RR Assessing Ethan Robson at Sunderland: Injuries, bad luck and overly-conservative management

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Photo by Mark Fletcher/NurPhoto via Getty Images Ethan Robson never fulfilled his potential at Sunderland, but how responsible are the club for his failure to break through? One name stood out among the five-man list of players released by Sunderland; Ethan Robson. There are still so many unknowns with Robson. He’s 23 and has less than 40...

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CraigyLee said:
I’ll bump this ... seen more from Robson in his limited appearances than I ever seen from last seasons marquee signing Dobson
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Utter rubbish. Ive seen Robson playing U23s plenty and just go missing. He's probably had.1.5 decent 1st team games for us. Just because he's gone dont make him out to be anything that hes not. Dobson may be limited but he had sone really good games last year. Robson is L2 at best.
 
10 Gary Rowells said:
Utter rubbish. Ive seen Robson playing U23s plenty and just go missing. He's probably had.1.5 decent 1st team games for us. Just because he's gone dont make him out to be anything that hes not. Dobson may be limited but he had sone really good games last year. Robson is L2 at best.
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Well I didn’t see Dobson have more than 1.5 decent first games tbh he’s a severely limited shite footballer
 
10 Gary Rowells said:
Utter rubbish. Ive seen Robson playing U23s plenty and just go missing. He's probably had.1.5 decent 1st team games for us. Just because he's gone dont make him out to be anything that hes not. Dobson may be limited but he had sone really good games last year. Robson is L2 at best.
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Dobson is on par imo.
 
Robson had some good performances in the championship, most noticeably against Hull, Boro and Wolves, and was criminally underused that season. Dobson will probably never even play higher than league one.
 
Billy Batts said:
Robson had some good performances in the championship, most noticeably against Hull, Boro and Wolves, and was criminally underused that season. Dobson will probably never even play higher than league one.
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You may well be correct about Dobson but he is younger than Robson and played 70 more first team games than Robson. People seem to want to blame Sunderland for Robson's lack of progress but it seems that whenever he was poised to get a chance he was mysteriously injured. Robson may well have more natural talent than Dobson but he won't have half the career.

The other thing is that when you are in lower leagues you constantly have players at the end of their contracts and thats when you make the decision. Robson was at the end of his and it was 100% correct to let him go - even for him because I think he struggles with the pressure from being at a big club. When Dobson's contract comes up it will depend on how he does this season as to whether he gets another one.

People seem to forget with Robson that he went to Dundee and was viewed by their fans as someone who 'goes missing' - I'm afraid, for all his basic ability, that's what he does. If Robson had been given a contract by us I would expect him to be injured at the start of the season.
 
10 Gary Rowells said:
You may well be correct about Dobson but he is younger than Robson and played 70 more first team games than Robson. People seem to want to blame Sunderland for Robson's lack of progress but it seems that whenever he was poised to get a chance he was mysteriously injured. Robson may well have more natural talent than Dobson but he won't have half the career.

The other thing is that when you are in lower leagues you constantly have players at the end of their contracts and thats when you make the decision. Robson was at the end of his and it was 100% correct to let him go - even for him because I think he struggles with the pressure from being at a big club. When Dobson's contract comes up it will depend on how he does this season as to whether he gets another one.

People seem to forget with Robson that he went to Dundee and was viewed by their fans as someone who 'goes missing' - I'm afraid, for all his basic ability, that's what he does. If Robson had been given a contract by us I would expect him to be injured at the start of the season.
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I half agree with what you are saying however there isnt getting away from the fact that we as a club have failed with Robson. There is no doubt the lad has talent, I watched him a youth level and he was outstanding. As a schoolboy, under 16, he would regularly play for our u18s, never looking out of place. He had very early exposure to our u23 side and should have been allowed out on loan 2 seasons before we did. Instead we kept him and others at the club allowing their careers to turn stale.

He should have also been given a chance on our 1st slot sooner. I remember when Moyes was in charge when he had the likes of Robson, Maja and co on the bench he would refuse to bring them on. This was in cup games and dead rubbers the end of the season.

I've no idea why we recalled him from Grimsby in January aswell. He should have been left there as he was playing football.

All in all with not allowing him to go on loan 2 seasons earlier, not giving him a run out I'm the 1st sooner and recalling him from loan I reckon hes lost about 100 games of football. That is a failure by our club
 
Being exiled I only saw him the once. Brum away on wed night in championship. I’d nivver seen both him and Maja before that game. I thought they both showed potential and expected them both to be on the bench at least when we were relegated. We released Maja a few weeks later then brought him back and may as well have released Robson anarl after the chances he was given.
If our own academy products weren’t good enough to occupy at least half the bench in L1 after ten years in the PL then the entire academy staff should’ve been sacked before Xmas in the first L1 season.
If they were but not being picked by the manager with those places going to players drafted in by him and the chief scout to justify their positions then both of those should’ve been sacked by Xmas.
That neither of these options happened is why we are where we are today.......wherever that is.
Tell me I’m wrong.
 

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