[Archived] THE BATTLE FOR PROMOTION....WON.

[HowieFive0]

Just now, Mattyblue said:

Give over?

We’ve hardly lost a game since September, yet we’re third, so that start is exactly why we are not sitting pretty.

Another aspect is Shrewsbury are having the season of a lifetime, but it was a poor start and it is why we’ve never been comfortable.

And if we d had a decent start  and yet lost 3- 4  games spread over that unbeaten run of 26 ? games ?  same position ? Not having a dig at you Matty but we re in a position with nine games left to go up.As you say Shrews having the season of their lives ..just have to make sure we better it over the last nine games.

[bluefred]

Today’s results were to be expected, to be honest.

i still think it’s all about our results .

win the next nine and were up SIMPLE .

[dallydally]

Not surprising they both won but it remains with us to do the business next Thursday thereby overtaking Shrewsbury. I remain confident.  ?

[darrenrover]

Play well consistently for 9 games and we'll win all 9 and go up.

I can't believe we're third and lost once in 26 games, with the way we've generally played but there you go.

 

[Crimpshrine]

1 minute ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

All but won, lol, what nonsense 

You don't think Wigan will win the league ? '

'All but won' may be a bit premature but they must be big favourites. So it's not nonsense.

[Mattyblue]

But we didn’t lose 4 or 5 throughout, we had a bad start, largely because the players looked as if they just needed to turn up and piss the league, plus a manager experimenting with formations he didn’t have the players for.

The lot of them, manager included, have sorted themselves out since and to me we look a better side than them, no question.

I think we will better their results in the run-in, so it will all be moot, but it was a poor start, not sure what the issue is in saying it?

[West Yorks Rover]

Just now, darrenrover said:

Play well consistently for 9 games and we'll win all 9 and go up.

I can't believe we're third and lost once in 25 games, with the way we've generally played but there you go.

 

26 and yes it's hard to believe.

[HowieFive0]

Just now, Mattyblue said:

But we didn’t lose 4 or 5 throughout, we had a bad start, largely because the players looked as if they just needed to turn up and piss the league, plus a manager experimenting with formations he didn’t have the players for.

The lot of them, manager included, have sorted themselves out since and to me we look a better side than them, no question.

I think we will better their results in the run-in, so it will all be moot, but it was a poor start, not sure what the issue is in saying it?

Ok matty ..it was a poor start ..and a poor mid season from both Shrews and Wigan ..hence we re in a position to go up ..thats football.

[Rover_Shaun]

4 minutes ago, Crimpshrine said:

You don't think Wigan will win the league ? '

'All but won' may be a bit premature but they must be big favourites. So it's not nonsense.

We've had a successful season 'apparently'

[STFC]

32 minutes ago, JAL said:

Shrewsbury's lack of discipline looks like its going to cost them by keep having players sent off every other game. Just hope the Rovers players are more focused and disciplined for this final run in.

Haha ridiculous comment, wait til you see the second yellow  foul at best!!

Not sure you’d say we have a discipline problem ?

https://www.transfermarkt.com/league-one/fairnesstabelle/wettbewerb/GB3

[Bigdoggsteel]

14 minutes ago, Crimpshrine said:

You don't think Wigan will win the league ? '

'All but won' may be a bit premature but they must be big favourites. So it's not nonsense.

They are favourites, but I wouldn't say they have it "all but won" 

[AllRoverAsia]

2 minutes ago, STFC said:

Haha ridiculous comment, wait til you see the second yellow  foul at best!!

Not sure you’d say we have a discipline problem ?

https://www.transfermarkt.com/league-one/fairnesstabelle/wettbewerb/GB3

The second yellow was correct

 A trip and an arm across Uncle Albania.

[Bigdoggsteel]

8 minutes ago, Rover_Shaun said:

We've had a successful season 'apparently'

Why have you apparently written like that? Did you mean to use inverted commas? That wouldn't have made sense either to be fair. You don't writey the English good 

Pretty successful so far if you ask me. Most agree, so if you don't, you're "in the minority" oh look I can use inverted commas in a place that makes no sense as well

[RevidgeBlue]

Everything went exactly as expected today, no shocks unfortunately.

Pressure now firmly on us, we have to pile it back onto Shrewsbury by winning Thursday night. The crucial thing is matters are in our own hands after the Shrews slipped up midweek.

[Pedro]

Two points behind with a game in hand. I thought our chances were dead and buried when we were 12 points (or whatever) adrift of Shrewsbury, so we've done amazingly well since an awful start. It's in our hands, we've got some class forwards and we need to keep on as we were. Somebody deserving is going to miss out, let's do everything we can to make sure It's not us.

[Rover_Shaun]

12 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Why have you apparently written like that? Did you mean to use inverted commas? That wouldn't have made sense either to be fair. You don't writey the English good 

Pretty successful so far if you ask me. Most agree, so if you don't, you're "in the minority" oh look I can use inverted commas in a place that makes no sense as well

So other than being 3rd favourites for 2 promotion places what success have we had? We've done well considering the poor start Mowbray concocted, but it cannot be described as success until 7.30pm on May 6th and we are in the top 2.

Anything less and it's a disappointing season to be entering the lottery phase. Not that we'll need it as I think we are going up. But I will reserve premature plaudits until then.

[Vinjay]

I'm sure either will lose or draw a game at some point before the end of the season so no point conceding promotion chances based on today. Wigan aren't big favourites at this stage I would say Rovers are on a par. At the start of the season I thought they were the biggest threat and it wasn't long since they had fought to promotion before.

I anticipated that Rovers might make an inconsistent start (when you bring in new players it can take time and the club has been a basketcase for years) but the question was would the club challenge for automatic promotion not just the playoffs. At worst I could only imagine narrowly missing out on the playoffs. Obviously Shrewsbury came out of nowhere and I thought they might fall away but they haven't. Its not unheard of in L1 for teams to challenge after being in the lower reaches of the table in previous season of course. They are the ones mainly who have proven to be an annoyance. I expected Wigan as I've said but the question always was how many threats to automatic promotion could stand in Rovers way. At least its 2 and not 4 or 5 unless another club goes on a miracle run and all 3 leading clubs collapse. Can't see that happening. I was completely right with my forecast at the start of the season (not specifically naming Shrewsbury does not discount the general point) and the only change really is raising Rovers chances of finishing 1st to Wigan's level.

Even though the club has seemed cursed under Venkys (mainly cursed by stupidity and incompetence granted) but there's no real excuse now. Unless they do something that completely ruins player morale before end of the season. Even by their standards however I doubt it.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

All this talk of winning all Nine remaining games is making me nervous.....the odds and probably God's say it won't happen.

This is going to the final game of the Season.

[Stuart]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

Give over?

We’ve hardly lost a game since September, yet we’re third, so that start is exactly why we are not sitting pretty.

Another aspect, of course, is Shrewsbury are having the season of a lifetime, but it was a poor start and it is why we’ve never been comfortable.

The other thing is expectation.

Shrewsbury lose in the play off final and their fans can still look back on a bittersweet but great season.

If we do the same then it’s a dreadful season.

[rovers11]

Shrewsbury have a couple of tough games coming up - Rochdale away and Oxford (who have a new manager). I think we’ll be a lot clearer on how things stand after 5pm next Monday. 

[Rover_Shaun]

Thurs

Us v Bradford - home win

Wigan v Oldham - home win

Fri

Rochdale v Shrews - draw

Mon

Mk Dons v Us - draw

Pompey v Wigan - draw

Shrews v Oxford - home win

Table at Easter 

Shrews P40 Pts 82

Wigan P38 Pts 81

Us P39 Pts 80

So it's IMPERATIVE we beat Bradford. A draw is not really good enough, though not the end of the world 

 

 

 

 

 

[philipl]

Let's be honest, it would have been very possible for Wigan and Shrewsbury to have won all of those four games... but they didn't.

Shrewsbury still need a 2 point swing against us over the remaining fixtures to prevent us from securing automatic promotion- our goal difference superiority plus the Shrews being the masters of the one goal victory means I am already counting GD as a point in the bag.

Rotherham are all but out of contention as their maximum point haul is now 89- they could have course have a third long sequence of wins this season so don't rule them out from getting 89 points. However, even if they do, Rovers need only 13 points out of the 27 available to us before the end of the season to be sure of finishing ahead of the Millers. Again, I know Rotherham score freely when on song but they are not going to overtake us on GD so I am counting that as a done deal for us.

Oh by the way, I know most of you are counting the play-offs as a fate worse than death but we could be mathematically certain of a play-off place as early as Good Friday evening, more likely Easter Monday.

  

[philipl]

Just now, Rover_Shaun said:

Thurs

Us v Bradford - home win

Fri

Rochdale v Shrews - draw

Mon

Mk Dons v Us - draw

Pompey v Wigan - draw

Shrews v Oxford - home win

Table at Easter ?

Us P39 Pts 83

Shrews P40 Pts 83

Wigan P37 Pts 78

 

 

 

 

Wigan 77+4=81, Rovers 76+4=80

Frankly, I will be gutted if we don't get 6 points maximum from Easter as the very worst the other two will achieve will be another W3 D1 from their 4 games.

[blueboy3333]

1 minute ago, Rover_Shaun said:

Thurs

Us v Bradford - home win

Fri

Rochdale v Shrews - draw

Mon

Mk Dons v Us - draw

Pompey v Wigan - draw

Shrews v Oxford - home win

Table at Easter ?

Us P39 Pts 83

Shrews P40 Pts 83

Wigan P37 Pts 78

 

 

 

 

Wigan are at home to Oldham on Friday

[Vinjay]

There's no point looking at the rest of the fixtures for all 3 clubs and predicting game by game. All people do is play "higher or lower" and put in a few draws against top half sides away from home. Wigan were playing the club in rock bottom so I can't say my expectation of them dropping points was very high. For Shrewsbury however it was hardly unrealistic that they could drop points with Wimbledon putting up more of a fight than Bury. It's L1 for goodness sake. The one other thing is potential intangibles, etc that are even more impossible to predict. It would be cruel to say that a couple of Wigan/Shrewsbury's better players breaking their legs in training would be a good thing though it could happen. Several players missing out through sickness for one or two important games however wouldn't be bad! Unless its Rovers obviously. I'm not saying that will definitely happen (obviously) but I'm not gonna play "higher or lower" either.