Rob Atkinson

Quoted from Chris

Very disappointed to see Rob leave Grimsby Town, and very surprised to see him end up at another BSP team. I feel he was at least L2 standard and probably higher IMO.

Quoted from Tezla

Knowing both Towns Fleetwood have been growing since about 1997 so not that quick. They've spent £5million developing the stadium which is nearing completion and complete with offices and other income streams for the club, in addition a thriving   junior, full time youth and community infrastructure. Their chairman is a mad keen supporter, from the town and  who lives by the ground and has been involved for years. Finally they were playing Wigan in 'local leagues' in the 70s , so a pretty silly, sweeping assumption.

Quoted from Maringer

I'd imagine Atkinson has had rather more than a thousand reasons each week to be motivated. A pity it obviously wasn't enough! Personally, I don't think motivation was necessarily a problem. The culprit was ability.

Obviously, players will perform better when part of a stronger team or as a settled defensive unit. However, Atkinson has simply made too many individual errors for me over the past couple of seasons. I'm not sorry to see him leave because I just think that he's not a very good defender, especially when faced with big strikers of the sort you find all around the lower divisions and in the BSP.

A pity, really, as he looked good in his first spell with us a few years ago and I was surprised at the time that Barnsley were willing to let him leave.

Quoted from 1600

You've only got to look at a lot of ex-Town players now playing at a higher level.
It's not cos "they're sh1t" as some other fans seem to think, it's arguably because the whole setup wasn't up to scratch.
I'd guess most players look either better or worse than they really are, depending on how they're coached and the quality of the players around them.
Some players like Sweeney went from top goalscorer to complete cack when the team struggled - I think it comes down to confidence and motivation.

Maybe Atko wasn't as motivated as he should have been(remember Woods made a comment regarding "league players" before he dropped him) but unless you're making some progress as a team, it's really difficult to motivate yourself week in week out and play your very best if things are going completely mammaries up and others around you are failing.

You can point to Alan Connell as the exception but it's a lot easier to be personally motivated to score as many as possible when your goals tally is already up there regardless of the team.

Going back to the Bath FA cup defeat as a prime example, I've always thought the way Town teams have sunk lower and lower shows how important momentum and confidence is.

Without prejudging them my fear with Scott and Hurst is if we hit a bad patch and they demand more and more from the players with every bad result they simply won't get it. It's a lot easier to motivate players to run the extra yard when the team is on the up.

Quoted from Townfantom

Don't you mean you've made up a rumour that Bores been offered a contract?

Quoted from gtfc98

haha Got to agree with that. I don't know why he bothered changing his username, he still posts the same constant drivel!

Quoted from Super Clive

Why would I make it up, wait and see.

Sorry I forgot you and Titfantom run the fishy... give it at rest will you, your both very sad and boring.