Just Back

[BobG]

Oh Hoola...

If we're not allowed to have our thoughts provoked, our ideas broadened, our holy cows challenged, then just what the f**k is any communication about? To all think the same? To all be led by others? To allow untruths to masquerade as fact? That's b*llocks Hoola. I said I like Billy making me think. He does. I do.

BobG

[Rovin Reporter]

OK, let's get the negatives out of the way. We were soundly beaten and 3-0 is as good as we could have expected.

That's it, that's all I'm saying that's negative.

What do you expect. We had 11 players on the pitch, the combination of which had never played a competitive match together before. Of that starting 11 only Sulli and Oster would probably make the 11 with a full squad, possibly Friend or Mills. And we seemed to be up against a full strength Swansea who could bring players like Pratley off the bench. The loan players we brought in are available for loan because they're not playing...so they're not fully match sharp.

We're so unlucky, we even lost Copps in the warm up, leaving us with a bench of 3 centre backs and a goalkeeper! With that, we couldn't even mix things up.

So I, for one, am proud of the lads today. Thought Friend and Hird played well. Keegan broke things up best he could. Euell and Moussa came into it more as the game wore on. Oster tried but the quality wasn't around him to feed off him and vice versa, making his passes often look like they had gone astray - they had, but the lack of all round quality was the main cause in my view.As for the fans - TOTALLY AND UTTERLY AWESOME! That was some unbelievable support from beginning to end. Absolutely shamed the Swansea fans who only started to sing once the sun shone on them...what were they, solar powered fans or something??!?!

We never had a shot. We never really threatened to score. But our expectations were matched and the lads gave their all.

We lost but we weren't beaten and I, for one, am proud to be a Rover!

So...apart from Hird, Friend, Oster, Keegan, Euell, Moussa, and I guess you can't count Sullivan, you're left with 4 bad outfield players by your reckoning, and 2 of them were centre backs....so 2 other midfield/forward players were not up to much???

I don't believe that I can argue with you, but I think our problems were probably down to more than having 2 bad midfielder or forwards!

There is something seriously wrong behind the scenes in my opinion. Take into consideration the \"injuries\" - which I don't believe are all real, the terrible tactics, the lack of committment by most players and the weird way in which SOD is appearing to attack the board in the press, allbeit in his own subtle manner. I just refuse to believe that the same team as last year has suddenly turned this pants. It now feels like a transition period for real. I think the sharp signing was a mistake, in that no-one else was bought in of any worth apart from Mills, and possibly Keegan (jury still out on that one?). We are going to lose sharp in the summer, of that I'm certain, and possibly one or two others - I'm predicting Coppinger, Stock, at least.
With football becoming a much more expensive game to fund and with a board who, although on paper worth nearly a billion pounds, are apperently reluctant to spend the money it takes at this level to do anything worthwhile; I think we could be in for either a shot down to league one. The alternative is for the crowd to magically double, or the board to spend more than we make by a long way. I feel the choice of where this club ends up in the next two years is out of the managers hands and very much firmly in the hands of the Rovers board. DO they want to speculate to accumulate, or do they want to play it safe and maintain a half decent league one side?
Only they knwo the answers, but to pretend that SOD can make a premiership outfit from £2 and a box of stolen copper, is ludicrous. I'll probably still go to watch even if we're relegated (I managed to keep watching throughout the bad years), but it'll be with a bit less sympathy than in those dark times considering the wealth of the people at the helm of the club.

Speculate to accumulate. If anyone cares to work out the money involved in a trip for a season to the premier league but in my reckoning its -

10 x \"facility games\" shown on tv at a cost of £500,000 each

£800,000 per place finished from the bottom.

\"equal share\" payment C£15,000,000

overseas licencing rights per club £10,000,000

And thats all without gate receipts/spopnsorship and the corporate stuff, so with my crude maths a year up there would net (if we finished bottom) if no-one ever came to watch us and we had no sponsors - £30,800,000!!!!!

Now, thats without a parachute payment or anything else. Monstorous money isn't it??! Worth a punt?

All of the above is CRAP , where do you get this drivel from, you take 11 players out of any side and you will have a reserve team playing for you . And that why we are not getting results . You go and watch League 1 but Rovers are NOT going down . But lessons will need to be learned , You build at team from the back . Shackel was the one that got away and we have been playing catch up ever since.

[BigH]

I'm reminded of Tommy Docherty's maxim; \"if you buy too many third division players, then you end up playing in the third division\".

The fact is that none of the loan signings or squad signings have worked this season. In the past they have (Sharp, Shackell, JET?). You could put this down to bad luck or bad judgement but SOD/ROK have to look at some of their recruitment decisions.

The defence in particular has suffered from a poverty of quality. The 5-0 defeat pre-season to Waterlooville should, with the benefit of hindsight, been something of an alarm bell. The defence has in turn undermined and eroded confidence throughout the rest of the team to the point where I think that some of our 'star' players have had enough and are probably quite happy to be injured. Footballers are a fickle lot and most tend to go missing at times of crisis.

You can call it an injury curse, you can call it bad luck but this is now a real test of SOD/ROK's management skills.

I've never been one to call for a manager's head at a moments notice, but I do find myself wondering whether we've reached the point where the once unjustifiable is now justifiable.

[The Red Baron]

The defence has in turn undermined and eroded confidence throughout the rest of the team to the point where I think that some of our 'star' players have had enough and are probably quite happy to be injured. Footballers are a fickle lot and most tend to go missing at times of crisis.

You can call it an injury curse, you can call it bad luck but this is now a real test of SOD/ROK's management skills.

I'm beginning to wonder whether there's a bit of \"treatment table syndrome\" at the club. I'm sure all the players who are out do have injuries, but a fair number of those still playing will be carrying knocks of one kind or another. If we're going to pull out of this slump, we might need one or two to go through the pain barrier and play when less than 100%.

Also, isn't it time we brought a few of the youth side into the squad? The matchday experience and the away travel will help their development if nothing else, and their enthusiasm might rub off a bit. And we won't be in the embarrassing position of having four on the bench!

[idler]

Surely Copps pulling out after the warm up indicates that he wasn't 100% fit but going to be risked.  How many more are carrying knocks or like our latest loanees not match fit.
We travel back from Swansea and then a long trip to Norwich; not much time between those games to treat injuries and get new players to train with new team-mates and practice tactics.
I'll be at Carrow Road praying and getting behind the lads, even when we dropped out of the League we got some unexpected results, maybe Tuesday might be the first.
RTID

[ravenrover]

Injuries have blighted our season but there are also a few other factors that have left us in the position we are.
We are not physical enough, all the top teams in this division have players in all areas of the field who can mix it when necessary, We rely on referees to give us the decisions when we are being kicked up in the air and as we have seen match officials in this division don't see things the we and our players do.
We are not big enough, size again in many cases over-rides ability. Look at some of the strikers we come up against, technically they can't hold a light to the likes of Sharp or Copps but teams play to their strengths. Likewise defenders and midfield opposition players are generally bigger but in many cases less talented than some of our players but because of our lack of height and bulk, bully us out of games.
We are not fast enough, with the exception of Mussy we haven't really got a player anywhere on the pitch who can usually outpace our opposition. This means we are not able to get in behind opposing defences when we attack and usually lose the footrace when we are attcked down our flanks.
Ally pace with size and the result is usually goals against and lack of goals scored as in our last 4-5 games.
We have some of the most skillfull players in this division and when everything clicks and we are able to put out what is considered our 1st XI we are capable of beating any team in this division but sadly this season those occasions have been few and far between.

[hoolahoop]

Oh Hoola...

If we're not allowed to have our thoughts provoked, our ideas broadened, our holy cows challenged, then just what the f**k is any communication about? To all think the same? To all be led by others? To allow untruths to masquerade as fact? That's b*llocks Hoola. I said I like Billy making me think. He does. I do.

BobG

Bob , of course we can all provoke ideas but to sit on your keyboard calling others 'childish' and pretending one has set 'supposed' traps for other users to fall into isn't clever it's both pompous and condescending. It's not in the spirit of debate and occasionally we are not all prepared to do theses on each and every discussion point to give our views more credence a la BST, whose opinion I do incidentally value far more than he does mine or other users on occasions.
I'm sorry but I took your post as support for that very attitude, if it wasn't meant in that way ; then of course I apologise.

Incidentally BST, don't try dragging me into a  'I'll clip your ear' keyboard warrior type scenario......I'm not Carling!

Now can we get on and start supporting this great club of ours....?

[BobG]

What? Sorry Hoola but, really, you've lost me with that.

I think I might be going gaga. I don't remember, ever, either setting 'traps', or talking about them. I can't even see why you might think my post was supportive of a 'childish' approach tbh. That's the last thing anyone would accuse Billy of. One of the reasons I like his posts is precisely because he does give evidence in support of his views. That might lead to what you see as 'theses' but I see as an argument with supporting evidence rather than the 'childish' knee jerk emotional cpa trap we see so often on here. Give me an argued case every time. I might not agree with it, but boy! It sure is refreshing, and encouraging, to see that the spirit, and practice, of intelligence is not yet dead in this country.

Cheers

BobG

[hoolahoop]

Not YOUR assertions you daft old bugger, it's just the way the posts fell Bob. Unfortunately it just read like you were supportive of the personal remarks that Billy made about me ............since clarified.
Time to move on and I do agree that given more time and energy, that more stat based posts would be more helpful rather than being purely emotive.

Fact is that like most if not all on here, we are all going through the mill and feel that our hearts are being ripped out. That doesn't make for sensitive debating all the time now does it ? Embarrassed at work (yes I can take it just), fooked off twice weekly with our results giving no respite, financially unstable due to this recession etc. isn't helping any of us at present.

[belton rover]

Everyone on here is equally intelligent, but some people are more equally intelligent than others.

[hoolahoop]

Everyone on here is equally intelligent, but some people are more equally intelligent than others.

Don't worry about it belton, we think no less of you.

[steve@dcfd]

Lets go back to pre season when JR bought Billy and also said we had two premiership loanees, we had already failed to get Jason Shackell. The money used to get Billy was coming out of the directors pocket but really his wages were not. So we did not have the money to get quality centre half. Since then the manager has had to watch his purse strings with short term deals and signing our existing players. So although JR said he had a large budget in realism it was not big enough to get quality in any other position than centre forward. The manager has been fire fighting all season. Unfit players from the start cobbling together different teams weekly. He did not have the money to get the likes of JET and Mutch back. We could not even replace any of our three quality midfield players with the same quality. So now we find our selves in free fall with a team that has never played together and very low on confidence. The strategy that JR and the board adopted this season to get to premiership was none existence and relied on signing Billy and then hoping the rest would be good enough. They like any of us could not expect 13/14 injuries but it has happened. It hides the inadequacies of this seasons strategy and if we go down, and without some of our influential players back, that is a strong possibility. There fore the manager and assistance are trying to develop players to the Championship standard without the underlying quality in the team. At the moment we are the worse team in the division and I hope we can stop the rot,but quality loanees will not come now even if we could afford them.

[grayx]

Lets go back to pre season when JR bought Billy and also said we had two premiership loanees, we had already failed to get Jason Shackell. The money used to get Billy was coming out of the directors pocket but really his wages were not. So we did not have the money to get quality centre half. Since then the manager has had to watch his purse strings with short term deals and signing our existing players. So although JR said he had a large budget in realism it was not big enough to get quality in any other position than centre forward. The manager has been fire fighting all season. Unfit players from the start cobbling together different teams weekly. He did not have the money to get the likes of JET and Mutch back. We could not even replace any of our three quality midfield players with the same quality. So now we find our selves in free fall with a team that has never played together and very low on confidence. The strategy that JR and the board adopted this season to get to premiership was none existence and relied on signing Billy and then hoping the rest would be good enough. They like any of us could not expect 13/14 injuries but it has happened. It hides the inadequacies of this seasons strategy and if we go down, and without some of our influential players back, that is a strong possibility. There fore the manager and assistance are trying to develop players to the Championship standard without the underlying quality in the team. At the moment we are the worse team in the division and I hope we can stop the rot,but quality loanees will not come now even if we could afford them.

I agree with all of that. Sure some on here wont though.