As boring as Slade's team was, it sounded very much like he was teaching the squad how to walk again. Just as it was starting to take its first wobbly, but unaided steps, again, it suffered a fall at Swindon. Now we have Robinson who is telling the squad it can skip learning to walk and just run, and we are getting undone defensively every game.
Slade was not the first to come unstuck because an owner and fans couldn't understand that, sometimes, playing ugly is the most effective way to for a side, under certain circumstances, to gather points.
Powell got criticised for it, Curbs got criticised for it. Gary Rowett recently suffered for it at Birmingham.
Robinson, however badly he keeps delivering his message, may well have a point about the players lacking commitment and desire, but he is not doing his job right now either. We're not scoring goals so he just keeps throwing more and more "attacking" players into the side and onto the bench. No changes in tactics or approach, just more forward thinking players but barely anymore goals, and those that are scored are easily cancelled out by goals scored against our wide open and exposed defence.
Pards used to do the same thing and it worked about as well for him too. Curbs (and later Powell) used to get back to basics and work on getting a couple of clean sheets, even if all that earnt us was a nil-nil. It wasn't always pretty but it kept us well away from relegation for the most part, even when working under much tougher financial constraints than Robinson has. I'd be delighted with a couple of ground out points right now.
Riga adopted the 0-0 approach in his first stint. I think the first two games under him were 0-0.
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