'It's a cruel sport': Raith Rovers' Dylan Easton on cut-throat nature of football managers' dismissals
In a 13-year senior football career covering 11 parent clubs as well as two loan moves, 31-year-old Raith Rovers winger Dylan Easton has seen more than a few managers lose their jobs in what is a cut-throat business.
The latest man added to that list of departures last week was Barry Robson, given the boot by the Rovers board after 11 months in charge following a poor recent run which saw the Kirkcaldy side take only four points from his final six William Hill Championship matches.
Interim player/manager Paul Hanlon was installed instead, but his first game resulted in a 3-0 home league defeat to bottom club Airdrieonians on Saturday which leaves the Stark’s Park side seventh in the table with 18 points from 15 matches.
Referring to ex-Aberdeen boss Robson’s departure, Easton told the Fife Free Press: “Obviously, it's never nice seeing anyone lose their job. They’ve still got families and stuff at the end of the day, and it's obviously been difficult.
"I had a great relationship with Barry Robson, and I got on really well with him.
"I dropped him a message after he left, I spoke to him and just wished him all the best going forward. Things just didn't work out. That's football, it's a cruel sport. At times it can change at the flick of a switch.
"I've sort of experienced it throughout my career in terms of loads of managers. I've seen them come and go. Obviously, Paul Hanlon has got different ideas from Robson, so these kind of things take time.
"The experienced ones get used to managers going. The younger ones in the group that probably haven't experienced it as much, we try and help them as much as we can to get through it.”
When asked to explain Raith’s poor recent run which ultimately cost Robson his job – when they had previously managed a 13-game unbeaten league run extending from last season into this one, Easton said: “In the six games before Barry’s sacking (within which Raith suffered four defeats) I think it could have gone the other way in a lot of those games.
"We actually played well in some of those games without getting the results.
"But the manager is getting judged all the time in terms of the results. It doesn't matter how well you perform, it's all about picking up three points.
"It's been frustrating not picking up points and results, and that's why we're in football at the end of the day, picking up results.
"If players are having a few bad games, they can then come out of the team and get back in the team and it can change things. But with managers, they're getting judged every single week.
"It's just obviously unfortunate that the manager has to deal with these consequences.
"We're looking at just trying to get back to winning ways as soon as possible.”
Interim boss Hanlon follows hard on the heels of Ian Murray, Neill Collins and John Potter (interim) in bossing Raith in the last 15 months.
Easton added: “I think the last few managers, even Neill Collins, had a completely different way of playing to Barry. Neill wanted to be playing out from the back, getting his sixes on the ball.
"Barry was a bit more missing out the midfield, getting up and trying to play in people's halves, counter-pressing and trying to play a lot more running football.
"Over the period of time that we've had Paul, he's back to the Neill Collins way, trying to play out, trying to get all sixes on the ball, trying to be a little bit creative, low to midfield and then trying to break through people's presses and get at defences.
"I know there are a lot of experienced boys in there that know how they can do on the other side of the game. If it's the dirty side of it or playing with good players there then they can adapt.
"Our board is very experienced and I know they have what it takes to pick the right manager going forward.”