Moving Forward

[GazLaz]

Now that the dust has settled and the board have got their men I think it’s time for everyone to pull together and inject some ambition and positivity into the club. From the Chairman and Chief Exec through to the manager and his support staff, marketing and social media team, supporters clubs and fans, everyone needs to be giving their maximum to pull in the same direction. It’s very easy to become stagnant as a football club and if you are stagnant you move backwards because too many of your rivals are trying to move forwards. This is an elite sport environment and there should be pressure to perform and achieve results on and off the field. That is something that feels to be lacking at times.

My worry is that the employees at the club and even us the fans haven’t acknowledged how bad the situation caused by the omnishambles of the last few months actually is. We’ve been left with a skeleton squad made up of players that will be carrying the hang over of the this season with them, some that are mentally weak, young players that may be scarred by their dismal introduction into first team football and others that just are not good enough for League 1 football. In addition to this cocktail of potential disaster we’ve lost the leader of the dressing room, the talisman on and off the pitch, the conduit between the players and the manager (and often the fans for that matter) Mr James Coppinger. Replacing that presence with one man is impossible, a squad and environment has to be created which allows this void to be filled in other ways.

It would be easy to brush the last few months under the carpet and convince ourselves that we finished mid-table(ish), we have a new manager and talent ID manager, we have a chance to build a fresh squad and move forward. That’s not how football works, it’s not that simple. That’s what Bristol Rovers thought after their dismal end to the 2019-20 season. The invested in the squad bringing into in pretty high quality players for the level, they though that would be enough, it wasn’t. The rot had set in and it needed more than recruitment to save them. League 2 beckons.

The club need to recognise the issues that culminated in the collapse and put maximum effort into putting process in place to ensure a situation like that cannot arise again. They have already alluded to the fact they are to rethink the quota of loan players and the timing of contract expiries, which is positive, but there was more to that situation than that alone.

Doing the minimum will not be enough. Next season will only be a success if there’s an improvement in every aspect. Bravery in recruitment from the board, good decisions from the manager, improved application and effort from the players and just as important as that, backing from us, the fans (god willing we can return from the start of the season). The new recruits need to feel part of something to enable them to bring the best out in them and a positivity around the whole club plays a big part in that,  we can do our bit to set those standards inside the ground.

When we are allowed back in to the stadium let’s turn up and support in our numbers making up for missing the whole of this season. Let’s get behind the manager, the players, the board and move together as one united force and get that snowball of momentum building from day one.

Here’s to a fresh start, bring it on!

[drfchound]

Good points and very well made Gaz.

[afro goal machine]

Slightly different to your usual direct, no shit and to the point comments, but well said !!!

[silent majority]

I would agree with that too, well said.

[BVB]

I would agree with your final paragraph.

[Donny Exile in York]

Spot on opening post. Beware stagnation and complacency after the collapse of the last few months. We must recruit very smart and well this summer. Its imperative much needed quality is added to the squad.

[keyser_soze]

There will be a lot of people considering their future options following the Great Reset we have just had.

Many who used to go every week have enjoyed the extra Saturdays with their family and made good use of the extra money that has been freed up. Lots of younger fans will have got married or had families of their own or had to move away through work. Lots will have realised how much they missed the football and may commit to a season ticket.

Our fanbase will have naturally shifted a little and it needs a key appointment and some enthusiasm and positivity about the place. Thats why however well he coped with a bad situation we could not appoint Andy Butler, as many would have expected a continuation of last season - it needed a clean break and a new face. Lets hope for a good summer and some inspiring signings.

[eastender]

As i understand it we haven't lost Copp's , he will still be involved in a lot of things at the club including interacting with the 1st team squad , so not all doom and gloom on that front.

[idler]

Maybe Copps would be willing to play a few more games for our new manager if needed.

[Rovers91]

Maybe Copps would be willing to play a few more games for our new manager if needed.

Hes retired let's just leave it at that and we need to move on now, at least he will be around the club helping off the field.

[pib]

Great OP. If/when it is Wellens announced, I'm hoping this will be an opportunity to build a legacy from the SOD days and embed a football culture in the club that will persist no matter who the players/staff are.

A lot of the top clubs in Europe get club legends and notable former players involved in the decision making of the club and I think that could be a smart move for us here, with RW at the helm and Copps involved behind the scenes. It's taken us 10 years to get here but maybe they can carry on the legacy that O'Driscoll left. They are two players who know the club very well and both cite him as a massive influence on them as people.

Hopefully Richie's strong personality and drive will go some way to picking us up out of this slump in the short term as well.

[keyser_soze]

Hopefully Richie's strong personality and drive will go some way to picking us up out of this slump in the short term as well.

Agreed. This needs someone to impose themselves on the team and really make a mark and rebuild from first principles. If he can play some football into the bargain i'm up for it.

[wilts rover]

It must be just me then.

How can you begin a post saying that 'it’s time for everyone to pull together and inject some ambition and positivity into the club'

and then spend the next four paragraphs going over the negatives?

[GazLaz]

It must be just me then.

How can you begin a post saying that 'it’s time for everyone to pull together and inject some ambition and positivity into the club'

and then spend the next four paragraphs going over the negatives?

Ok let’s ignore everything that may have culminated in a capitulation this season and try doing the same things next season.

The club analysing this seasons failures and larking from them is the biggest positive you can get.

I’d like to think any potential issues highlighted were more in a constructive way and you are king of highlighting my argument. People will naturally want to brush the last 3/4 month under the carpet. That can’t happen.

[Chris Black come back]

Especially not when it comes to the defence. Dreadful.

[GazLaz]

Now that the dust has settled and the board have got their men I think it’s time for everyone to pull together and inject some ambition and positivity into the club. From the Chairman and Chief Exec through to the manager and his support staff, marketing and social media team, supporters clubs and fans, everyone needs to be giving their maximum to pull in the same direction. It’s very easy to become stagnant as a football club and if you are stagnant you move backwards because too many of your rivals are trying to move forwards. This is an elite sport environment and there should be pressure to perform and achieve results on and off the field. That is something that feels to be lacking at times.

My worry is that the employees at the club and even us the fans haven’t acknowledged how bad the situation caused by the omnishambles of the last few months actually is. We’ve been left with a skeleton squad made up of players that will be carrying the hang over of the this season with them, some that are mentally weak, young players that may be scarred by their dismal introduction into first team football and others that just are not good enough for League 1 football. In addition to this cocktail of potential disaster we’ve lost the leader of the dressing room, the talisman on and off the pitch, the conduit between the players and the manager (and often the fans for that matter) Mr James Coppinger. Replacing that presence with one man is impossible, a squad and environment has to be created which allows this void to be filled in other ways.

It would be easy to brush the last few months under the carpet and convince ourselves that we finished mid-table(ish), we have a new manager and talent ID manager, we have a chance to build a fresh squad and move forward. That’s not how football works, it’s not that simple. That’s what Bristol Rovers thought after their dismal end to the 2019-20 season. The invested in the squad bringing into in pretty high quality players for the level, they though that would be enough, it wasn’t. The rot had set in and it needed more than recruitment to save them. League 2 beckons.

The club need to recognise the issues that culminated in the collapse and put maximum effort into putting process in place to ensure a situation like that cannot arise again. They have already alluded to the fact they are to rethink the quota of loan players and the timing of contract expiries, which is positive, but there was more to that situation than that alone.

Doing the minimum will not be enough. Next season will only be a success if there’s an improvement in every aspect. Bravery in recruitment from the board, good decisions from the manager, improved application and effort from the players and just as important as that, backing from us, the fans (god willing we can return from the start of the season). The new recruits need to feel part of something to enable them to bring the best out in them and a positivity around the whole club plays a big part in that,  we can do our bit to set those standards inside the ground.

When we are allowed back in to the stadium let’s turn up and support in our numbers making up for missing the whole of this season. Let’s get behind the manager, the players, the board and move together as one united force and get that snowball of momentum building from day one.

Here’s to a fresh start, bring it on!

Nope, they didn’t realise what a predicament we were in and what a pivotal season this would be.

It’s going to be a monumental job for Richie and his team to turn this around but it’s not an impossible task as some are saying.

All the positivity and feel good factor that GB was portraying in the pre season has gone and I don’t think that’s the manager’s (or Omar Bogle’s!) fault.

[Chris Black come back]

A few games in and it’s not looking particularly good, but we were sold a rebuilding season and if we stay up and make some sensible recruitment in January and next summer, then we will have had a rebuilding season.

We are either in this for the long term or not, and as disappointing as the end of this window has been, we need to be looking at this as a longer term horizon not just one window - where incidentally we have signed a significant number of players already.

The only nagging doubt is that we still seem to have a rather confused recruitment policy. We are largely signing players with no resale value, have pretty much no saleable assets, still rely on loan players to bulk up the squad, have not addressed obvious gaps in the squad eg defensive midfield, striker and a general lack of pace everywhere and concerning signs of self inflicted defensive frailties.

It’s a marathon not a sprint though and it’s not as if the club was open about this being anything other than a work in progress season, so let’s see where we are at the end of this.

[Metalmicky]

Not sure what else the club could have done in this window.  They identified a player who was their prime target.  They agreed a deal in principle, only for a third party to come in and gazump them.  The manager asks the board for money to match the offer from the third party and they agree.  The player then has a choice and decides to go to the bigger team who are currently further up the table and not struggling rather than go to the team who are bottom of the league.  Following this disappointment the manager moves on to a secondary target - with little time to act - we agree again in principle only for the parent club to send the wrong paperwork.

It might be disappointing, but it is hardly the board and managements fault.  You can't force a player to sign and you cannot account for an administrative error...  It may be a blessing in disguise as Will Grigg ain't going to be up and running for a number of weeks as he hasn't played consistently for some time.  We have players coming back from injury etc, so let's all take a deep breath and see what happens.  Sometimes things happen for a reason - and this isn't the end of the world....   

[Herbert Anchovy]

Not sure what else the club could have done in this window.  They identified a player who was their prime target.  They agreed a deal in principle, only for a third party to come in and gazump them.  The manager asks the board for money to match the offer from the third party and they agree.  The player then has a choice and decides to go to the bigger team who are currently further up the table and not struggling rather than go to the team who are bottom of the league.  Following this disappointment the manager moves on to a secondary target - with little time to act - we agree again in principle only for the parent club to send the wrong paperwork.

It might be disappointing, but it is hardly the board and managements fault.  You can't force a player to sign and you cannot account for an administrative error...  It may be a blessing in disguise as Will Grigg ain't going to be up and running for a number of weeks as he hasn't played consistently for some time.  We have players coming back from injury etc, so let's all take a deep breath and see what happens.  Sometimes things happen for a reason - and this isn't the end of the world....

Absolutely spot on.

[drfchound]

I had forgotten about this thread.
When I saw the thread title pop up on the list, at first I thought we had signed a forward……that moved.

[EasyforDennis]

Not sure what else the club could have done in this window.  They identified a player who was their prime target.  They agreed a deal in principle, only for a third party to come in and gazump them.  The manager asks the board for money to match the offer from the third party and they agree.  The player then has a choice and decides to go to the bigger team who are currently further up the table and not struggling rather than go to the team who are bottom of the league.  Following this disappointment the manager moves on to a secondary target - with little time to act - we agree again in principle only for the parent club to send the wrong paperwork.

It might be disappointing, but it is hardly the board and managements fault.  You can't force a player to sign and you cannot account for an administrative error...  It may be a blessing in disguise as Will Grigg ain't going to be up and running for a number of weeks as he hasn't played consistently for some time.  We have players coming back from injury etc, so let's all take a deep breath and see what happens.  Sometimes things happen for a reason - and this isn't the end of the world....

If you believe all that then we really are in trouble.

[ditch_drfc]

Not sure what else the club could have done in this window.  They identified a player who was their prime target.  They agreed a deal in principle, only for a third party to come in and gazump them.  The manager asks the board for money to match the offer from the third party and they agree.  The player then has a choice and decides to go to the bigger team who are currently further up the table and not struggling rather than go to the team who are bottom of the league.  Following this disappointment the manager moves on to a secondary target - with little time to act - we agree again in principle only for the parent club to send the wrong paperwork.

It might be disappointing, but it is hardly the board and managements fault.  You can't force a player to sign and you cannot account for an administrative error...  It may be a blessing in disguise as Will Grigg ain't going to be up and running for a number of weeks as he hasn't played consistently for some time.  We have players coming back from injury etc, so let's all take a deep breath and see what happens.  Sometimes things happen for a reason - and this isn't the end of the world....   

You can't force a player to sign but why are we leaving it until the last few hours on deadline day? It's the lack of serious plan B, C, D, E etc that got us in that situation.

I'm normally always glass half full but can't help feeling we'll look back on last night as the day our relegation fate was sealed.

[RoversAlias]

Not sure what else the club could have done in this window.  They identified a player who was their prime target.  They agreed a deal in principle, only for a third party to come in and gazump them.  The manager asks the board for money to match the offer from the third party and they agree.  The player then has a choice and decides to go to the bigger team who are currently further up the table and not struggling rather than go to the team who are bottom of the league.  Following this disappointment the manager moves on to a secondary target - with little time to act - we agree again in principle only for the parent club to send the wrong paperwork.

It might be disappointing, but it is hardly the board and managements fault.  You can't force a player to sign and you cannot account for an administrative error...  It may be a blessing in disguise as Will Grigg ain't going to be up and running for a number of weeks as he hasn't played consistently for some time.  We have players coming back from injury etc, so let's all take a deep breath and see what happens.  Sometimes things happen for a reason - and this isn't the end of the world....   

I completely disagree unfortunately. This deal for Grigg was allegedly lined up days ago, if not a couple of weeks it had been in the pipeline. The extra funds needed to get it sorted didn't appear until yesterday even though it was obvious Bogle was not going to be shifted in time.

If that money - which we now know was there to be used - had been released even a day earlier, let alone a week, we would have had Grigg in the door before Rotherham ever appeared in the race for him.

That is down to the board entirely. We surely cannot view the situation any other way.

[normal rules]

Liam hoden tweeted last night that rovers had a free agent on the “possible” list. Does anyone know who this is ?

[Jonathan]

Liam hoden tweeted last night that rovers had a free agent on the “possible” list. Does anyone know who this is ?

Warren Feeney.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Liam hoden tweeted last night that rovers had a free agent on the “possible” list. Does anyone know who this is ?

Warren Feeney.

More likely we get a foreign weeny.

Bloody shite.

[dickos1]

Not sure what else the club could have done in this window.  They identified a player who was their prime target.  They agreed a deal in principle, only for a third party to come in and gazump them.  The manager asks the board for money to match the offer from the third party and they agree.  The player then has a choice and decides to go to the bigger team who are currently further up the table and not struggling rather than go to the team who are bottom of the league.  Following this disappointment the manager moves on to a secondary target - with little time to act - we agree again in principle only for the parent club to send the wrong paperwork.

It might be disappointing, but it is hardly the board and managements fault.  You can't force a player to sign and you cannot account for an administrative error...  It may be a blessing in disguise as Will Grigg ain't going to be up and running for a number of weeks as he hasn't played consistently for some time.  We have players coming back from injury etc, so let's all take a deep breath and see what happens.  Sometimes things happen for a reason - and this isn't the end of the world....   

Completely disagree,
Wellens wanted a striker 8 weeks ago, if the board were backing him we’d have had one in back then as other clubs did.
We left it until the very last minute and cocked up.