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Motivation Quote by Bryan Robson

"I had to make a change. It was no slight on my staff either. We'd all been at Boro for seven years. But certain players had got too familiar with the set-up. I had to turn it round. Terry was the one man I could think of to do it. So I went for him"

About this Quote

Robson frames upheaval as professionalism, not betrayal: “I had to make a change” lands like a manager’s version of tough love, the kind that’s meant to pre-empt gossip. He knows exactly how these decisions get narrated in a football town - as disloyalty, panic, or ego - so he builds his defense inside the quote. “It was no slight on my staff” is less reassurance than reputation management, a public shield for private fallout.

The real tell is “too familiar with the set-up.” That’s dressing-room code for complacency: players who stop being coached and start being comfortable, who know which standards are negotiable because they’ve lived under the same routines for years. Seven years at one club can be stability; it can also become entitlement. Robson isn’t attacking talent so much as atmosphere - the invisible culture that decides whether Tuesday’s training has an edge or a shrug.

Then comes the surgical part: “I had to turn it round.” The phrasing is blunt, almost industrial. This isn’t about finesse; it’s about reversing a direction. Enter “Terry,” invoked not by resume but by function: “the one man I could think of to do it.” That’s the subtext of a classic football appointment - you don’t hire for ideas, you hire for authority. Robson is admitting that the squad needed a shock to the system, and that a new voice wasn’t enough. It had to be the right voice, the kind players can’t casually ignore.

Quote Details

TopicLeadership
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Robson, Bryan. (2026, January 15). I had to make a change. It was no slight on my staff either. We'd all been at Boro for seven years. But certain players had got too familiar with the set-up. I had to turn it round. Terry was the one man I could think of to do it. So I went for him. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-to-make-a-change-it-was-no-slight-on-my-157874/

Chicago Style
Robson, Bryan. "I had to make a change. It was no slight on my staff either. We'd all been at Boro for seven years. But certain players had got too familiar with the set-up. I had to turn it round. Terry was the one man I could think of to do it. So I went for him." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-to-make-a-change-it-was-no-slight-on-my-157874/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I had to make a change. It was no slight on my staff either. We'd all been at Boro for seven years. But certain players had got too familiar with the set-up. I had to turn it round. Terry was the one man I could think of to do it. So I went for him." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-to-make-a-change-it-was-no-slight-on-my-157874/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Bryan Robson (born January 11, 1957) is a Athlete from England.

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