Current Squad - Is it overrated?

[roversfan99]

3 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

I don't know if you listened to pre match show yesterday on Radio Lancashire but Andy Bayes said he didn't think our squad was good enough for top 8 in the championship despite Mowbray's claims it is. If you look at the points he made he is right I guess looking back now. 

incompetent cover?

Mowbray lack of signing a quality centre backs in the previous 2 seasons has cost us. Plus right back player is what we lack for 2 seasons now to challenge Nyambe for the slot

This expensive crock player Daniel Ayala is the one you wanted us to sign all summer. You got your wish.

fair too many options here and have to question why we sign Downing and Trybull in the first place. Johnson should be release in the summer. Holtby unsure 

Travis, Buckley and Davenport should be part of our first team plans going forward

Armstrong has been our best player all season. 

Not sure its the manager fault over the performances of Dack and will take the rest of the season to get back to any sort of performances. 

We need to get Brereton back on song post injury which came when he was in form. Gallagher needs to play up front or bench. 

The squad is mid table because thats where results say we deserve to be. 

To clarify, it is not a defence of the manager, this is a squad that Mowbray has himself assembled armed with plenty of time and money. I also do think that whilst it isnt a top 6 squad, a good manager could have us in with a shout by making it add up to more than the sum of its parts, it is still underachieving, the manager has no consistency with his tactics, his subs are often confusing and illogical, he admits that he doesnt work on set pieces which is an area of weakness at both ends, and of course we have 12m worth of shit.

The incompetent cover is in the shape of the managers friends son, Aynsley Pears. I did suggest Ayala but that does not remove any semblance of blame, I am not armed with a supposed revolutionary European scouting network, I am not the one qualified to give a clearly unfit player a thorough medical, I wouldnt have given him such a long deal and he is just one symptom of the negligence around improving the defence that you have mentioned.

Dack will never return to form unless he plays in a team that is not a shit show of constantly confusing formations, or if he is played either as a false 9 or deep enough to be holding hands with Kaminski.

Brereton was doing ok, 3 goals in half a season, compared to really, really low standards. And Gallagher is a donkey. Neither are close to top 6 players on what we have seen.

[chaddyrovers]

46 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

The incompetent cover is in the shape of the managers friends son, Aynsley Pears.

is that really it? I wouldn't have signed Pears tbf. We signed 2 before him plus we had Hilton and Eastham aswell

46 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Dack will never return to form unless he plays in a team that is not a shit show of constantly confusing formations,

Dack will take time to get back. Probably need the rest of the season. 

what confusing formations? They are fairly simple formations to be honest

46 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Brereton was doing ok

he will performing every game and confidence. Since injury not the same

[BlackburnEnd75]

I'd disagree with some posters on here about some of the squad players.

Take Williams for instance, when fit and playing at cb he isn't that bad a centre half, not top half championship but can compete at this level. Same with Evans, when he is in the right mood. Bennett isn't good enough at this level anymore. Bell can do a job sometimes but shouldn't be a starting left back.

Then it gets hard to judge some others, Douglas, Trybull and Ayala have all shown they can star or at least support a team for automatic promotion its mostly injuries that have restricted them or the way they are being asked to play. 

Johnson is over the hill for me, but his for at the start of the season was top 6 worthy which is the frustration with him.

Holtby probably is a good bench player for a top 6 side, bring on when games are going well not so much going to influence them.

Dack fully fit is top 6.

Elliot is top 6

Armstrong is top 6

Nyambe is top 6.

Rothwell has the ability to be top 6

Kaminski is probably top 6.

Lenihan and Travis are odd ones as at one point you would have said they were capable of being in a top 6 side but not at the moment. 

I don't think every member of the team has to be a top 6 guaranteed starter to be a top six team.

 

[Exiled_Rover]

Half of the Championship managers would fancy getting this current side up (albeit we don't own half of it).

It's absolutely a Top 6 squad. It's nowhere near a Premiership squad - they'd be murdered in the top flight. 

It really, really is a cloggers League I'm afraid, but we have enough quality to get out of it with this team if a manager organised them and picked a consistent XI.

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

is that really it? I wouldn't have signed Pears tbf. We signed 2 before him plus we had Hilton and Eastham aswell

Dack will take time to get back. Probably need the rest of the season. 

what confusing formations? They are fairly simple formations to be honest

he will performing every game and confidence. Since injury not the same

Because I dont think you appreciate the benefits of having a consistent style of play, as the current top 3 have as well as many examples of teams that have been promoted in the past.

4-2-3-1, 3-4-1-2, 4-3-3, that isnt Mowbrays phone number but an example of 3 different formations that we have played. We need consistency but Mowbray worries too much to stick to one formation. Our promotion was built on consistency.

1 hour ago, BlackburnEnd75 said:

I'd disagree with some posters on here about some of the squad players.

Take Williams for instance, when fit and playing at cb he isn't that bad a centre half, not top half championship but can compete at this level. Same with Evans, when he is in the right mood. Bennett isn't good enough at this level anymore. Bell can do a job sometimes but shouldn't be a starting left back.

Then it gets hard to judge some others, Douglas, Trybull and Ayala have all shown they can star or at least support a team for automatic promotion its mostly injuries that have restricted them or the way they are being asked to play. 

Johnson is over the hill for me, but his for at the start of the season was top 6 worthy which is the frustration with him.

Holtby probably is a good bench player for a top 6 side, bring on when games are going well not so much going to influence them.

Dack fully fit is top 6.

Elliot is top 6

Armstrong is top 6

Nyambe is top 6.

Rothwell has the ability to be top 6

Kaminski is probably top 6.

Lenihan and Travis are odd ones as at one point you would have said they were capable of being in a top 6 side but not at the moment. 

I don't think every member of the team has to be a top 6 guaranteed starter to be a top six team.

 

Would Nyambe get in Norwich, Swansea, Watford, Bournemouths etc teams? Not for me. Him and Kaminski are 2 of our better players and 2 guaranteed starters but not sure either is in the top 6 in their position. Rothwell has contributed very little in his Rovers career, he has ability but no signs that he can bring it together to contribute with any regularity. Holtby has never really contributed here, and the 3 with promotion experience we can see why they were available. Ayala went up 4 or 5 years ago in a defensive side, now his body has packed in. Douglas played a bit part role for Leeds, he was good for Wolves but in a position we dont play and prior to a series of injuries, and Trybull was a bit part who wasnt wanted by a team fighting for the same goal.

20 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Half of the Championship managers would fancy getting this current side up (albeit we don't own half of it).

It's absolutely a Top 6 squad. It's nowhere near a Premiership squad - they'd be murdered in the top flight. 

It really, really is a cloggers League I'm afraid, but we have enough quality to get out of it with this team if a manager organised them and picked a consistent XI.

I think the first sentence is correct but I would disagree with the second. A good manager could make it more than the sum of its parts, and the current manager is underachieving in being as close to the relegation zone, but for me it isnt top 6.

[Southside Rover]

Trybull bit part player??? 80 appearances in 3 seasons? Bit part in the Premier league but played nearly every game of their league campaign in the 2 Championship years he was with Norwich 

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, Southside Rover said:

Trybull bit part player??? 80 appearances in 3 seasons? Bit part in the Premier league but played nearly every game of their league campaign in the 2 Championship years he was with Norwich 

17 and 22 starts in the Championship.

[JPTSwindon]

It’s really, really hard to judge.

The older players are injured so often we can’t judge them.

The younger players are rotated, dropped, mislaid so often we can’t judge them. (Key reason why the confidence has drained away)

If TM could settle on a team / formation / tactic - he and us could judge.

[Southside Rover]

4 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

17 and 22 starts in the Championship.

Not sure of your source but if you include Premiership season I agree. The two years in the championship were 22 and 31 according to my source without wishing to turn this into the Tom Trybull thread. Point is I don't agree he was bit part, he was a key player in their championship seasons but wasn't cut out for the Premier league and thus like Douglas has found himself surplus and back in the Championship only he's not shown us anything either

[AllRoverAsia]

Well, Mowbray is doing his best to sell Armstrong to a PL club.

Quote: “I thought Armstrong was Premier League quality. He looked really special''

Armstrong was good v Forest and we are not in or going to be in the PL whilst Mowbray is gurning around.

Ta a bundle Tea-Leaf

[ben_the_beast]

I think the squad is good but unbalanced. Kaminski, Nyambe, Lenihan, Travis, Davenport, Rothwell, Elliott, Arma, Dacky are all capable of pushing a side into the top 6. 

But the lack of depth at centre back and the lack of width with Brereton and Gallagher really unbalances the side. Coupled with Mowbrays constant insistence of his full backs playing like wingers, constant rotation, obsession with dominating the ball at all times rather than playing the ebb and flow of a game. 

A permanent switch back to a 4-2-3-1. A little more conservative at times, signing a bit of natural width. More quality at centre back and I think we would be flying. One other thing I have noticed is that even though Arma is a midget. He's actually far better at backing into defenders than Gallagher is. And long balls up to him can sometimes bounce off of him. Not quite like Graham used too. But personally I don't see why we couldn't see Dack in the 10 behind Arma. 

One natural winger who is truly capable of running at defenders. A more conservative winger the other side. A bit like Mowbrays soldiers and artists, 2 and a half attackers from league 1. And suddenly I think we would be very competitive.

[LeftWinger]

On 21/02/2021 at 22:57, Southside Rover said:

Not sure of your source but if you include Premiership season I agree. The two years in the championship were 22 and 31 according to my source without wishing to turn this into the Tom Trybull thread. Point is I don't agree he was bit part, he was a key player in their championship seasons but wasn't cut out for the Premier league and thus like Douglas has found himself surplus and back in the Championship only he's not shown us anything either

Not sure you can class 53 games out of 92 as "nearly every game".

Just looking at the stats - he made 39 league starts in 2 seasons in the Championship. He made a further 12 substitute appearances.

[Southside Rover]

5 hours ago, LeftWinger said:

Not sure you can class 53 games out of 92 as "nearly every game".

Just looking at the stats - he made 39 league starts in 2 seasons in the Championship. He made a further 12 substitute appearances.

Well that he was fit and available for it was nearly every game. He missed at least 16 matches over that same period with a ligament injury keeping him out for 3 months so when you factor in the time to get back up to fitness, it's not bit part as was quoted previously. 

Dack and Travis have played less but would we refer to them in 3 years time as bit part?

[joey_big_nose]

I'd say we have a really good squad with top players right down the spine of the team. Kaminski, Lenihan, Travis, Dack, Armstrong all real top 6 quality. Around that we've got some promising players - Nyambe, Rothwell, Dolan. And then beyond that a lot of decent squad players. It's pretty rare that we play a team and I think they have a better squad than us. Probably only a couple of ex-prem teams have fallen into that category (Watford, Bournemouth). In the games we play we very rarely get beaten by better talent. Usually we get outfought and beaten on set pieces.

Reason we haven't kicked on though is our defence is shocking, and tactically we look very one dimensional. We get crowded out of games.

If we get a new manager in I think we will be looking at a handful of players in, not a total overhaul.

This squad should be top six, everyone knows it imo. From the pundits on Sky and Quest, to most fans, to Mowbray himself. I think the owners must know it also.

[riverholmes]

On 22/02/2021 at 08:25, ben_the_beast said:

I think the squad is good but unbalanced. Kaminski, Nyambe, Lenihan, Travis, Davenport, Rothwell, Elliott, Arma, Dacky are all capable of pushing a side into the top 6. 

But the lack of depth at centre back and the lack of width with Brereton and Gallagher really unbalances the side. Coupled with Mowbrays constant insistence of his full backs playing like wingers, constant rotation, obsession with dominating the ball at all times rather than playing the ebb and flow of a game. 

A permanent switch back to a 4-2-3-1. A little more conservative at times, signing a bit of natural width. More quality at centre back and I think we would be flying. One other thing I have noticed is that even though Arma is a midget. He's actually far better at backing into defenders than Gallagher is. And long balls up to him can sometimes bounce off of him. Not quite like Graham used too. But personally I don't see why we couldn't see Dack in the 10 behind Arma. 

One natural winger who is truly capable of running at defenders. A more conservative winger the other side. A bit like Mowbrays soldiers and artists, 2 and a half attackers from league 1. And suddenly I think we would be very competitive.

I really agree with this. We need to return to some basics with the formation and defensive solidity. Our midfield and forward line is a free for all, with a distinct lack of positional or defensive discipline.

 

[joey_big_nose]

1 hour ago, riverholmes said:

I really agree with this. We need to return to some basics with the formation and defensive solidity. Our midfield and forward line is a free for all, with a distinct lack of positional or defensive discipline.

 

I think in the right situation the intense 433 we played at the start of the season worked really well. But it's very hard to keep up the intensity required over the season, arguably makes us more vulnerable to injury due to the stress of it to the players, and it's vulnerable to the opposition playing three at the back and crowding us out. Preston were a really good example in how we battered them in the first game, but they completely figured us out in the return fixture and we were totally out played and fought.

Ultimately we have struggled by not having a good plan b when the 433 stopped being effective.

I'm sure whoever the next manager is they will just go straight back to basics and a 4231.

[bluebruce]

There's a huge difference between two questions that could be implied by this question.

1) Is this squad capable of finishing in the top 6?

2) Is this one of the best 6 squads in the league?

Personally I think you'd have to be blind or stupid to think the answer to the first is anything other than YES. You don't have to be one of the best 6 sides in the league on paper, or even one of the top half of sides in the league on paper, to get out of it, let alone just finish in the top 6. The biggest ingredient to success in this league is having a good manager who can put together a drilled, organised side who give it their all. There literally isn't an argument that could be put forward that would convince me that the right man at the helm couldn't have got us out of this league this season. Until this awful, mostly Mowbray inspired run, we really weren't far off it, and TM has dropped the ball in so many ways even before now that it's ludicrous to suggest we wouldn't have been at least the 3 points better off that would have seen us in the top 6. We have seen other managers take mediocre sides in this league flying up in short order without this 'journey' shite.

The answer to the second question I can accept is a lot more up for debate. Frankly I don't know or watch the other squads enough to want to tackle it in depth. But I don't think we are far off, and have a few players that would get into any or nearly any side in this league, and several that are more than capable, when properly managed and kept in form, of getting into top 6 sides. Not sure anybody has a first 11 who are all amongst the top 6 players in the league for their position (even if some of them look it by virtue of being in top 6 sides who are dominating), you don't need that to be top 6. It's still hard to tell who can do what, because most of them are being mismanaged in one way or another, so we are given a false impression of even lesser players like Gallagher.

Edited February 26, 2021 by bluebruce

[neophox]

Magloire doing well

 

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19119084.unbelievable---tyler-magloire-winning-praise-motherwell/

[neophox]

The talk about being a burnden and owners to decide could be that we may see an end of the Mowbray era in the coming weeks or by summer. Think they had set the goal for play offs and if not reached they will probably part company. 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

On 21/02/2021 at 15:04, chaddyrovers said:

is that really it? I wouldn't have signed Pears tbf. We signed 2 before him plus we had Hilton and Eastham aswell

Dack will take time to get back. Probably need the rest of the season. 

what confusing formations? They are fairly simple formations to be honest

he will performing every game and confidence. Since injury not the same

Didn't we also have another goal keeper in Fisher who is currently playing for MK Dons ?

[1864roverite]

It is not overrated it just isn’t used to the best of its ability 🤬

[TheRoversReturn]

You reckon a proper manager like Warnock, McCarthy, Pearson, O'Neill, Hughton and so on wouldn't AT THE VERY LEAST have this squad near the play offs?

Can't agree with that. Not at all. 

[EwoodGlory]

On 26/02/2021 at 10:11, neophox said:

The talk about being a burnden and owners to decide could be that we may see an end of the Mowbray era in the coming weeks or by summer. Think they had set the goal for play offs and if not reached they will probably part company. 

Let's hope so. 

[roversfan99]

12 hours ago, TheRoversReturn said:

You reckon a proper manager like Warnock, McCarthy, Pearson, O'Neill, Hughton and so on wouldn't AT THE VERY LEAST have this squad near the play offs?

Can't agree with that. Not at all. 

I think solely based on judging the squad Mowbray has assembled against other squads without judging managers, that it is not in the top 6 squads, and that some of our players are overrated. I do think that it is underachieving down in 15th however under Mowbray, based on his baffling tactics etc.

O'Neill, no, the other 4 are top managers at this level who get more than the sum of a teams parts at this level, so for sure, they would have us competing.

[JacknOry]

Hard to tell really. Fans of other clubs in general, think we have a very good squad (on paper), especially depth wise. They see Dack, AA, Elliott, Johnson, Downing, Travis, Douglas, Holtby, and even Gallagher as top Championship players.

This is just from visiting other forums whenever we play. 

Either way, whether overrated ir not, it is clear our manager cannot get the best out if them.