Manager selection update

[Metalmicky]

Not sure the Motherwell fans were that bothered with Robinson.....

Some quotes... from their forum

"I wish we got shot of Robinson sooner tbh good chance we would be in the top six right now it was about 6 weeks too late"

"especially how things were looking before Christmas and before Robinson left, we’ve actually done okay this season"

"I think the time to judge Alexander is when he has his own players in and not the dross that Robinson and Foyle have left him"

"Alexander's job was to keep us up and do so working with Robinson's awful legacy"

"It could simply been a case of extremely poor recruitment by Robinson. Let’s face it, the last three summer transfer windows have been utterly abysmal when you think of some of the dross Robinson was allowed to bring in and that was reflected by the on field product which was dismal"


It's all subjective I guess............. but I hope it's the left field guy...

[Cramby10]

Having read a bit about Robinson myself it seems he jumped ship when the going got tough. Is this the type of character we need?

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Having read a bit about Robinson myself it seems he jumped ship when the going got tough. Is this the type of character we need?

Any different to the last one?

I think he makes some fair and refreshing points. Neither him nor wellens would be the perfect candidate. Both have positives and negatives.  Wellens for example did well when he had a few good loan signings then it tailed off.  But conversly he had them!

Robinson also tailed off towards the end (he openly talks about needing to move on after a few years, would that concern our board?). He makes a valid point on the budget in Scotland. All he could get are failed league 1 players at best as they can't compete.

Both candidates will have a number of questions over them.  As Doncaster fans we have to accept that. We won't get the finished article (does such a thing exist?). Even the top managers have poor spells and good spells.

[wabtec]

IMO one big black mark against Robinson,he signed Curtis Main so he obviously thinks Main is a footballer also the references on the Motherwell fans forum about his poor recruitment.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

IMO one big black mark against Robinson,he signed Curtis Main so he obviously thinks Main is a footballer also the references on the Motherwell fans forum about his poor recruitment.

In his market was he the best he could get? He hints at that in an interview I read last night.  Worth noting Main was sold on by them.

It's like Alfie may. He wasn't good enough for us but has been great for Cheltenham.  It's all relative.

[jamesrover17]

IMO one big black mark against Robinson,he signed Curtis Main so he obviously thinks Main is a footballer also the references on the Motherwell fans forum about his poor recruitment.

In his market was he the best he could get? He hints at that in an interview I read last night.  Worth noting Main was sold on by them.

It's like Alfie may. He wasn't good enough for us but has been great for Cheltenham.  It's all relative.

I watched a similar interview with Robinson, he basically admits Motherwell were shopping at the bottom of the barrel due to funds, they had to sign players that couldn't get into LG1 and LG2 teams and sold them on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iOBViS6gBE

Not a bad watch

[Dare to dream!]

Despite Robinson its hard to see the new manager being anyone else other than Wellens.

Ohhh Richie richie...

[MachoMadness]

Worth remembering at the time, I believe McCann was the left field candidate and most people on here - me included if i remember right - wanted Stuart McCall instead. Look how that turned out for both parties.

Just saying if it does end up being this third man, he must be a hell of a candidate to beat the other 2 and I hope he'll be given a chance!

[DonnyOsmond]

I wanted Appleton last time out.

[roversdude]

The other two whoever they are !!! I doubt they’ll be confirmation of who has got through

[GazLaz]

John Eustace the third man?

[sedwardsdrfc]

The worry with a leftfield candidate is that the level of rebuild we need here and the lack of experience they'll have of the transfer market and building a squad.

I'd be all for getting a talented coach without too much experience if it was just a case of tweaking the squad and injecting some new ideas/better coaching. Unfortunately we need a full rebuild and we won't be throwing loads of money at it (not a dig) so having experience of building a squad with limited resources is probably top of the priority list for me.

[DRNaith]

Yes, depending on what is leftfield about the leftfield candidate, there may well be a need to build a different structure around them to support their strengths and weaknesses.

[Dare to dream!]

Looks like Eustace is the third - matches with what Hoden says as he has just appeared in the betting as third fav.

[DonnyNoel]

The worry with a leftfield candidate is that the level of rebuild we need here and the lack of experience they'll have of the transfer market and building a squad.

I'd be all for getting a talented coach without too much experience if it was just a case of tweaking the squad and injecting some new ideas/better coaching. Unfortunately we need a full rebuild and we won't be throwing loads of money at it (not a dig) so having experience of building a squad with limited resources is probably top of the priority list for me.

That's a good point although it could work if the coach is well respected and has contacts - much like when Snods took over we could be signing a few of his old team mates. Although hopefully not on the way to the first game of the season!

[bunkmoreland]

Hi, Motherwell fan here.

I’ve been following this thread since I noticed Robinson was in the running for the job and thought I’d chip in since you seem to be talking about him at the moment (sorry for the length of the post but it might clear up some stuff you're chatting about).

The headlines of note with Robinson are he took us to two cup finals, brought in £6m+ in transfer revenue, cleared our external debt to previous owners, developed Academy players like Jake Hastie, James Scott, David Turnbull and to a lesser extent Allan Campbell, finished 3rd and qualified for Europe.

We had the 3rd best points total for the calendar year 2019 behind Celtic and Rangers, playing an attacking 433. If that sort of thing impresses you.

Overall he did a (very) good job here. He was parachuted in and kept us up. Gutted and rebuilt the squad, massively reduced the average age of the squad, took us to two cup finals, rebuilt the squad again, then did so again and finished 3rd and qualified for Europe.

We'd see dips in form but they were often mitigated by injuries to key players that we weren't able to replace from the back ups we had.

This season was slightly different it felt like a guy whose shelf life was up and he’s since said he realises that the ideal time to leave would have been last summer when he was interviewed for the Northern Ireland job (and it transpires also applied for the Bournemouth role).

I’d say there’s definitely a recency bias at play in some comments from Steelmen Online or Pie and Bovril (some folk just didn’t take to him from the minute he got the job so there’s that to take into account too).

This season saw him hit by a ton of injuries to key players (our injury list has been into double figures this season at points), we also had weird stuff like being awarded points by forfeit due to Covid postponements then having the points taken back off us. There are also a number of players who should be looking at themselves in the mirror because a fair number of them let Robinson down badly.

Honestly, I don't blame him for chucking it when he did. He seemed absolutely knackered. I don't know for certain but I've a feeling the restrictions around Covid made it difficult to coach as he would normally.

He’s by no means a perfect manager, if he was he wouldn’t have been managing Motherwell but he’s an experienced coach. He was involved with the NI youth set up and worked alongside Michael O'Neill at the Euros and generally he’s a pretty pragmatic manager.

Basically, he’ll work with what he has. The criticisms of his style are kind of overplayed. As I mentioned he pretty much built 3 “versions” of a Motherwell side in his time here. The first (which reached 2 Cup Finals) was a 352 that was physical and direct and made no apologies for being so. It was also a lot of fun to watch, who wouldn’t enjoy watching their team bully both Rangers and Aberdeen out of Hampden in two national cup semi-finals.

Unfortunately that side was found out pretty quickly and struggled the next season. Robinson admits himself that by the time our winter break came around we were pretty much unwatchable and needed to change. I’d say this is kind of where the “he doesn’t have a Plan B” comes into play.

His time at Motherwell saw him find something that worked then just stick with it until it didn’t then just blow it up and start again.

Which is what he did with the 352. He scrapped it completely and changed to an attacking 433 with David Turnbull and Allan Campbell pulling the strings in midfield and two quick, direct wingers in Jake Hastie and Gboly Ariyibi. Any Motherwell fan who says that wasn’t a good team to watch is, quite frankly, lying. We were loads of fun, quick wingers and the best young midfielders in the league running the show.

Such is the way at Motherwell that side had to be rebuilt again after Hastie moved to Rangers and Turnbull was ruled out for a season after his move to Celtic collapsed due to an issue picked up in a medical and a raft of players moved on. This time he stuck with the 433 we brought in Declan Gallagher (who subsequently became a Scotland international on Robinson’s watch) and oversaw another rebuild and that’s the team that finished 3rd.

In a way Motherwell was a perfect job for Robinson at the stage of his career that he was at.

He was coming off the back of a basket-case like Oldham and had a point to prove, he knew the club, the league and the majority of the players because he’d been our assistant the seasons before. He also had the backing of the board and providing he kept us up when he was parachuted in he had a complete blank canvas to work with and the freedom to do so without any interference from the the board or GM.

Which is why I’d be hesitant in saying he'd be a good/bad fit for Doncaster. It could probably go either way. Next season will be our 37th consecutive in the top flight of Scottish football (pub league, all your nans could score etc) but our expectations are probably very different to Doncaster who I'd assume are aiming for promotion.

In terms of signings when they were good they were very good Trevor Carson (ended up NI keeper), Cedric Kipre (sold to Wigan for £1m), Liam Donnelly (became a full NI international), Declan Gallagher (became a Scotland international)...most of the other signings were fine although I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a fair amount of dross came through the door as well.

One of his blind spots has been not getting enough goals out his strikers, he's keen on them being facilitators more than anything. A lot of our goals were spread around the team rather than coming from our centre forwards when we played with a 433.

We're currently at the top end of the form table since Graham Alexander took over in January and he's done that for the most part with the squad he inherited from Robinson so that should probably give you an idea that his signings weren't quite as bad as a lot of people would like to make out (Alexander also has Devante Cole on 10 goals in 19 games so make of that what you will).

All the best for next season whoever your manager is.

Also, there's a pretty extensive interview with Robinson here if you want to give it a listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-IOIWrzI0

[Drover]

Cheers bunkmoreland,excellent and most informative post,all the best to The Well for next season too.

[Drover]

Third interviewee,Michael McIndoe?

He's Left midField

[SoundbiteBarmyArmy]

Hi, Motherwell fan here.

I’ve been following this thread since I noticed Robinson was in the running for the job and thought I’d chip in since you seem to be talking about him at the moment (sorry for the length of the post but it might clear up some stuff you're chatting about).

The headlines of note with Robinson are he took us to two cup finals, brought in £6m+ in transfer revenue, cleared our external debt to previous owners, developed Academy players like Jake Hastie, James Scott, David Turnbull and to a lesser extent Allan Campbell, finished 3rd and qualified for Europe.

We had the 3rd best points total for the calendar year 2019 behind Celtic and Rangers, playing an attacking 433. If that sort of thing impresses you.

Overall he did a (very) good job here. He was parachuted in and kept us up. Gutted and rebuilt the squad, massively reduced the average age of the squad, took us to two cup finals, rebuilt the squad again, then did so again and finished 3rd and qualified for Europe.

We'd see dips in form but they were often mitigated by injuries to key players that we weren't able to replace from the back ups we had.

This season was slightly different it felt like a guy whose shelf life was up and he’s since said he realises that the ideal time to leave would have been last summer when he was interviewed for the Northern Ireland job (and it transpires also applied for the Bournemouth role).

I’d say there’s definitely a recency bias at play in some comments from Steelmen Online or Pie and Bovril (some folk just didn’t take to him from the minute he got the job so there’s that to take into account too).

This season saw him hit by a ton of injuries to key players (our injury list has been into double figures this season at points), we also had weird stuff like being awarded points by forfeit due to Covid postponements then having the points taken back off us. There are also a number of players who should be looking at themselves in the mirror because a fair number of them let Robinson down badly.

Honestly, I don't blame him for chucking it when he did. He seemed absolutely knackered. I don't know for certain but I've a feeling the restrictions around Covid made it difficult to coach as he would normally.

He’s by no means a perfect manager, if he was he wouldn’t have been managing Motherwell but he’s an experienced coach. He was involved with the NI youth set up and worked alongside Michael O'Neill at the Euros and generally he’s a pretty pragmatic manager.

Basically, he’ll work with what he has. The criticisms of his style are kind of overplayed. As I mentioned he pretty much built 3 “versions” of a Motherwell side in his time here. The first (which reached 2 Cup Finals) was a 352 that was physical and direct and made no apologies for being so. It was also a lot of fun to watch, who wouldn’t enjoy watching their team bully both Rangers and Aberdeen out of Hampden in two national cup semi-finals.

Unfortunately that side was found out pretty quickly and struggled the next season. Robinson admits himself that by the time our winter break came around we were pretty much unwatchable and needed to change. I’d say this is kind of where the “he doesn’t have a Plan B” comes into play.

His time at Motherwell saw him find something that worked then just stick with it until it didn’t then just blow it up and start again.

Which is what he did with the 352. He scrapped it completely and changed to an attacking 433 with David Turnbull and Allan Campbell pulling the strings in midfield and two quick, direct wingers in Jake Hastie and Gboly Ariyibi. Any Motherwell fan who says that wasn’t a good team to watch is, quite frankly, lying. We were loads of fun, quick wingers and the best young midfielders in the league running the show.

Such is the way at Motherwell that side had to be rebuilt again after Hastie moved to Rangers and Turnbull was ruled out for a season after his move to Celtic collapsed due to an issue picked up in a medical and a raft of players moved on. This time he stuck with the 433 we brought in Declan Gallagher (who subsequently became a Scotland international on Robinson’s watch) and oversaw another rebuild and that’s the team that finished 3rd.

In a way Motherwell was a perfect job for Robinson at the stage of his career that he was at.

He was coming off the back of a basket-case like Oldham and had a point to prove, he knew the club, the league and the majority of the players because he’d been our assistant the seasons before. He also had the backing of the board and providing he kept us up when he was parachuted in he had a complete blank canvas to work with and the freedom to do so without any interference from the the board or GM.

Which is why I’d be hesitant in saying he'd be a good/bad fit for Doncaster. It could probably go either way. Next season will be our 37th consecutive in the top flight of Scottish football (pub league, all your nans could score etc) but our expectations are probably very different to Doncaster who I'd assume are aiming for promotion.

In terms of signings when they were good they were very good Trevor Carson (ended up NI keeper), Cedric Kipre (sold to Wigan for £1m), Liam Donnelly (became a full NI international), Declan Gallagher (became a Scotland international)...most of the other signings were fine although I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a fair amount of dross came through the door as well.

One of his blind spots has been not getting enough goals out his strikers, he's keen on them being facilitators more than anything. A lot of our goals were spread around the team rather than coming from our centre forwards when we played with a 433.

We're currently at the top end of the form table since Graham Alexander took over in January and he's done that for the most part with the squad he inherited from Robinson so that should probably give you an idea that his signings weren't quite as bad as a lot of people would like to make out (Alexander also has Devante Cole on 10 goals in 19 games so make of that what you will).

All the best for next season whoever your manager is.

Also, there's a pretty extensive interview with Robinson here if you want to give it a listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-IOIWrzI0

Great, informative post. Thanks for taking the time.

I personally would like to see Robinson given the role. What stands out for me is that he 'gutted' the Motherwell squad at the time - that is exactly what we're after over the Summer.

Seems he has an eye for young, upcoming talent? Again, this is what is needed at Rovers, especially with Copps retiring.

[River Don]

That's a very informative post Bunkmoreland. Thanks for that. It really confirms that he probably would be a good fit at Rovers.

The club has a difficult choice I think,  we have two good candidates and I suppose the mystery candidate must also be of a similar calibre.

It does look like their thorough and methodic approach to appointing managers pays dividends.

[Metalmicky]

The club has a difficult choice I think,  we have two good candidates and I suppose the mystery candidate must also be of a similar calibre.

2 good candidates..... does that mean they will be off after one season.

[River Don]

The club has a difficult choice I think,  we have two good candidates and I suppose the mystery candidate must also be of a similar calibre.

2 good candidates..... does that mean they will be off after one season.

I would hope not but one thing is apparent in how they select managers. It seems to hone in on younger men. That means there is always the liklihood that being ambitious they will jump when a bigger job appears.

Someone who has been around a bit might appreciate the stability a job like Rovers offers more.

[Alan Southstand]

Quote from: Alan Southstand on May 11, 2021, 06:36:05 pm
I would think a ‘left field’ appointment is the last thing we need, considering what we’ve witnessed over the last few months! He may well have impressed everyone during his interview, but it’s hardly going to be something that the players can identify with.

And, we have to attract some serious quality to the Club if we’re to have any chance of competing at all next season!

What absolute nonsense Alan.

Without any knowledge whatsoever you've managed to pull out a negative!

And yet, since I posted that, a couple of other posters have commented along similar lines, without any response from you!

I find that very strange.

At the end of the day, SM, it’s my opinion and you either take it or leave it. My post may have come over to you in the wrong way, but just by saying it’s nonsense doesn’t make your opinion correct. If you havn’t realised it yet, there’s quite a few (on the outside) really hurting and that doesn’t mean to say that people on the inside aren’t hurting either, but a little bit of understanding might not be a bad thing!

I clearly stated why I thought a ‘left field’ appointment was not what we needed, and that’s been muted by others, so perhaps it would be interesting to read why you think it would be good thing for DRFC, all things considered.

[Michael Shaw]

I don't have a lot of good to say about Rovers right now, but thanks SoundbiteBarmyArmy for your post and the first feeling of light I can see at the end of a very dark tunnel.
And no, I don't want Wellens as manager. He was a good player but had a chip on his shoulder and I don't want to see that again at Doncaster. He always felt he should be playing with his buddies at Man Utd and had been badly treated. I was glad to see him go even as a player. I have no intention of entering into yet another argument on this site. It is my opinion, end of.

[Dutch Uncle]

John Eustace the third man?

Surely it must be Orson Welles 

Sounds not a lot of difference between Wellens and Welles 

[godlike1]

You can if you think you’re god-like.

Yep I can do what I want

[godlike1]

Despite Robinson its hard to see the new manager being anyone else other than Wellens.

Ohhh Richie richie...

Why though? It'd be good to understand why people think he'll be the right man

[Move DRFC]

Despite Robinson its hard to see the new manager being anyone else other than Wellens.

Ohhh Richie richie...

Why though? It'd be good to understand why people think he'll be the right man

Won league 2 title with Swindon despite lack of experience. Got his two strikers scoring for fun. Won JPT with Salford. Plays an attractive brand of football. Only young so should get better. Speaks his mind so will be fun to watch interviews again after the dross Moore came out with... and he's a club legend.

I'm sure what's not to like to be honest.

[godlike1]

One hit wonder? Not enough for me there.

I can't understand why he's being interviewed  but..............if he gets the job I will support him

[Pliskin]

It's worth mentioning that while Wellens did win the Papa John's Trophy final with Salford he had no involvement in getting them there.