Rage Online

Unequivocally, he has to go. That’s a relegation team if ever I saw one. Completely unacceptable performance. No fight, no teamwork. And the fact Robbo and the coaches went straight down the tunnel while sending the players to face the ire of the fans.

Just go now.

Not that it will make any difference. Amazingly there are more rotten things at the club than him. But still. Robinson Out.

Is Appleton in a job yet? If not, can we lure him back?

Kernow Yellow wrote: ↑Tue Jan 01, 2019 6:44 pm Unequivocally, he has to go. That’s a relegation team if ever I saw one. Completely unacceptable performance. No fight, no teamwork. And the fact Robbo and the coaches went straight down the tunnel while sending the players to face the ire of the fans.

Just go now.

I did not buy an i follow matchday pass so i have no real idea what went wrong.

What happened ? Plymouth so poor all season yet turn us over , spectacularly. So worrying we collapsed like that.

Surely playing Brannagan as a sitting midfielder was folly.

I’d be surprised if he went any time soon. Plessantly surprised, but surprised nonetheless.

The chairman has clearly backed him to sign this lad from Northern Ireland, as well as Jordan Graham and potentially a load of others (from what KR told Radio Oxford before the game). The time to sack him was a fortnight or so ago, at which point we were in the middle of a decent run and many on this forum* were saying we’d turned a corner and KR was a genius. If we’d done so, we could have appointed a replacement in time for them to assess the squad during the busy Winterval period and sign players accordingly.

If he’s staying, we’d best make the most of the situation and ensure we stay up. To that end, I sincerely hope we’re one of the five clubs who’ve allegedly been given permission to talk to Exeter’s Jayden Stockley. He’s exactly the sort of player we need. I’d also like to see a proper, dedicated, competent left-back; maybe someone like Butler at Newport who looks a prospect.

(* - not me. I’ve consistently said KR is a bin of a man and should be disposed of)

Well, there were very few comments here during our good run - five home wins in a row. I wondered if the forum was closing down. I do remember Robinson saying something interesting after I think the Bradford defeat, that we weren’t good enough to win without giving our all. We’ve only got a dozen fit players of a decent standard, and they are knackered and now dispirited- they can no longer harry and pressure throughout a game. Let’s hope we can sign a couple of energetic strong players along with a striker. We’ve done surprisingly well to get through half a season with basically no strikers

Yes, Robinson did surprisingly 'well' to start the season with basically no strikers!

I wasn't there Jerome but I did watch it on iFollow. The most worrying thing for me was that the players did seem to be trying but through a combination of:

- Lethargy due to having to play too many games with no senior back-up due to the list of crocks we have
- A rigid adherence to one up front
- Removal of Mousinho who has performed well this season
- A lack of tactical nous

we wimpered to a very poor defeat. All of the above are Mr Robinson's responsibility.

Tiger will do nothing about the mangerial position unfortunately. It was only ten days ago that I thought we could have a run at the play-offs if we had a good Christmas set of results........

I'm not particularly a Robinson lover, and the summer recruitment was almost as bad as the previous year's, but I do dislike wilful negativity. Why is Robinson now the worst thing ever, whereas ten days ago we thought we could have a run at the play-offs? It seems that he gets all of the blame and none of the credit.

Werthers Original wrote: ↑Tue Jan 01, 2019 11:49 pm Well, there were very few comments here during our good run - five home wins in a row. I wondered if the forum was closing down.

Well i can only comment on games I’ve seen, and indeed posted my thoughts on the Gillingham game, midway through our run of home wins. If you were at the others, why didn’t you tell us about them? The forum isn’t just about other people!

Anyway, despite being unimpressed by our form under Robinson last season, and appalled by our start to this season, I have not at any point called for the manager’s head. It’s never a good idea to chop and change, and all managers need time to prove themselves. But Robinson has run out of time.

He’s had a summer rebuild, brought his own players in, and it looked like he was finally turning it round in the last couple of months. But we have just had three games, all against teams around us at the wrong end of the table. Not only have we lost all of them, but we haven’t scored a single goal, and have conceded more goals in each consecutive match, despite the opposition having been even lower placed in the table than the one before.

We clearly have some talented players, but they are not performing as a team. There is no heart, no fight, no determination to win. Just a load of shrugging from the defenders as goal after goal goes against us. Likewise when we attack, players are expected to do it all themselves. No one goes wide to help the wingers when they have three defenders around them, no one backs up the midfielder when they close down their opposite man. We simply don’t want it as much as the opposition. This is a management failing, and it is time for change at the top.

Radley Rambler wrote: ↑Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:49 pm Tiger will do nothing about the mangerial position unfortunately. It was only ten days ago that I thought we could have a run at the play-offs if we had a good Christmas set of results........

Tiger is utterly deluded about our current situation. On Friday (before the Southend result) he was talking about taking 48 points from the remaining 22 games, despite having only taken 26 from the 22 played up to that point. That's 100pts-a-season form!

What he should've been saying was along the lines of looking to strengthen the squad in January to ensure that we climb away from the relegation zone and have a solid end to the season. Over-optimistic stuff about reaching the play-offs is lunacy when you're potentially just two games away from being deep in the shit again - as the next two results showed.

Currently the club is a shambles on and off the pitch, and really needs someone to take it by the scruff of the neck.

Werthers Original wrote: ↑Wed Jan 02, 2019 2:00 pm I'm not particularly a Robinson lover, and the summer recruitment was almost as bad as the previous year's, but I do dislike wilful negativity. Why is Robinson now the worst thing ever, whereas ten days ago we thought we could have a run at the play-offs? It seems that he gets all of the blame and none of the credit.

Pretty standard for most managers whose record is poor. People like to moan about football. Nick Harris told a good friend of mine that if Oxford lose, at least Jerome doesn't have to worry about filling airtime because the phone is red hot, case in point being yesterday, when we win he has to blag it a lot more.

KR did get some credit for the run up to 22 December (at least on the other side), the performance and results of the last 10 days though have eroded that credit. Taking an objective view:

What has he done well:

- Kept us up last season with someone else's players
- Initially came across as thoughtful and professional
- Sought to engage with the fans where feasible
- Worked hard, he does appear to put serious hours in
- Recruited Gavin Whyte and Marcus Browne


What he has not done well:

- Recruited Luke Garbutt, Ricky Holmes with a known injury and Sam Smith
- Not recruited at least one striker and then moaned about missing 'top targets'
- Throwing some players under the bus e.g. Hanson after Luton
- Post-match interviews
- Touchline behaviour
- Adapted tactics e.g. always one up front
- Won enough football matches - averaging about a point a game
- Sounded like a victim too often - there's always excuses
- Explained what aspects of the team/tactics aren't working and how he will address this

IMHO, the above is all a bit irrelevant because does anyone believe Tiger is actually going to do anything?

I think Robinson also gets quite a lot of stick because of the manner in which he comes across. He is regularly finding excuses and blaming others. He almost blamed the referee yesterday but stopped himself because even he realised that would be ridiculous. His accent also doesn't help as Scousers can sound quite whiny when losing and making excuses.

I felt quite sorry for him yesterday - he sounded defeated.

After a fantastic run the last three games have been hugely disappointing. I think an element of fatigue will be at play here - we have pretty much the same team every week for quite some time now and if you look at the bench there is not a lot of offer. Our injuries to our creative players have really shown in this period. To get no game time from Holmes and Carruthers is very disappointing. Our lack of an effective striker has also killed us - teams have somewhat worked Mackie out. If we have him on a performance based contract I dread to think how much he is costing us.

However, the manner of the results is what hurts the most - we have been very poor and haven't competed. As such I am more now in the Robinson out camp provided someone better can be brought in and make use of the transfer window. After failing to get the Notts County job I wonder if MaPPs opinion of himself has been reset to a more realistic level and he may consider taking over again. I still think Robinson with a fair wind can do a decent job but he's had long enough now to show this and there is only so much you can blame on the injury situation - I think the biggest problem was believing Obika should be first choice striker based on some goals against rubbish teams in pre season and not getting in a striker who can score goals. As a result the pressure on the defense means that they know if they let the first goal in we are likely to lose.

I also think McMahon has been a huge miss. He would get forward, gave us a good option at set pieces and quite a few goals we got in our good run were assisted by him. Why he is being allowed to leave baffles me unless something really serious is up with him and in which case I wonder whether he should be playing at all. If he is simply homesick he should be told to knuckle down - he signed a contract, has barely played, and given the position we are in should stick at it until close season.

Our two new signings should help but we need a lot more from either players coming back from injury or new recruits to give us options up top.

I don't think McMahon is such a big miss. Most of our recent good results have been achieved without him - turning over Rochdale in some style, beating eighth-place Blackpool easily, and battling to draws at higher-placed Peterborough and Doncaster. We've also scored a fair few goals during that period, though hardly any have come from a striker.

Presumably Smith was meant to be the top striker, pursued all summer and given number 9. His falling so far short of the required standard has really hurt us.

Well I'd rather we had him than give him away to our relegation rivals for crying out loud what are we thinking?!?