Brian: The right decision?

[Green]

Not in that example perhaps, but actions occurring after a decision has been made absolutely can validate or invalidate it.

The decision not to put a suffering wounded animal down, then it goes on to suffer for several days before dieing anyway for example. Not that I'm saying Brian McDermott was or is in any way analogous to a dieing wounded animal you understand, but you get the gist.

[Extended-Phenotype]

What happened at Leeds is utterly irrelevant to this argument.

Might be at his next interview.

[floyd__streete]

What happened at Leeds is utterly irrelevant to this argument.

Might be at his next interview.

The next panel who interview him are more likely to take the excellent job he did at Reading into consideration over a year spent under a rotten regime at Leeds. Good luck to him anyway, I am sure we'd all agree with that.

[Extended-Phenotype]

What happened at Leeds is utterly irrelevant to this argument.

Might be at his next interview.

The next panel who interview him are more likely to take the excellent job he did at Reading into consideration over a year spent under a rotten regime at Leeds. Good luck to him anyway, I am sure we'd all agree with that.

Your dad assures me they don't use panels at Asda.

[Ian Royal]

What happened at Leeds is utterly irrelevant to this argument.

Mark McGhee got sacked by Wolves. Didn't make his departure from Reading in 1994 somehow less disappointing.

Not really comparable seeing as he left when we wanted him to stay and McDermott was sacked.

[floyd__streete]

What happened at Leeds is utterly irrelevant to this argument.

Mark McGhee got sacked by Wolves. Didn't make his departure from Reading in 1994 somehow less disappointing.

Not really comparable seeing as he left when we wanted him to stay and McDermott was sacked.

Come on Ian, you are better than me having to explain this to you:

McGhee failing and being sacked at Wolves didn't make it any less gutting at the time that a good manager decided to leave us.

McDermott failing and being sacked at Leeds doesn't make it any less of a bad decision at the time to get rid of a good manager. And that decision doesn't look much better even now tbh.

[Ian Royal]

No it doesn't look better. It looks the same. Probably correct and certainly a reasonable call.

[Extended-Phenotype]

What happened at Leeds is utterly irrelevant to this argument.

Mark McGhee got sacked by Wolves. Didn't make his departure from Reading in 1994 somehow less disappointing.

Not really comparable seeing as he left when we wanted him to stay and McDermott was sacked.

Come on Ian, you are better than me having to explain this to you:

McGhee failing and being sacked at Wolves didn't make it any less gutting at the time that a good manager decided to leave us.

McDermott failing and being sacked at Leeds doesn't make it any less of a bad decision at the time to get rid of a good manager. And that decision doesn't look much better even now tbh.

I'd say it looks less of a bad decision than if we sacked him and he did well enough not to get sacked again shortly after.

[floyd__streete]

Well, you're wrong

[Extended-Phenotype]

Oh.

[Vic_Flange]

F*ck me guys, is this Life of Brian?

He's not the Messiah, he's just a naughty boy, so go and look on the bright side of death before we all draw our terminal breath

[Green]

We don't hear enough from you, Vic.

[Zana Badawi]

Not really comparable seeing as he left when we wanted him to stay and McDermott was sacked.

Who is this we?
Madejski wouldn't have sacked him.
Given you are somebody who likes to pull out the 'Wah! Wah! Wah!' cliché, Im surprised you are so easy to judge a manager solely by their league position. Don't behave so privileged. We've spent a year on here saying that we shouldn't misjudge Adkins because the club is going down the sh1tter. So surely its a colossal double standard to not apply that to MacDermott as well? We're in no better a position now having changed managers - so what was the point of the change?

[Nameless]

Not really comparable seeing as he left when we wanted him to stay and McDermott was sacked.

Who is this we?
Madejski wouldn't have sacked him.
Given you are somebody who likes to pull out the 'Wah! Wah! Wah!' cliché, Im surprised you are so easy to judge a manager solely by their league position. Don't behave so privileged. We've spent a year on here saying that we shouldn't misjudge Adkins because the club is going down the sh1tter. So surely its a colossal double standard to not apply that to MacDermott as well? We're in no better a position now having changed managers - so what was the point of the change?

Because Brian didn't look like he had a plan B and something had to change. Had we kept him we may have been worse off than we are now, although we cannot tell, and we cannot go back,

[Ian Royal]

Not really comparable seeing as he left when we wanted him to stay and McDermott was sacked.

Who is this we?
Madejski wouldn't have sacked him.
Given you are somebody who likes to pull out the 'Wah! Wah! Wah!' cliché, Im surprised you are so easy to judge a manager solely by their league position. Don't behave so privileged. We've spent a year on here saying that we shouldn't misjudge Adkins because the club is going down the sh1tter. So surely its a colossal double standard to not apply that to MacDermott as well? We're in no better a position now having changed managers - so what was the point of the change?

I think you're getting confused. 'We' Reading FC - fans club, chairman, players etc. Wanted McGhee to stay. McDermott was sacked by the club and had lost a significant proportion of the fans. In fact this very thread shows that more thought sacking him was the right move than didn't.

The club wasn't going down the sh1tter as you put it with McDermott in charge. He got significant investment in his side, which is why we've got problems. He failed to get the best out of his side (as Adkins has) but with fewer mitigating factors and far more managerial mistakes than Adkins has had this season.

I liked McDermott, he did an excellent job for most of his time here. But he wasn't the man to take us further. Adkins might not be either. But having Brian's successor fail does not change his previous performance or invalidate his sacking. I was fully behind Coppell after he got us relegated. So you're completely off the mark if you think I'm judging anything on just league position. It wasn't out league position than saw me agree with his sacking, it was his performance as manager.

[Bandini]

What happened at Leeds is utterly irrelevant to this argument.

Mark McGhee got sacked by Wolves. Didn't make his departure from Reading in 1994 somehow less disappointing.

Not really comparable seeing as he left when we wanted him to stay and McDermott was sacked.

Come on Ian, you are better than

Seems unlikely.

[Green]

[floyd__streete]

I was fully behind Coppell after he got us relegated.

So why were you fully against Brian being given a full season to get us back to where he had taken us, as we did with Coppell

[Ian Royal]

I was fully behind Coppell after he got us relegated.

So why were you fully against Brian being given a full season to get us back to where he had taken us, as we did with Coppell

Because I thought Coppell was the right person to do it, having demonstrated an ability to put together a team capable of playing quality football at the top level and gotten us relegated on one poor six months. Compared to McDermott who'd shown no such thing, had us performing badly for most of the season and who I thought wasn't the right person to take us further.

There was always a sense of a plan with Coppell, a goal towards which he was building the team. I never got that sense with McDermott. He just seemed to be more about short term hole plugging and getting the best out of what he had with no view to the future. Everything about McDermott's preferred system just seemed to be a triumph of spirit over quality, whereas Coppell blended the two.

Look at most of McDermott's best signings.
Griffin - twilight of his career
Leigertwood - twilight of his career
Roberts - twilight of his career
Harte - twilight of his career

[leon]

You're right Ian. Name me any decent players that McDermott was responsible for bringing in to the club. Exactly - Nick Blackman.