Many years ago I set up this blog because I wanted to be able to contradict myself. Even in the gentler environs of This is United forum, you couldn’t hold an opinion on Leo Roget or Lee Mansell unless it was fully formed and no-returnable. Anything that might suggest your opinion was flawed would be ratcheted open so others could pick at your entrails. “How can YOU say David Woozley needs to be dropped? You’re the one who said Mark E’Beyer had an expansive passing game that wouldn’t be out of place in the Brazil sides of the 1970s.’

Instead, I just wanted to say it like I saw it, even if I shared a diametrically opposite view the week before; my space, my rules. I figured it would end in one of two ways; we would either win the Champions League thereby completing a convenient narrative arc putting everything before it into perspective. Or, I would develop a universal theory of everything which I would be able to share via a micro-blogging website, in the event of one being invented some time in the future. In the end, neither happened and here we are still contradicting and adjusting. 

After Wycombe I said that I thought Karl Robinson might be the right man for the job as the club moves towards securing its new stadium. Now, let me adjust that, I think the club needs someone with Karl Robinson’s mentality. Someone who can bed into a longer term picture. Following the defeat to Burton, I just don’t know whether Karl Robinson is or can be that man.

When Robinson arrived, he talked about re-balancing his work/life after a turbulent time at Charlton. Geographically, culturally, emotionally, we worked for him; there was a long-term plan for the club. Tiger had been scarred by his involvement in Reading and the money pit it’d become for him. Slowly and steadily, they could build something together.

For all the squad’s failings under Pep Clotet, Robinson inherited an almost paternal playing infrastructure – John Mousinho, James Henry, Simon Eastwood. He added Jamie Mackie and Matty Taylor, players with some experience and perspective about the game. Quality in both ability and mindset; that’s just what he needed, perspective.

He needed that perspective leading the club through the death of Mickey Lewis and Joey Beauchamp, through a global pandemic and through the building of a sustainable infrastructure for the club. As he did, his bedrock players got older, but they were also part of the DNA, integral to the stability Robinson had created. There was a coaching role for Mousinho, Mackie retired, the others were still performing, so despite the passing of time, generous contracts were offered.

Eastwood is a case in point; a three year contract just as Jack Stevens comes of age. Nobody would begrudge Eastwood a future at the club – from first choice, to back up, to coach – that seemed to be his trajectory; his experience and temperament can only benefit those around him. There’s also a three year contract for Stevens just as *something* happens and he’s shipped out on loan. Then ‘a loon’ Ed McGinty signs on another three year contract.   

Past, present and future and there are issues with all of them. Eastwood its simultaneously brilliant and seemingly easy to beat from distance, Stevens is playing regular League One football but not with us, McGinty hasn’t yet learned where his own penalty box is. There’s nowhere to hide, someone has to play and they’re all here for the long term. In terms of making a change, Robinson is snookered. His options are either to hope it resolves itself or to blow the whole thing apart. 

Up front too, Taylor and Henry stop working, then Mousinho leaves to fulfil his destiny. The chumocracy which made the club so attractive, so progressive, sensible and thoughtful is looking like an old-boys club with players who are so likeable it’s hard to be critical, harder to let them go. 

Alex Ferguson was the master of reinvention, but it requires a ruthless duplicitousness to drop your most loyal players. It’s like selling your children. Can Robinson do that? Temperamentally? Contractually? The next generation all misfire – Wildshut, Murphy, Jones and Baldock; the transition from Robinson 1.0 to 2.0 hits the rocks.

When we moved into our house, the previous occupants had hardwired speakers into the walls in every room. There were speakers in the bedrooms, the bathroom, the shed via an underground cable in the garden; car speakers in the ceilings, stereo speakers on the wall all wired through the cavities down to his stereo system in the living room. The owner had built something that worked for him, made sense for his purpose. While the world moved on to streaming services and bluetooth speakers, he had to keep going with his lovingly created, increasingly ridiculous set-up. Had he stayed, would he have ripped it out? He must have known it was flawed, but it was more than a way of playing classic rock LPs, it was part of who he was.

This is Robinson’s speaker system, the world has moved and he hasn’t moved with it. There are options; treat this as a transition, double-down, stick with the system and fix it gradually, or rip it out and start again. If he is to go it’s important that it’s not done out of anger. The only time to do it out of anger is when he’s doing something he knows to be wrong. What’s happening at the moment, isn’t deliberate. What comes next has to be better for both the short term and long term. The club will need continuity and cohesion, it’s central to the stadium and bigger picture.

He says he can take the criticism, but it’s not just him, what about the others? Can they? They won’t feel immune from it. Those who vent about Robinson are venting about O’Donkor, Long, Taylor and Brannagan as well, they are the product of his decisions. The more headstrong might write it off as them following orders, for others they’ll feel it keenly. We’d be wise to shape our criticism with care for risk of the collateral damage it might do.

Robinson insists he knows how to fix it, I think he does, for all the vitriol, he’s a good manager who has improved every club he’s been at. But does he have the time? More importantly, does he have the heart?