Season finale: Rovers vs Birmingham City

[roversfan99]

Comfortable win but the game wasnt competitive or indeed an indication of unfulfilled potential necessarily. Birminghams line up was beyond weak, full of unknown kids which I thought was a little odd as no way will Bowyer learn anything from that.

Armstrong again a class above, the amount of criticism he gets is bizarre. He has had a superb personal season and things look bleak without him and of course with Mowbray.

Thought Buckley and Davenport wasted their chance really, both really poor and Downing and Evans (not saying either should say) were far superior although their appearances were a little pointless.

[chaddyrovers]

Its good to end the season with a win but this season hasn't been good enough and its been disappointed not even to challenge for the playoffs places. No idea why Downing and Evans even came on when both won't be jhere next season and it was the perfect opportunity to play Buckley and Davenport for a full game or play someone like Whitehall from under 23's

The blame has to place at the door of Tony Mowbray and Mark Venus. We haven't been good enough results wise and the recruitment over the past 2 seasons simply hasn't been good enough. We should be challenging the top 6 if not top 2 when we have a striker Adam Armstrong scoring 29 goals. 

Time for a change of manager and I would like to see a number of changes in the overall management at the club 

Edited May 8, 2021 by chaddyrovers

[bboy]

 

 

jesus someone must have been asleep for one of them

[Stuart]

Oh for a manager who cared half as much as Paul Warne clearly does.

Now that is someone desperately unfortunate from a covid perspective. Massively hindered them with so much fixture congestion.

They so nearly did it as well. No sentiment from Mick McCarthy, who lets be fair will see Rotherham like Gareth Ainsworth would see Burnley, but they certainly had nothing to play for apart from to stick one to a Barnsley rival.

[SuperBrfc]

Fair play to Armstrong for his goal tally this season. One of few positives in an abysmal season. Back to back hat-tricks too in the last two home games. An impressive ending for him personally. To have a 28 goal striker and finish as low as we have is a disgrace.

Another season wasted where we had a forward bagging the goals. It happened with Rhodes and Gestede, it's happened again with Armstrong. How we replace his goals next season, I don't know.

[roversfan99]

Mowbray specifically mentioned that Evans and Downing are leaving. If Johnson, Bell and Bennett arent, its a disgrace.

[chaddyrovers]

56 minutes ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

I’m still happy for armstrong to go this summer, wish him all the best but we need to go in a new direction and his money will help with that. His form is a feast or a famine, too inconsistent for me 

I think you are crazy Bbrovers2288 thhat you are happy to see Armstrong go this summer

[roversfan99]

"Too inconsistent." Second top scorer in the league and with more open play goals even than Toney, I think thats a little inaccurate. You dont get that many goals if you arent consistent and are "feast or famine."

[West Yorks Rover]

15 wins from 46 games, 32.6% win rate, that's pretty damned poor for a club with our budget and facilities.

He really has to go.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

1 minute ago, West Yorks Rover said:

15 wins from 46 games, 32.6% win rate, that's pretty damned poor for a club with our budget and facilities.

He really has to go.

Though I agree he has to go - how does our budget compare to other championship clubs ?

[Waggy76]

9 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

"Too inconsistent." Second top scorer in the league and with more open play goals even than Toney, I think thats a little inaccurate. You dont get that many goals if you arent consistent and are "feast or famine."

Without him relegation would have happened .....

I wouldn't trust Mowbray with 1p of his fee , cos he will be sold unfortunately..

Many times I have seen our leading goalscorer sold over the years  , very rarely does it work out for the best ...

 

 

[West Yorks Rover]

6 minutes ago, DavidMailsTightPerm said:

Though I agree he has to go - how does our budget compare to other championship clubs ?

I don't remember exactly where we stand, but didn't somebody post a few weeks ago that our budget was 

somewhere around the top 6 or 8 ?

Edited May 8, 2021 by West Yorks Rover

[dallydally]

23 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Its good to end the season with a win but this season hasn't been good enough and its been disappointed not even to challenge for the playoffs places. No idea why Downing and Evans even came on when both won't be jhere next season and it was the perfect opportunity to play Buckley and Davenport for a full game or play someone like Whitehall from under 23's

The blame has to place at the door of Tony Mowbray and Mark Venus. We haven't been good enough results wise and the recruitment over the past 2 seasons simply hasn't been good enough. We should be challenging the top 6 if not top 2 when we have a striker Adam Armstrong scoring 29 goals. 

Time for a change of manager and I would like to see a number of changes in the overall management at the club 

Not going to happen I'm afraid. We're stuck with Tony Tombola and his cohorts and with Armstrong and Elliott gone the outlook is bleak

[bluebruce]

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19286184.lee-bowyer-explains-respectful-birmingham-city-selection/

Lee Bowyer says offering opportunities to fringe and young players in the final game of the season is the ‘respectful thing to do’.

“It’s the right thing to do and the respectful thing to do. The players since I have walked through the door have trained hard every day, this week has been no different they were excellent again,” Bowyer said.

“It is what I owe them to give them an opportunity for me to consider them again in the future.”

Clearly our glorious manager disagrees.

The win today was nice and all, if unimportant, but I'm still pissed off we didn't get to see anyone new. It's interesting for the fans, and it's a big boost for the youngsters whose development can be spurred on. Not just from the experience, but as Bowyer says, they work even harder believing opportunities are realistic. Birmingham might have a crapper academy than us, but they managed to get 25 million or so for a 17-year old. Yes they got lucky churning out such a special 17-year old, but part of how they did so was they were bold enough to blood him at only just turned 16 in real games. Meanwhile, we won't risk lads in their 20s in final day dead rubbers.

PATHETIC!

Edited May 8, 2021 by bluebruce

[chaddyrovers]

4 minutes ago, dallydally said:

Not going to happen I'm afraid. We're stuck with Tony Tombola and his cohorts and with Armstrong and Elliott gone the outlook is bleak

Well we see over the coming days and weeks what happens with Mowbray future. 

 

[roversfan99]

1 minute ago, bluebruce said:

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19286184.lee-bowyer-explains-respectful-birmingham-city-selection/

Lee Bowyer says offering opportunities to fringe and young players in the final game of the season is the ‘respectful thing to do’.

“It’s the right thing to do and the respectful thing to do. The players since I have walked through the door have trained hard every day, this week has been no different they were excellent again,” Bowyer said.

“It is what I owe them to give them an opportunity for me to consider them again in the future.”

Clearly our glorious manager disagrees.

To be fair, I find Bowyers policy in this last week to be a little strange. If you chuck so many in at once and inevitably get battered as they have done twice in a week, im not sure what can be learnt from that, and I dont think it is constructive.

The key is to pick a team that wherever possible will be here next season at a time when results lose their competitive importance. Mowbrays sole focus has been ironically on results to the point where players already told that they wont be getting a new deal are still featuring. The correct approach would be in between Mowbray and Bowyer.

[booth]

Well done Barnsley.

Please go Mowbray.

[bluebruce]

5 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

To be fair, I find Bowyers policy in this last week to be a little strange. If you chuck so many in at once and inevitably get battered as they have done twice in a week, im not sure what can be learnt from that, and I dont think it is constructive.

The key is to pick a team that wherever possible will be here next season at a time when results lose their competitive importance. Mowbrays sole focus has been ironically on results to the point where players already told that they wont be getting a new deal are still featuring. The correct approach would be in between Mowbray and Bowyer.

I find the opposite end of the spectrum, Mowbray's approach, to be much stranger. Yes I do think they possibly slightly over-did it, but I was going to reply to your earlier post where you said pretty much the same thing...it isn't all about what Bowyer can learn from it (although how they cope when things are going badly is something you want to know), it's about what the lads themselves learn from it. It's always a valuable experience. Maybe some of them learnt they're not as good as they think they are, and they need to work harder to be on this level. Maybe some of them shone despite the heavy defeats.

Agree with you that somewhere inbetween is probably best, but closer to what Bowyer did than what Mowbray did. And yes there's a great irony that at this stage of the season he seems to be concerned about getting results, when we've heard he isn't really about those when they actually mattered. Total clown.

[roversfan99]

1 minute ago, bluebruce said:

I find the opposite end of the spectrum, Mowbray's approach, to be much stranger. Yes I do think they possibly slightly over-did it, but I was going to reply to your earlier post where you said pretty much the same thing...it isn't all about what Bowyer can learn from it (although how they cope when things are going badly is something you want to know), it's about what the lads themselves learn from it. It's always a valuable experience. Maybe some of them learnt they're not as good as they think they are, and they need to work harder to be on this level. Maybe some of them shone despite the heavy defeats.

Agree with you that somewhere inbetween is probably best, but closer to what Bowyer did than what Mowbray did. And yes there's a great irony that at this stage of the season he seems to be concerned about getting results, when we've heard he isn't really about those when they actually mattered. Total clown.

I think all playing together and getting battered is counter productive and demoralising though. The manager wont learn anything because they will all struggle together and the player will lose confidence.

For us for example, say if Pike is considered the closest to the first team, he and the manager would get more from him being next to Lenihan, Kaminski in goal etc, rather than around Annesley, Eastham etc. Obviously the problem is that Mowbray hasnt done that. Its more the youngsters that are closest ie Buckley, Davenport and Dolan that should have been used.

[davulsukur]

1 hour ago, Stuart said:

Oh for a manager who cared half as much as Paul Warne clearly does.

Now that is someone desperately unfortunate from a covid perspective. Massively hindered them with so much fixture congestion.

They so nearly did it as well. No sentiment from Mick McCarthy, who lets be fair will see Rotherham like Gareth Ainsworth would see Burnley, but they certainly had nothing to play for apart from to stick one to a Barnsley rival.

Eh? Didn't you see Mogga shrug his shoulders and say "Doesn't matter if we win or not" the other day?

The man bleeds blue and white!

[Paul Mani]

38 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Well we see over the coming days and weeks what happens with Mowbray future. 

 

👀👍🏼

[Bbrovers2288]

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

"Too inconsistent." Second top scorer in the league and with more open play goals even than Toney, I think thats a little inaccurate. You dont get that many goals if you arent consistent and are "feast or famine."

When you shoot on sight then your going to score a fair few times but there is 5-6 other times in the game when playing in a team mate would be the better option in order to score more or keep possession for the good of the team more than the individual. He is also horrendous at 1v1s which is ashame as it suits his pace to get in behind a line and then there is fairly rotten at pens. So yes thanks for the goals, would be relegated probably without him this season but he goes with my blessings if we can get a large fee and improve the squad with 2/3 others. 
some of you are very blinkered by goals. Same ones that were backing mowbray for too long I see, pattern emerging there

[roversfan99]

4 minutes ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

When you shoot on sight then your going to score a fair few times but there is 5-6 other times in the game when playing in a team mate would be the better option in order to score more or keep possession for the good of the team more than the individual. He is also horrendous at 1v1s which is ashame as it suits his pace to get in behind a line and then there is fairly rotten at pens. So yes thanks for the goals, would be relegated probably without him this season but he goes with my blessings if we can get a large fee and improve the squad with 2/3 others. 
some of you are very blinkered by goals. Same ones that were backing mowbray for too long I see, pattern emerging there

Blinkered by goals is possibly correct because he has scored an obscene amount and it is the most important part of being a striker. To say that he cant finish, he cant take penalties and he ruins 5 or 6 chances a game to set up a goal for our other prolific attackers, hes not done too bad.

I am not backing Mowbray, ive wanted him out and your comment there makes no sense but I think that the second top scorer in the league is a strength strangely rather than a weakness.

Edited May 8, 2021 by roversfan99

[joey_big_nose]

As an aside how much better than Douglas has Bell been? Douglas is absolutely shocking imo. Worst first team signing in a long time.

Really hope Pickering is a good un. Left backs been a real problem position for us all the way back to Warnock....

Also I would give Bell a new contract as backup. I think we can get more out of him.

[HowieFive0]

11 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Blinkered by goals is possibly correct because he has scored an obscene amount and it is the most important part of being a striker. To say that he cant finish, he cant take penalties and he ruins 5 or 6 chances a game to set up a goal for our other prolific attackers, hes not done too bad.

I am not backing Mowbray, ive wanted him out and your comment there makes no sense but I think that the second top scorer in the league is a strength strangely rather than a weakness.

Yep no denying the amount of goals AA has scored this season its there in the record books . Thank the Lord.

The one thing that the record books dont show is that AA isnt a "clinical" finisher.

Again today the two he scored in open play the keeper should have saved ..yes .. i know if you dont shoot you dont score ..both me and my lad both said the same today ..he does get a bit of luck at times. Very rare he s sticking it in the "postage stamp" or in the bottom corners and his one on ones are a little bit hit n miss .

The  number of off target shots and even the number of shots on target at times ( nine shots on goal in one game ? ) shows hes not the clinical striker that his goals this season on paper kind of points to.

So i can see where @Bbrovers2288 is going with AA.

Clinical is the word.