Bowen v. Paunović

[elrey]

Okay, season is basically over, Reading have cemented their place just below the play offs. Better than last season's 14th place.

But the question here is, should Bowen have been fired? Have Reading done better under Paunović than Bowen?

Bowen had 35 league games, won 13 of those, drew 9 for 48 points. Paunović would have had 56 points in 35 games at the rate he's going.

Though take out the first 8 games of the season and 22 points there, and you have Paunović on 44 points from 33 games.

Would Bowen have gone on with a better squad to get more points than this? Doesn't seem like there's been much progress other than a flurry at the beginning of the season.

[Hound]

Why would you take out the first 8 games of the season? Why not take out the last 8 instead?

There’s been clear progress to me. Bowen did a fine job from where we were, but tbh we’ll never know how we’d have got on with him this year. He certainly didn’t end well last year

Pauno has a great base to work from next year now. Be interesting to see how he gets on

[Stranded]

Seriously can people stop this bollocks about taking the first 8 games out, why are people so determined to talk down the season by removing a successful part of it.

It would be akin to a Barnsley fan saying, well yeah we made the play-offs but if we hadn't won those 8 games onnthe spin we'd be 12th, so the season was a bit shit really. It's just not needed.

Or with Bowen, like removing the run of 4 straight wins he had that moved us from relegation battle to mid table. Just stop it.

Anyway, on the basis of this season, yes, it was the right call to make the change. We are playing better football. Bowen gave us a decent base but Paunovic has built on that and will hopefully continue to do so.

[Snowflake Royal]

No.
Yes.

oxf*rd idiots taking out our best run to suit their agenda but leave in the immediate poor run that followed.

[Snowball]

I don’t think people are “discounting” or dismissing the first 8 games at all.

Virtually every football site will have a current form table for 6, 8,12 or 18 games

and we are a team currently in a deserved 7th place for TWO reasons combined, our “brilliant” 8-game opener PLUS the run of 44 points in 33 games afterwards

IMO it is not only reasonable but NORMAL to weight more-recent events more than older ones

HULL last season were excellent until they sold their best players, but that relegated them.

It is abundantly clear that our opening 8 games were anomalous and (clearly) not predictive of final position - like a front-running horse that fades in the last 1-2 furlongs.

That doesn’t mean we didn’t deserve those points, or they “don’t count” any more than we can ignore the four consecutive defeats

[SouthDownsRoyal]

Okay, season is basically over, Reading have cemented their place just below the play offs. Better than last season's 14th place.

But the question here is, should Bowen have been fired? Have Reading done better under Paunović than Bowen?

Bowen had 35 league games, won 13 of those, drew 9 for 48 points. Paunović would have had 56 points in 35 games at the rate he's going.

Though take out the first 8 games of the season and 22 points there, and you have Paunović on 44 points from 33 games.

Would Bowen have gone on with a better squad to get more points than this? Doesn't seem like there's been much progress other than a flurry at the beginning of the season.

LOL

What about leaving those first eight games in and taking out eight games we have lost this season?

[tidus_mi2]

Let's take out Barnsley's unbeaten run and that's relegation form right there.

[Silver Fox]

Why do people do this to themselves? I guess it would pretty easy to blame Snowball with his selective stats but even he doesn't go this far

[SCIAG]

Is this season’s squad actually better than last season? Obviously Laurent has been huge, but he’s just one player, and otherwise we seem to have lost depth, particularly at full back. Paunovic has got more out of the same set of players.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Mid table at best under Bowen this season, but never in any danger of going down.

He moaned the other week about not having Joao much but he had more squad options, far less injuries and also Meite and Swift for considerably more game time

And the football wasn't great

[Snowflake Royal]

Is this season’s squad actually better than last season? Obviously Laurent has been huge, but he’s just one player, and otherwise we seem to have lost depth, particularly at full back. Paunovic has got more out of the same set of players.

Yes.
Olise, McIntyre, Rino, Richards and Holmes are all better than they were.

We've lost very little from the players leaving.

[Millsy]

[deleted post: wrong thread]

[Sanguine]

Is this season’s squad actually better than last season? Obviously Laurent has been huge, but he’s just one player, and otherwise we seem to have lost depth, particularly at full back. Paunovic has got more out of the same set of players.

This in spades. I've said similar a couple of times during the season - this squad is basically last season's squad plus Laurent (with the likes of Semedo and Estevez only really on the periphery in terms of impact). Paunovic has got a lot more out of the same platers.

[Hound]

Is this season’s squad actually better than last season? Obviously Laurent has been huge, but he’s just one player, and otherwise we seem to have lost depth, particularly at full back. Paunovic has got more out of the same set of players.

This in spades. I've said similar a couple of times during the season - this squad is basically last season's squad plus Laurent (with the likes of Semedo and Estevez only really on the periphery in terms of impact). Paunovic has got a lot more out of the same platers.

Yep. And especially when three of last seasons best players - Swift, Puscas and Yiadom have missed huge chunks of it

[Sanguine]

And in terms of stats, Bowen won 14 out of 40 games in charge (35%). Paunovic has won 20 out of 44 (45%). It's not even close.

Small sample of course, but Paunovic's record is just shy of McDermott 1 (46%), and a tick ahead of Coppell (44%). McDermott, Pardew and Ted Drake our only post-war managers to have a better win-rate than Paunovic.

[Delboy]

Only an idiot would say this season has not been better look at the league table ! Without our injuries would have been higher, Bowen has Swift all season we have not lost when he has played this season ( 9 games)

[Sutekh]

Personally don’t think there’s a lot of difference between the two of them. If Bowen has been allowed to stay I reckon the club would have still been in the chasing play off pack. The issues this season really were the thin squad being hit by injuries to key players from November onward and the failure to loan in a couple of players in January that may well have seen the club avoid the disastrous results v Brum and Wycombe etc.

But at the end if the day no-one will ever know the answer.

[Millsy]

Really interesting that people take out the first 8 games.

Why would we?

For the same reason some of us take out the first few games of Bowen too i.e. honeymoon period. Granted, it's quite an impressive and longlasting honeymoon period but there's absolutely no denying those 8 games stand apart from the rest of the season.

I don't know whether it is fair to put those 8 games aside but one thing I am certain of: if you're going to remove Pauno's 'honeymoon' period you have to do the same with Bowen's. How does Pauno minus honeymoon compare with Bowen minus honeymoon?

[Vision]

Really interesting that people take out the first 8 games.

Why would we?

For the same reason some of us take out the first few games of Bowen too i.e. honeymoon period. Granted, it's quite an impressive and longlasting honeymoon period but there's absolutely no denying those 8 games stand apart from the rest of the season.

I don't know whether it is fair to put those 8 games aside but one thing I am certain of: if you're going to remove Pauno's 'honeymoon' period you have to do the same with Bowen's. How does Pauno minus honeymoon compare with Bowen minus honeymoon?

I did a thing when Bowen was sacked where I pointed out why his sacking shouldn't have been a surprise (as much as I disagreed with it) and why actually the owners were being fairly consistent in their approach.

From the moment Bowen signed his permanent contract after the Fulham game (4 straight wins) he had 21 League games and If I recall got 21 points. This was only 1 or 2 better than Gomes, Clement and even Stam for their last 21 games. In Pauno's last 21 games we've picked up 33 Points. If we don't pick up a single point between now and the end of the season his last 21 will be 22 points.

I posited the idea at the time that possibly Stam aside , Gomes and Clement weren't sacked because Dai feared relegation but because he lost faith that those managers could give him promotion. Pauno will still need to convince Dai that he is capable of giving us a run at it again next season. I reckon play offs or not the next 5 games will be pretty vital to Pauno's future. The only caveat to that is that we can ill afford to sack and the employ yet another manager with all the financial fall out that brings.

But then again I thought that would have been the case before Bowen was sacked too.

[Hound]

Agree that Pauno has to end the season well

Slump and end up in 9th or 10th and he’ll be fearing the phone call at the end of the season