Rob Atkinson

From their OS.

Quoted Text

Grimsby Town skipper Rob Atkinson has agreed to join Blue Square Bet Premier rivals Fleetwood Town. The 24-year-old central defender has played just under 100 games for the Mariners since 2007. The defender came through the ranks at Barnsley and had loan spells with Scarborough, Halifax and Rochdale.

Atkinson earned his second England ‘C’ cap when he joined George Donnelly and Sean Clancy in the defeat against Portugal in May. Recent Highbury signing Andy Mangan also took part in the May international match.

The Lancashire outfit fought off a number of Football League clubs to capture the central defender.

Fleetwood Town manager Micky Mellon is away on holiday so chairman Andy Pilley welcomed Atkinson to the club:

“Rob is our 7th signing of the summer and one of the players who was very high on our list. He is an extremely exciting player and our supporters will recall him playing for Grimsby at Highbury earlier this year. I’m sure Rob will prove to be a very useful acquisition and a first class player.

Quoted from Les Brechin

The Lancashire outfit fought off a number of Football League clubs to capture the central defender.

I do find that quite hard to believe.

At the heart of a hopeless defence which saw us relegated from the Football League and then, last season, part of a defence which saw the club finish in a poor mid-table position in the BSP.

What is the attraction for these clubs?

Saying that, no doubt he'll have a couple of blinders against us next season...  

Judas.

Maringer I always respect you analysis and posts and I'm not singing Atkos praises by any means, but I'm a little suprised you maybe can't see the problem.

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.

Just heard a little rumour Bore has been offered a contract at Fleetwood  

Quoted from 1600

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.

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 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.

completely agree with this post.

Quoted from Super Clive

Just heard a little rumour Bore has been offered a contract at Fleetwood  

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

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 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.

Your entitled to your opinion but I completely disagree. He can't mark from corners, he can't head, he's very light weight, he gives away stupid freekicks and penalties by hugging people. He's not got the best postional sense ever. He's good at passing and not bad at last ditch takles but these are his only qualities