Can we make the Playoffs?

[Bigdoggsteel]

6 minutes ago, Blue blood said:

Again you are missing my point although I might not be making it as clear as I think I am. By weaker I mean weakest. As I said before we struggle Vs teams that park the bus Vs us. Those are the type of teams I am talking avout. And there's more than 1 or 2 examples - this season alone I can think of 4 or 5. 

There are loads of positives too but that doesn't negotiate this weakness. In contrast I'd feel more.confident going up against any of the division away from home. But equally the negative is I worry we don't have a strategy to beat the park the bus teams at Ewood. 

We don't have Dack I suppose. All games at this level are tight. We are doing well,controlled the game the other night. The reason why the teams above us are winning is from little bits of magic from players that do what others can't. Armstrong has that sweet left foot from range in the locker now,but he was swarmed against Stoke. He's a marked man now, different battle field.

Dack is a little terrier,scraps and fights no matter who is on him to get a goal. Feckin hell,  we could do with that. I think Armstrong will find a way. He almost escaped from a pack of Stoke players the other evening, if he made it there would have been a lot of space and unmarked teammates. He was very close to escaping. 

Small margins. 

Edited February 28, 2020 by Bigdoggsteel

[Blue blood]

28 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

We don't have Dack I suppose. All games at this level are tight. We are doing well,controlled the game the other night. The reason why the teams above us are winning is from little bits of magic from players that do what others can't. Armstrong has that sweet left foot from range in the locker now,but he was swarmed against Stoke. He's a marked man now, different battle field.

Dack is a little terrier,scraps and fights no matter who is on him to get a goal. Feckin hell,  we could do with that. I think Armstrong will find a way. He almost escaped from a pack of Stoke players the other evening, if he made it there would have been a lot of space and unmarked teammates. He was very close to escaping. 

Small margins. 

I think this highlights the problem in part. We are reliant on our best players to produce a moment of magic to unlock the park a bus team rather than have an overall.strategy, involving the whole team, for beating them. Yes brilliance is important - and again only a couple of players seem to have that magic in the team, one of whom is injured (hence we need more of it. But when these players are crowded out, as you point out, we struggle. If we had a better overall team strategy for bearing these teams we wouldn't be so vulnerable to teams crowding out our best players. 

[roversfan99]

14 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

We don't have Dack I suppose. All games at this level are tight. We are doing well,controlled the game the other night. The reason why the teams above us are winning is from little bits of magic from players that do what others can't. Armstrong has that sweet left foot from range in the locker now,but he was swarmed against Stoke. He's a marked man now, different battle field.

Dack is a little terrier,scraps and fights no matter who is on him to get a goal. Feckin hell,  we could do with that. I think Armstrong will find a way. He almost escaped from a pack of Stoke players the other evening, if he made it there would have been a lot of space and unmarked teammates. He was very close to escaping. 

Small margins. 

I think you are definitely underplaying our weakness regarding playing teams near the bottom at home, losing to Charlton and Luton and drawing with Wigan, Stoke and Huddersfield is not particularly befitting of a promotion challenging side. Interestingly, our form against the top 6 is really poor, 6 points from 10 games, only 1 win, so we must be particularly efficient against teams in the middle of the pack.

You touch on a reason why though, a lack of craft and magic. Ultimately I think the frustration is that we have an attack worth over 15m and we are totally reliant on one man to get us goals. Totally appreciate that any side without its best player will struggle to replace them, add in Holtby too, but we should have more threat considering the money invested in our forward line. 

I cant remember Armstrong scoring many left footers either, but thats just being pedantic!

[Bigdoggsteel]

1 hour ago, Blue blood said:

I think this highlights the problem in part. We are reliant on our best players to produce a moment of magic to unlock the park a bus team rather than have an overall.strategy, involving the whole team, for beating them. Yes brilliance is important - and again only a couple of players seem to have that magic in the team, one of whom is injured (hence we need more of it. But when these players are crowded out, as you point out, we struggle. If we had a better overall team strategy for bearing these teams we wouldn't be so vulnerable to teams crowding out our best players. 

Most teams that go up have 1 or 2 players that are better than everyone else. Scoring goals from positions that most others can't. Positions our players are in. Obviously there are some teams with great systems too, Sheffield United last season ,but there are many examples of teams who went up because they had some lad who stuck it top corner 11 times in a season,but then never done that again again. Without that you're in a shoot out with the other average team's. Players are so fit now they even each other out a lot, all fit ,all running. Armstrong was/is in that category at the moment and you need that to go up. The problem is he is a marked man now. 

[47er]

13 hours ago, Blue blood said:

I think this highlights the problem in part. We are reliant on our best players to produce a moment of magic to unlock the park a bus team rather than have an overall.strategy, involving the whole team, for beating them. Yes brilliance is important - and again only a couple of players seem to have that magic in the team, one of whom is injured (hence we need more of it. But when these players are crowded out, as you point out, we struggle. If we had a better overall team strategy for bearing these teams we wouldn't be so vulnerable to teams crowding out our best players. 

So true. We have to rely on indviduals, because we have no system to open defences. Lack of width is a major factor here.

[Blue blood]

15 minutes ago, 47er said:

So true. We have to rely on indviduals, because we have no system to open defences. Lack of width is a major factor here.

Yeah definitely. It doesn't have to be width but as you say it does need a system where all  players are contributing to that system to unlock teams. 

Am ok with us not having wide players in the midfield 3. Ok, I'm not but I can live with it IF the rest of the team was built to accommodate it. But then neither of our full backs are great in an attacking sense (much as I like Nayambe) so as you say there's no system. Then there's the issue that Gally out wide is a passenger and contributes to no system. A bit of thought and a plan when recruiting would go a long way to making us a better team. TM sometimes identifies some really talented players (and some duds) but I am not sure how much he thinks of then fitting together. 

[K-Hod]

Seems unlikely, I’ll be honest. 
What I really can’t be bothered hearing is people criticising others for giving up hope, then also in the same breath, saying our squad isn’t good enough and we’ve loads of injuries. 
For the avoidance of doubt, I want nothing more than for Rovers to be promoted, before anyone accuses me of being negative.

Edited February 29, 2020 by K-Hod

[Mr. E]

3 points off at the moment, which is not the end of the world in this crazy league, but we need to figure out our best system and start picking up some more points now. We are not winning our home games, but absolutely nothing stopping us from getting points away. The whole "win your home games and be happy with a draw away" philosophy just doesn't apply to this league, not in this season anyway.

[Bigdoggsteel]

Yes, we can get there. I think sneaking in at the end would suit us better than getting in there early. We would certainly bottle it then. 

Anyway,not the worst result today. Every team is dropping points. Great to be in the mix anyway. Gonna try and enjoy it as much as possible. No point getting negative and miserable about what has been a decent season which has exceeded expectations. 

A lot of the frustration seems to be coming from people realigning their expectations upwards. Which is a positive. 

[DE.]

I don't think we'll get there in the end, but considering the players we've lost we're doing a lot better than I would have anticipated at the start of January. A shame we didn't bring in a couple of solid additions during the Jan window as I think that could have been the difference. 

[Tom]

We can get there, but feel we’ll come up just short we throw too much away from winning positions 

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Lack of Consistency will be our Achilles Heel.

[Mattyblue]

End of the day pretty much every team in the top half are in with a shout and all are dropping points, seemingly every week. 

We are frustrated, as they will be. We’ve all a chance to make it because there’s nothing between a mediocre bunch of sides.

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Mattyblue

[simongarnerisgod]

unlikely but im`e hoping next season will be the one where we go for it,providing we keep hold of our best players and add 3 or 4 more that is,not a certainty with this regime

[DeeCee]

What would be the point?

[Paul Mani]

We need another 20pts to get in imo. This at 1.5pts per game. My heart says we can do it but my head says we’ll just miss out by a point or two. maybe finish on 70.

A lot will come down to who stays fit and available for the rest of the season. I also think we need one more surprise player to step up with 5 goals or something magical over the remaining period. The ‘Jon Stead’ effect. A Gallagher, Brereton or Dom Sam. Someone completely left field...I hope we do it and I hope it’s Brereton!

[lraC]

Hope we can make it and the best chance really would be if we don’t suffer any more injuries. A win against Derby next Sunday, would give us the boost and momentum again and we will have the advantage of know how PNE have got on. If they lose and we win, we could be sixth.

[philipl]

Two points from two home games and improbably we creep a point closer to 6th.

This cannot continue with 6th remaining in touch through others losing- makes Derby a monster fixture.

[dingles staying down 4ever]

At some stage, the teams in the top 6 will start winning again. While they have been floundering and losing ground on the top two, we have made small in roads into the gap but failed to catch them. So the answer I fear is that we've missed our chance.

[lraC]

The next home game is V Bristol City. They have a tough fixture next week, so we could go into that fixture, even closer. Preston will then be the next target, who on paper, have some winnable matches coming up. The outcome of those could decide our fate. 

[superniko]

6 hours ago, Paul Mani said:

We need another 20pts to get in imo. This at 1.5pts per game. My heart says we can do it but my head says we’ll just miss out by a point or two. maybe finish on 70.

 A lot will come down to who stays fit and available for the rest of the season. I also think we need one more surprise player to step up with 5 goals or something magical over the remaining period. The ‘Jon Stead’ effect. A Gallagher, Brereton or Dom Sam. Someone completely left field...I hope we do it and I hope it’s Brereton!

Another 20 points is 2 points per game. Sounding a lot less likely like that.

[chaddyrovers]

5 minutes ago, superniko said:

Another 20 points is 2 points per game. Sounding a lot less likely like that.

They will be plenty of twists and turns yet to come. 

 

[Paul Mani]

22 minutes ago, superniko said:

Another 20 points is 2 points per game. Sounding a lot less likely like that.

Yeah sorry I meant 20 out of a possible 30. But yes you’re right. Gonna take automatic promotion form.

My head says we won’t get them. ?

[DE.]

Part of the problem is that we needed an incredible run of good form (especially considering our injuries) to just get within touching distance of the playoffs - then that vein of form would essentially need to continue on for another month or two to actually get us there. I don't think it was or is realistic to expect that to happen. It could, but I would class our chances as highly unlikely. 

Edited March 1, 2020 by DE.

[J*B]

Don’t worry about this season. The lads have proved there’s life after Dack. Summer is simple, replace Walton, replace Bell, get Tosin back, get one of Gallagher and Breo scoring.