Roy

[SW4Baggie]

RH did a great job for us, kept us up and stabilised us in the league and we should be truly grateful for that.  Let's not pretend that there were never any grumblings about the football though, we consistently gave better performances away from home than in front of the majority home crowd.  

The football played was "functional" and pragmatic, but with a bit more threat than that produced by TCITC.   I think pretty much all saw it as a bad say for the club when he left though, doubly worse when he then recommended DAshworth for the job!

Just keeping one of them, either tbh, would have seen us fine.  Losing both and ending up with McDonut and AFI was the start of the slide that led to TCITC.  I still hate that he was attached to our club. 

The key difference is Roy still set out to win games, whereas TCITC set out to spoil them.
Roy would have always gotten a bit of time and support from the fans, whereas Pulis is always 2 bad results from the crowd turning.
Had Roy stayed I’m sure there would have been the same grumbles about next level and stylistic complaints, but I’m also sure we’d have continued to move forward... maybe not as quickly as we did for one year under Clarke, but had Roy stayed I’m convinced we’d have had a crack at European football by now.

 
Spot on these 2 posts. Roy’s 442 and straight line football did jar and not always work - but there is a world of difference between his tactics and those of Ambitious Dad.  Other than a 0-4 at Citeh where He rested a few - Roy tried to win games.  At least we beat qpr on the Saturday after. 

In fairness, there were was disquiet over tactics and results - especially a dire home defeat to Wigan before Christmas and certainly that appalling Swansea home defeat. What Roy would do however, was pull a win out when he needed one most.

Also the horrendous 1-0 defeat at home to Everton when Anichebe grabbed the winner and Roy stubbornly refused to make a single sub despite Plan A not working... Think that was the game he was caught banging his head on the dugout by the Sky cameras.

For me the biggest loss during Roy's time was when Burton joined and left a few weeks later to join Dave Jones... Roy and Burton had known each other for a long time and Roy seemed to trust him a lot. Remember we switched to 4-3-3 with the MAF through the middle and Thomas and Odemwingie running riot out wide... It also allowed us to get Scharner, Mulumbu and Jimmy in the middle, and coincided with us tearing Wolves and Sunderland a new one, and beating Chelsea too.

When Burton left we dropped back to the 4-4-2 Roy favoured and the goals dried up. 

That short spell was very similar to what Clarke then did upon being appointed... only adding Gera and Lukaku to the mix too.