from the Rovers squad very quickly on his arrival, but the poor atittude problem persisted at AG until the death. We may not be aware of those who may have been the bad apples, or to those that the bad apples managed to manipulate out of the club. Dressing rooms are better places with the likes of Gary Penrice according to accounts one can read.
I'm not one to speculate about that kind of thing, Sapphire, but I must admit some players for both Bristol clubs have struggled badly on the pitch, no matter how good they are or where they came from, so it might have been a culture issue
I liked Phillips as our keeper. He was a fans favourite due to him interacting with the fans like Mikkel Andersen did and Mildenhall had done this season. Players who interact with the fans always becomes the fans favourites. Phillips understood this and being an ex-red, he had to do this really to win us all over. He was a great shot stopper as mentioned already above by others. However he was called flapper Phillips for a reason. Our promotion season he won us a lot of points on his own due to his ability as a shot stopper. But moving up a league, his shot stopping didnt decline but what did decline was his inability to collect crosses and corners. He costed us points which is why Phillips was pushed out. He became a liability. So I agreed with this decision to let him go. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. Seeing the keepers come and go since Phillips departed and what league we are back in, maybe we should have kept him. Trollope had ambitions to make us a top League 1 side and Phillips in my opinion was not a top League 1 keeper so we had to upgrade our keeper. By the way, Welcome A Matter Of Time
Although Phillips served us well I think it was time for him to go. The mistake was that we then had a series of loan 'keepers and never got round to making a long term signing; a 'keeper we could call our own. This 'bonding' with the crowd is ok providing that you are delivering. With Andersen the good relationship he had with the fans sometimes masked some ordinary performances. I have it on good authority (sorry, I can't think of another way of putting it!) that Phillips had got too big for his boots, would not countenance being dropped (Mike Green's career was held back) and departure became inevitable.
