Everything summed up in Four Tweets (by a respected Belgian writer)

The Red Robin said:

Uboat said:

thenewbie said:

I remember a time when we had a promising young coach with a good reputation and strong prospects. Sadly, he and the team just weren't getting the results and in the face of fans' anger and disappointment, a 'network' manager, with not much credibility and a poor reputation in the Belgian press was appointed on short notice. He promptly saved the season and not inconceivably the club's future in the network as a whole, and many fans were disappointed when he didn't get a longer contract. This is not a prediction, this is last season, and we know how it ended - in success.

Riga turned a team in freefall into a team with passion and heart and effort enough to overcome the lack of quality.

I think history is being very kind to Riga. The way people talk about him you'd think we won all our remaining games once he took over, when to mind mind the performances seemed pretty much the same as they has been under Powell and we suffered some pretty dire defeats - Brighton in particular comes to mind.

Brighton away was awful and quite possibly the worst we played last season. In Riga's defence he did seem to prioritise games that he thought we could win and it worked.

MrLargo said:

AdTheAddicK said:

Uboat said:

thenewbie said:

I remember a time when we had a promising young coach with a good reputation and strong prospects. Sadly, he and the team just weren't getting the results and in the face of fans' anger and disappointment, a 'network' manager, with not much credibility and a poor reputation in the Belgian press was appointed on short notice. He promptly saved the season and not inconceivably the club's future in the network as a whole, and many fans were disappointed when he didn't get a longer contract. This is not a prediction, this is last season, and we know how it ended - in success.

Riga turned a team in freefall into a team with passion and heart and effort enough to overcome the lack of quality.

I think history is being very kind to Riga. The way people talk about him you'd think we won all our remaining games once he took over, when to mind mind the performances seemed pretty much the same as they has been under Powell and we suffered some pretty dire defeats - Brighton in particular comes to mind.

That Brighton performance was woeful

Lost at home to Barnsley as well. Nothing against Riga, I warmed to him despite being absolutely livid about Powell's sacking. However, apart from in extreme circumstances (such as losing or winning virtually every match (see Les Reed)), 16 games isn't sufficient to make a valid judgement, good or bad. Peeters looked very impressive after his first 16 games - if he'd been got rid of at the end of October then the same people who laud Riga so much would no doubt have been hailing him as someone who should be brought back to save the day.

Whilst there appear to have been some additional issues with Peeters in terms of upsetting the players, the root of the problem for Powell and Peeters was the weak squads they had at their disposal, and this would have been the same for Riga (hence he struggled at Blackpool in comparable circumstances through no fault of his own). You cannot compete on a long term basis with a reasonable first 11 and no reserves, and I find it very difficult to believe that Riga would have managed any better in a situation where he had to continue to play an injured and tired Igor Vetokele and turn the likes of Fox and Pope into first team regulars when both clearly needed to spend a season on loan lower down the leagues learning their trade.

Uboat said:

thenewbie said:

I remember a time when we had a promising young coach with a good reputation and strong prospects. Sadly, he and the team just weren't getting the results and in the face of fans' anger and disappointment, a 'network' manager, with not much credibility and a poor reputation in the Belgian press was appointed on short notice. He promptly saved the season and not inconceivably the club's future in the network as a whole, and many fans were disappointed when he didn't get a longer contract. This is not a prediction, this is last season, and we know how it ended - in success.

Riga turned a team in freefall into a team with passion and heart and effort enough to overcome the lack of quality.

I think history is being very kind to Riga. The way people talk about him you'd think we won all our remaining games once he took over, when to mind mind the performances seemed pretty much the same as they has been under Powell and we suffered some pretty dire defeats - Brighton in particular comes to mind.

AdTheAddicK said:

Uboat said:

thenewbie said:

I remember a time when we had a promising young coach with a good reputation and strong prospects. Sadly, he and the team just weren't getting the results and in the face of fans' anger and disappointment, a 'network' manager, with not much credibility and a poor reputation in the Belgian press was appointed on short notice. He promptly saved the season and not inconceivably the club's future in the network as a whole, and many fans were disappointed when he didn't get a longer contract. This is not a prediction, this is last season, and we know how it ended - in success.

Riga turned a team in freefall into a team with passion and heart and effort enough to overcome the lack of quality.

I think history is being very kind to Riga. The way people talk about him you'd think we won all our remaining games once he took over, when to mind mind the performances seemed pretty much the same as they has been under Powell and we suffered some pretty dire defeats - Brighton in particular comes to mind.

That Brighton performance was woeful