The Rollercoaster O'Driscoll Form

[BillyStubbsTears]

Has there ever been a manager whose team's form oscillates as wildly as ours does under O'Driscoll? We flip from relegation form to promotion form and back again with scarcely time to draw breath in between.

We won 15 points in the first 16 matches this season.
From nowhere, we then pulled out a run of 5 wins in 6. Immediately following that, we've now got one win in the last 5.  

Last season was even more extreme.  18 points from the first 24 matches suddenly flipped into 9 wins from 11 games, immediately followed by 1 win in 6.

In the promotion season, after a mediocre 28 points from the first 20 matches we went on a run of 13 wins from 16 games, then limped over the line with barely a point a game for the last 10 games as we chucked away automatic promotion.  

Season before, we had 13 points from O'Driscoll's first 11 games, then exploded into a run of 8 wins and one draw in 10, before collapsing into a run of 17 points from the last 18 matches.

You should never get complacent as a Donny fan.  

I nearly said 'never a dull moment' till I remembered some if those games in the poor runs of form.

[Superspy]

i dont know if i find this interesting or horrifying the most, haha.

[BobG]

It is a fascinating statistic. Utterly so.

SOD won't be going out to prove a statistic. He'll be wanting to win every match the team plays. So whilst the ebst theory I've heard so far about the cause of this is Billy's 'SOD turns in desperation to...'I will suggest that whatever the cause really is, it's sub conscious. For me, it'd be great if we were a reasonable, steady, boring mid/lower mid table side who produced the results you'd expect from that. But this relegation certainties for 3 or 4 months of each season followed by play off contenders is just silly. We are neither. We are a mid table side. Why can't we behave like one then?

BobG

[Norfolk N Chance]

Thats why the team and SOD need your support, so when he says it was a fantastic performance yesterday, have respect and support his point of view.
SOD is all about the level of performance forget results and tables and too be honest he has been a revelation since he has been here.
SOD is a very complex character, probably of very high intelligence so in SOD I have faith and until he moves on to a better team he has my FULL backing no matter the result!!!!

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's a condundrum Bob.

The only time in the three and a half years of his tenure that we've had a long period of steady, mid-table form was the start of the promotion season. And of course, in context, form like that was a disaster that season.

Most other seasons, as you say, we've been average on average, but the average has been made up of consecutive long periods of crap-astonishing-crap, results-wise.

My theory is that we are a fragile beauty. O'Driscoll is clearly a superb tactician, and to get a club of our stature playing the foorball that we sometimes do at this level is cast-iron proof of that. But to play this type of game at such a small club is a huge gamble.  O'Driscoll himself has many a time claimed that the sort of player he wants to suppliment the squad would cost millions.

He's right of course. To bring in players who are intelligent and malleable enough to be moulded into our style AND who have great physical attributes would cost a fortune. So we're left having to make do.

We're left with just about enough resources to bring in players who are just about good enough to play this style for just about long enough each season. It takes a good while to perfect the style each season. So we're generally poor for the first few months. Then things click. Sometimes it takes an inspired change of personnel (and the fact that he's done that several times demonstrates amply that the man is a tactical genius).

But the odd injury, suspension, personal problem, loss of form or loss of confidence and the whole edifice can collapse. We build a thing of great beauty each season, but we simply don't have the depth and resillience to keep this sort of football going successfully with the bits and pieces players that we have.

Big question now is, have we already seen the brief height of our form for this season, or are we resillient enough to turn this dip in form round this time?

[Lord Farquaad]

Funny thing is, about O'Driscoll and rollercoasters, I bet he has never been on one in his life.

If he has ever been to Alton Towers, I reckon he has only been on the mono-rail and the boring-as-f**k swan boat things on the lake.

Don't you just love him?