Richardson 'Not Good Enough'

herringthorpe

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Millers Boss after the defeat that meant relegation last night

rotherham.vitalfootball.co.uk

Richardson ‘Not Good Enough’

Rotherham United Head Coach Leam Richardson told Sky Sports that he ‘feels for the fans’ after relegation was finally confirmed last night. ‘From pre-season, to the first game and onwards I think this…
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Could have said the same about almost every game he has been in charge. The wins against M'boro and Millwall were only because our oppenents missed so many chances. Is he good enough?
 
When I saw this I thought Caz had decided LR wasn't good enough! Other than the Wigan promotion - and there's a suggestion of big spending and other factors - I can see no evidence whatsoever to support the view that LR is a good manager. The whole affair cheeses me off. If the aim was to stay up then you don't bring in a guy who hasn't worked for a year but rather a fireman in the style of a Warnock. If the aim was a rebuild in L1 why would you think that best achieved by sacking MT bringing in LR and promoting RS? All bonkers.
 
The headline is to be taken how you want to read it!!

I never understood the sacking of Taylor - I'd love to know who the managers who 'turned us down' before Richardson was appointed were and why they said no.

I'd like to know when the training ground suddenly became too bad to train on - I mean, we are - were - a Championship football team for goodness sakes.

I'd like to know what the people in the background are actually doing - the ones with faces we never see.

I'd like to think that before we chuck players out willy nilly (those who don't want to go) we have players coming in for that position.

But I'm never expecting to get any answers.
 
I'm as repetitive as Halley's comet but more frequent but with L1 looming Bola could have been blooded this season with a view to deciding his future and Kelly did not want to go. He would never give less than 100% and was widely liked by the fans. Why on earth ship him out? I know the injury aspect but if he's to be replaced by CW I would not be happy. Oh and I read today that Andre Green cannot yet even walk properly.
 
Shouldn't have sacked Taylor without getting a signature on the contract by a new manager. TS has come unstuck with "gentlemen's agreements" before. Never seems to learn. Come to think of it, never seems to learn about other stuff, like signing players who are too old... or have been sidelined for months with injuries/life-threatening illnesses, signing centre-forwards who never score, etc. No indication that this kind of stuff is ever going to stop with our current regime.
 
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mikemiller said:
Shouldn't have sacked Taylor without getting a signature on the contract by a new manager. TS has come unstuck with "gentlemen's agreements" before. Never seems to learn. Come to think of it, never seems to learn about other stuff, like signing players who are too old... or have been sidelined for months with injuries/life-threatening illnesses, signing centre-forwards who never score, etc. No sign that this kind of stuff is ever going to stop with our current regime.
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I am reliably informed (and I believe LR has stated as much) that targets have been identified for next season. I assume these are footballers below pensionable age and await with bated breath to hear how and why we just failed to get them over the line.
 
Some of the players that we "just failed to get over the line" last summer, turned out to be fairly awful too. Poor scouting system, so I dread to think who we will sign next, although could they be any worse/more injury prone than the last lot? We will soon find out... :(
 
mikemiller said:
Some of the players that we "just failed to get over the line" last summer, turned out to be fairly awful too. Poor scouting system, so I dread to think who we will sign next, although could they be any worse/more injury prone than the last lot? We will soon find out... :(
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Fair point, Mike. I did once bang the drum for Stockton and not sure how that would have worked out. We nearly signed a bog-standard MF from somewhere (MKD or Wimbledon?) and having investigated his performances I could not see why we were keen and was relieved when he failed to appear (I've forgotten his name but he may have played with Rudoni). The other players that I have wanted were Rudoni (very mixed feelings on him at Huddersfield), Bishop, Lang, Moxon and Aaron Collins. All of these (Rudoni apart) went for less than £1m to L1 sides. And of course I was disappointed that Stansfield chose Brum for his loan.
 
Just ask players whether they want to commit to the club or move on.
Players priority is to their family and their playing career.
If certain players don’t want to be here then fair enough, jog on and find employment elsewhere.

The club just have not learned anything from previous mistakes.
Ideal opportunity to progress ‘ incremental improvements ‘.
Failed miserably.

Most people realise the club are limited to which type / quality of players they can sign but there’s no excuse for the same old / same old.
 
Lindum said:
I am reliably informed (and I believe LR has stated as much) that targets have been identified for next season. I assume these are footballers below pensionable age and await with bated breath to hear how and why we just failed to get them over the line.
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But we get that from every manager every season and we somehow wait until the very last minutes to get someone in - to me, that's just not acceptable. We need to get new faces in as soon as this season finishes.
 
It's worse than that... we wait until the last minute to get somebody in... who is over 35, and/or has missed a season with a serious injury or life-threatening illness. The only early summer signing I recall us making was Eaves, who most fans didn't even want! We can't go on like this and expect any success, even in League One.
 
What can we offer that makes players (and managers!) want to come here ?? Not much it seems!!

My guess is many players won’t want to commit until they know if a better offer is coming their way, as appears to have happened many times in the past!
 
As a general rule we sign players quite early ahead of league one campaigns because we pay reasonably well by league one standards and players who know the championship is not a realistic goal for them won’t mess us around. Ahead of Championship campaigns and in January Championship windows we struggle. Anyone who we might rate as Champ standard is likely to wait in case a better offer comes along. Plus they know more than likely if they join us in the championship it will be a relegation battle. I therefore have some sympathy with the club in terms of not making early signings. And I think we have some very good players currently at the club. What we got horribly wrong was the balance of the side. We ended up with three big target men, four aged and injury prone centre backs, no goal threat from midfield and no attacking wide threat. That made us easy to defend against and easy to get at. A terrible combination. And that was something that was in our control. As a for example, Connor Washington wasn’t brilliant or prolific and didn’t cost us anything but he made good runs and was lively. Something that can’t be said about any forward we have put out this season. At times this season I’d have killed to have a Connor Washington back. Something I never thought I’d say. We never properly replaced Ben Wiles and the only genuine wide players we signed were Fred, who I thought did well at times but at other times didn’t look interested, and Appiah, who has been a disaster.
 
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Lindum, Warney always made it very clear that we would not be signing Cole Stockton, and our subsequent managers showed no interest either. No idea why - it could have been due to medical problems, although that wouldn't normally put us off. Wages? Maybe something that wasn't even directly related to football? Who knows? Now at Barrow on loan.

Thankfully, our neighbours pipped us to signing Ashley Fletcher on loan from Watford by offering more money (allegedly). He would have been a classic Millers "centre-forward who never scores" signing. We are usually over-stocked with that type of player anyway (for a position that few other clubs even have!), so not sure why he was a transfer target ... not that it matters much now. He's gone back at Watford. Let's hope that he is not still on the recruitment radar for next season.
 
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Mike, as I mentioned on another thread - and as you have several times pointed out too - there appears to be a pattern to our recruitment that goes back at least a few seasons. As it is not at all clear who has the final say - manager/coach, HOR/DOF, the fabled 'committee', TS or Uncle Tom Cobley - and equally unclear who if anyone sets the general parameters and whether those parameters result from a strategic vision or plan, it is impossible to be optimistic looking forward that things will change. I am preparing myself for a Summer of looking wistfully as other clubs sign promise and potential, we narrowly fail to get a couple over the line and late on - most probably after the Summer training camp - a few crocks and journeymen limp into NYS.
 
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