Busting the injury excuse

[drfchound]

No I did not

Neither did I.
Although we weren’t winning games we were playing attractive football and you could see what SoD was trying to do.
It is currently the total opposite of that.

[Ronnie Dovers]

I just don't understand any comparisons with SoD. He had already proved he could get a team playing the way he wanted and winning games whilst doing so. There is no comparison.

He'd also proved that he could get a side including several very good players (Wade Elliot, Warren Feeney, James Hayter, Carl Fletcher and a young Brian Stock) relegated.

The point was, we stuck with him for a very long time to give him the opportunity to get his squad playing how he wanted it, when many of us (Come on...hands up) were sick to death of the drivel we were watching and the points we weren't winning, week in, week out.

I still don't see this, or the previous completely different response you gave to my point, in any way relevant. Because, again, when going through a poor run as our manager, similar to but certainly not as depressingly bad as this current one under DS, SoD had proved previously that he could have success whilst playing his brand of football.

DS hasn't proved that yet. I'm not denying that he could still prove he can do that with us, but given our current rapid decline, that would be one hell of a gamble for us to take right now. An unnecessary gamble, in my opinion.

[Branton Red]

Right, let's have another go at a bit of context.

In 2006 O'Driscoll took over a side that had finished in the top 10 of L1 for the previous 2 years. 

Without a serious injury crisis, that squad - one shot through with players who were good L1 level or better - achieved 17 points from the final 18 league games.

By the middle of Advent, that combined squad had picked up 45 points from the previous 38 games - a scratch above relegation form for nearly a full season, from a squad that was liberally sprinkled with players who would prove themselves at the top of the Championship.

Many, many MANY of the performances in 2007 were rank bad. Turgid, pedestrian keep-ball with no drive or risk-taking from a squad that had so, so much more to offer.

 Imagine if we'd done what I for one (and the majority of our fans) vociferously called for at that time, and ditched the manager.

The moral?

Sometimes...patience...

Price, McCammon and Heffernan (who scored at a rate of near 2 in 3 in all comps that season) each missed the majority of the last 18 games in 06/07 - Rovers had to rely on Bruce Dyer (1 goal/15 app), Jonathan Forte (5/41), Danny Cadamateri (1/6) and Lewis Guy (4/36) up front.

Your argument lacks any coherency. You claim Schofield isn't to blame for relegation form since the New Year as it's down to the poor quality of player and injuries. But let's be patient because a manager in the past who had excellent players and didn't have many injuries turned around relegation form by changing their tactical approach???

Seems like you're argument boils down to blind faith.

Schofield doesn't have O'Driscoll's experience and there is no sign that he has his football intelligence. He doesn't have the quality of player (the 07/08 squad was exceptional for League 1) or the character in the dressing room. We don't have one of the most generous and ambitious Boards in the EFL to fall back on anymore or the safety net of League 2.

IF this form continues into the start of next season Rovers existence as a Football League club will be under serious jeopardy. Keeping this manager in place is simply not worth the risk on the basis of "it might turn around".

You can sit in blissfully ignorant patience, and increased isolation, at the Eco-Power all you like in the blind hope that things turn around. But the majority of your fellow fans, who see the evidence before their eyes match after match, are absolutely correct to be hugely concerned and clamouring for change.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Branton

When you've got a spare moment, can I introduce you to the Branton who was lecturing me a few days ago that three injuries in a squad is not a crisis?

[Branton Red]

Branton

When you've got a spare moment, can I introduce you to the Branton who was lecturing me a few days ago that three injuries in a squad is not a crisis?

No. My point was that only 5 games ago Rovers could name a starting XI that contained 8 of Schofield's most regular/likely starters. All capable League 2 players.

Which completely invalidates any notion that Rovers being in relegation form since New Year is down to an injury crisis.

Unlike when a team is say without by far and away it's best strikers and goalscorers for a 1/3 of a season.

I do wonder how you can respond to someone expressing a genuine fear about Rovers Football League status with such flippancy.

I was hardly lecturing YOU it was the OP - what an ego you have!

[Campsall rover]

BST give us one serious reason why DS should be kept on next season.

What have you seen that impresses you?
Just name one thing.

He has been a disaster.
1) Results shocking
2) Quality of Football absolute dross
3) Tactically a disaster.
4) Entertainment Zero.
5) Not one individual player in the squad has improved since the start of his tenure. In fact I would say every single one of them except possibly Maxwell has got worse.
Barlow & Agard have hardly played.

[ncRover]

BST would you rather have Schofield or McCann in the dugout come 5th August? Straight answer please.

[Campsall rover]

BST
Still waiting for your answer!!!   

[drfchound]

Don’t  hold your breath Camps.

[Ronnie Dovers]

Aaah I really thought we were going to see BST finally say the phrase 'ok, you've made some good points there, perhaps I've got this one wrong'. I guess the wait goes on.

[jmt23]

Branton, just how many players are DS?
He has managed to extend the contracts of JO TA and KH, what or where is the evidence he wants the rest.
The loan players were or are to patch the squad up, again no evidence he wants them, I would argue in the main they are better than we had though.

He inherited a team who were …t and for two seasons before him.

I am not happy with current form before anyone tries to jump on this, I can’t think anyone would be!

I can see a style he is trying to implement, not sure if it will work with league 2 standard players, it certainly doesn’t work with the current bunch. There are green shoots with interplay going forward at times, certainly better than under previous managers.

Will he keep his job - don’t know
Do I think he deserves a chance with HIS players yes.

[ncRover]

Branton, just how many players are DS?
He has managed to extend the contracts of JO TA and KH, what or where is the evidence he wants the rest.
The loan players were or are to patch the squad up, again no evidence he wants them, I would argue in the main they are better than we had though.

He inherited a team who were …t and for two seasons before him.

I am not happy with current form before anyone tries to jump on this, I can’t think anyone would be!

I can see a style he is trying to implement, not sure if it will work with league 2 standard players, it certainly doesn’t work with the current bunch. There are green shoots with interplay going forward at times, certainly better than under previous managers.

Will he keep his job - don’t know
Do I think he deserves a chance with HIS players yes.

You say you aren’t sure his style will work with league 2 players, I agree but even still which teams are getting a possession based 3-4-3 to work at any level at present?

The only hope for me is that he has recognised that the team needs more physicality. Hopefully by that he means size, pace and power as well as stamina. If he goes next season then at least the fundamentals of a squad will be there with that mantra.

Stevenage really was men v boys and they are in autos with a small budget.

I am also currently waiting for a BST answer.

[Branton Red]

Branton, just how many players are DS?
He has managed to extend the contracts of JO TA and KH, what or where is the evidence he wants the rest.
The loan players were or are to patch the squad up, again no evidence he wants them, I would argue in the main they are better than we had though.

He inherited a team who were …t and for two seasons before him.

I am not happy with current form before anyone tries to jump on this, I can’t think anyone would be!

I can see a style he is trying to implement, not sure if it will work with league 2 standard players, it certainly doesn’t work with the current bunch. There are green shoots with interplay going forward at times, certainly better than under previous managers.

Will he keep his job - don’t know
Do I think he deserves a chance with HIS players yes.

Hi JMT

You're correct re how poor the players were for 1.5 years previously in League 1. However after the 1st January win over Carlisle the current bunch were 8th in the table 1 point of the play offs. The squad is not great but above average for League 2.

Since that game Rovers have played 19 games and won 15 points. Relegation form over a significant period of time. For the majority of those games Schofield was able to select an XI the majority of whom are decent League 2 players.

If that form continues into next season there is a very good chance Doncaster Rovers will lose their Football League status.

You have no evidence Schofield is capable of turning things around. There is evidence that under his management a decent team of League 2 players produce relegation material results.

Ok Schofield may turn things around with new players. But is it really worth the risk to find out?

[dickos1]

Branton

When you've got a spare moment, can I introduce you to the Branton who was lecturing me a few days ago that three injuries in a squad is not a crisis?

No. My point was that only 5 games ago Rovers could name a starting XI that contained 8 of Schofield's most regular/likely starters. All capable League 2 players.

Which completely invalidates any notion that Rovers being in relegation form since New Year is down to an injury crisis.

Unlike when a team is say without by far and away it's best strikers and goalscorers for a 1/3 of a season.

I do wonder how you can respond to someone expressing a genuine fear about Rovers Football League status with such flippancy.

I was hardly lecturing YOU it was the OP - what an ego you have!

5 games ago
Missing were
Maxwell, Nelson, biggins, miller, arguably the 5 most important players in the squad

[Branton Red]

Branton

When you've got a spare moment, can I introduce you to the Branton who was lecturing me a few days ago that three injuries in a squad is not a crisis?

No. My point was that only 5 games ago Rovers could name a starting XI that contained 8 of Schofield's most regular/likely starters. All capable League 2 players.

Which completely invalidates any notion that Rovers being in relegation form since New Year is down to an injury crisis.

Unlike when a team is say without by far and away it's best strikers and goalscorers for a 1/3 of a season.

I do wonder how you can respond to someone expressing a genuine fear about Rovers Football League status with such flippancy.

I was hardly lecturing YOU it was the OP - what an ego you have!

5 games ago
Missing were
Maxwell, Nelson, biggins, miller, arguably the 5 most important players in the squad

Your argument is as poor as your Maths. That's only 4

Actually 3 as Nelson did start that game alongside Anderson and Olowu

Biggins really? Miller a centre forward who has scored 5 goals in 24 under Schofield? It was blindingly obvious Rovers needed to sign a LB to cover/compete with young Maxwell in January - whose fault that we didn't?

[sedwardsdrfc]

Miller has barely been in any game DS has managed so him been out isn’t a loss. He should be a loss but we haven’t played that way

[BillyStubbsTears]

Branton.

Your point in the OP was stretching credulity to breaking point, as you frequently do when you choose a hill to die on. I pointed out why here.

https://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/index.php?topic=287703.msg1230710#msg1230710

[Branton Red]

Branton.

Your point in the OP was stretching credulity to breaking point, as you frequently do when you choose a hill to die on. I pointed out why here.

https://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/index.php?topic=287703.msg1230710#msg1230710

As you frequently do in any discussion you misrepresent other's arguments and rely on waffling self-certainty over evidence.

I'll repeat. As you refused to answer on 3 separate occasions. 9 matches 18/2 to 1/4 (5 games ago) 5 points won. Equivalent to 26 points over a whole season. Embarrassing relegation form. Over those games Rovers selected in the squad: -

For 9 games: Olowu, Rowe, Close, Hurst, Molyneux, Barlow
8 games: Seaman, Brown, Lavery
7 games: Mitchell, Nelson, Long
6 games: Anderson, Agard, Biggins, Miller
5 games: Lakin

Is getting 5 points in 9 games with these players available as per above acceptable (Very marginally better than 97/98 on ppg)?

7/1 to 18/4. 19 games; 15 points. Easily relegated form. Is that acceptable with the players available over this time?

If you can't answer honestly 'Yes' to both those questions then your argument is nil and void and my point that the injury situation is a poor excuse for the abysmal form since New Year is validated.

[dickos1]

Branton

When you've got a spare moment, can I introduce you to the Branton who was lecturing me a few days ago that three injuries in a squad is not a crisis?

No. My point was that only 5 games ago Rovers could name a starting XI that contained 8 of Schofield's most regular/likely starters. All capable League 2 players.

Which completely invalidates any notion that Rovers being in relegation form since New Year is down to an injury crisis.

Unlike when a team is say without by far and away it's best strikers and goalscorers for a 1/3 of a season.

I do wonder how you can respond to someone expressing a genuine fear about Rovers Football League status with such flippancy.

I was hardly lecturing YOU it was the OP - what an ego you have!

5 games ago
Missing were
Maxwell, Nelson, biggins, miller, arguably the 5 most important players in the squad

Your argument is as poor as your Maths. That's only 4

Actually 3 as Nelson did start that game alongside Anderson and Olowu

Biggins really? Miller a centre forward who has scored 5 goals in 24 under Schofield? It was blindingly obvious Rovers needed to sign a LB to cover/compete with young Maxwell in January - whose fault that we didn't?

Regardless of what you think of them, all of them would be in his strongest starting 11 and most other peoples too.

5 games ago we played Northampton!

We needed a lot of things in January, a left back was down the pecking order

[BillyStubbsTears]

Branton

Those 9 games. Primarily because of fitness issues, we played the same XI in consecutive matches once in that period. And that doesn't tie with your argument that we weren't hammered by injuries. You insist that we had a reasonable run. Because you're doing that thing you do of putting the best possible gloss on the numbers you post on the players' availability.

Most egregious is the case of Barlow who you say was fit for all 9 games. At the start of that run, Barlow was still coming back from long term injuries. He had played a grand total of 16 minutes in the previous 3 months, and he managed 13 minutes in that run of 9 games.  He's still blowing out of his arse after 60 minutes now, after a decent run in the team. At no time was he fit during that period for more than the briefest of cameos.

Then there's player injured during games who you say were "available". Olowu was badly injured early in one of those games. Lavery half way through another. Biggins halfway through another.

Lakin had had precisely 15 minutes of league football all season before joining us in late January. He was running on fumes by the start of March and was benched for the Harrogate game - before being injured and out for the season 20 minutes into the next match.

Rowe hasn't been fully fit for months but has battled through that set of games. (At least I hope to God he's not fully fit because he spent most of those games chasing shadows.)

And Agard has never had much more than 45 minutes in his legs all the time he's been with us.

The REAL availability of fully fit and match-ready players was:

For 9 games: Close, Hurst, Molyneux (Rowe battling through)
8 and a bit games:  Olowu
8 games: Seaman, Brown
7.5 games Lavery
7 games: Mitchell, Nelson, Long
6 games: Anderson, Miller
5.5 games Biggins
3.25 games: Lakin

The side was badly, and continually broken up by fitness issues, especially to core players.

And even if you insist there wasn't an injury crisis developing, you don't give any weight to the horrific run of individual errors in that string of games. In the games we lost:

Sutton - even first half against a side in form. The turning point came when Miller missed literally the easiest chance any striker could ever wish for because of his pathological refusal to use his left foot and within a couple of minutes we are 1 down and chasing the game.

Bradford - second best, yes, but holding them reasonably comfortably until Mitchell rolls the ball to their striker then totally misjudges the resulting corner.

Harrogate - a stinker of a performance

Salford - first two goal come from awful individual errors. The second was a hammer blow as we'd pushed them back and equalised before Moore let a routine shot through his hands.

Northampton - two horrific errors from Mitchell.

Crewe - an air shot from Nelson for the first. The second, the kind of routine out-mestering at a corner that you get with teenagers in central defence.

A string of matches lost directly through sometimes scarcely credible individual errors. But it's all the fault of the manager.

[pib]

BST I don't disagree with some of your points regarding the injuries, but I would say the Salford and Northampton games boiled down to much more than that. I was at both and we were desperately poor and created next-to-nothing in either of them. At Salford we were comfortably second best for pretty much the entire 90 mins, and Miller's goal was a momentary blip in an otherwise dreadful performance.

I'm not entirely against the idea of Schofield being given more time (if he can somehow ride out the horrific atmosphere surrounding him for the remainder of this season) but the injuries and individual errors are only part of the issue. Schofield has got to be a damn sight more flexible, adapt to situations in games, and for the love of god he needs to somehow instil some urgency, organisation and steel into performances. The lack of those qualities has cost us just as much as injuries and mistakes have, in my view.

[Branton Red]

Billy

More waffle. You're like a politician. Indeed this exchange reminds me of Paxman v Howard. You're refusing to answer a simple question put to you because, I can only assume, doing so honestly would undermine your position.

My belief is that injuries are no excuse for the long term relegation form the club is currently enduring. You've argued against this at length.

I'll ask again: -

Is 5 points from the 9 games from 18/2 to 1/4 acceptable given the players available? (Embarrassingly relegated form)

Is 15 points from the 19 games from 7/1 to date acceptable given the players available? (Easily relegated form)

Your reluctance to answer these questions in the affirmative suggests you have about as much courage in your convictions as Danny Schofield has in his tactical approach.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Branton.

I'm sorry, I'd assumed your questions where rhetorical and that you weren't needing confirmation.

Of course those runs of results are not "acceptable".

The question is: why have they happened. I'd moved on to an assessment of that question (which you consider to be waffle - your call). I assumed that much was obvious, but clearly not.

[sedwardsdrfc]

Think Branton wants to know if the excuses given are enough to make the results acceptable given context.

Basically are you stretching yourself to fund defences for DS or do you strongly believe everything is ok because of the excuses.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Then perhaps he should have said so.

I'm not stretching myself to do anything.

I'm pointing out that 1) we HAVE had a long running problem with fitness, despite Branton's selective (sorry, wrong) stats and 2) on top of that, a number of recent defeats came about because of quite awful individual errors.

I'm saying Schofield's record should be judged through that lens. No more, no less.

[sedwardsdrfc]

So through those lenses the results have been fine

[Alan Southstand]

And, with BST’s lenses, so have the performances, but for individual errors!

OMG.

[BillyStubbsTears]

So through those lenses the results have been fine

No. They haven't been fine. You don't need to do this, but that is how silly this thread has become.

The results have been poor. But there's a context to them. They can't be judged sensibly if that context is ignored or dismissed.

Given the context, on balance, I'm prepared to give Schofield the benefit of the doubt.

It's fascinating how much unbalanced and unfocussed bile that sort of opinion releases.

[sedwardsdrfc]

It’s fair enough to give him benefit of the doubt. There is a wider context I personally don’t think it’s enough to warrant the poor performance’s people draw the line at different points. Just wanted to understand if given the context you think results are good which is what I’d struggle with. It’s just your line hasn’t been reached yet. Fair enough.

He is going to get more time so really we should all just move on but it’s hard to think of anything else to talk about. It’s a massive elephant in the room.

I’d say no manager will have ever lost their job without a lot of context towards the results which they could point too. There has to be a point where the results as a whole override the context. That will probably come 10-15 games into next season now I guess.

[BillyStubbsTears]

That's fine. I respect your take.