John Eustace - our head coach

[ben_the_beast]

14 minutes ago, Admiral Nelsen said:

 

I don't think it's even driven by data. I bet it would be easy to use data to show much of a brilliant job Dyche did at Burnley, for example. It wouldn't have stopped people turning their nose up at him though because of 'style of play'. Completely baffling. 

 

I think you're right about Eustace. He's obviously gong to have a growing list of people recognising the job he's doing, but when it comes to the small number of clubs who might actually go for him? You can imagine a lot of reactions going something like "he's done brilliantly at Rovers, but do we want someone who's so defensive/not gone promoted/not a big name" etc. 

I'd say a lot of it is similar to what we experienced when Greg the egg was here. There was a big push around maximising players value, by playing a style of football which showcases flair; a style which tends to sacrifice pragmatism. You see a lot of clubs these days signing players on potential, but aren't quite ready, especially in the lower reaches of the Premier league. 

Southamptons statement after sacking Martin, weirdly mentioned their pride in their academy and younger players. They would say differently, but their actions scream that they don't care about staying up, but more about a few big sales. It's a feeder club model and that requires a manager who plays with a similar philosophy to the top clubs. 

[JHRover]

Both Corberan at West Brom and Rohl at Sheff Wed have built up as good if not better reputations than Eustace. Corberan took Huddersfield to the play-off final with no money and at West Brom has had them in contention despite a takeover and cutbacks. 

Rohl worked absolute miracles in keeping Wednesday up last season and has them top half this season.

Difference is both those clubs will recognise this and try their hardest to keep their managers. Will Venkys lift a finger here? Highly unlikely, and as for Waggott he's probably salivating at the potential for a compensation lump sum to boost his figures.

[alcd]

26 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Talksport also said that paying compensation for Rohl  would be a problem so you would hope the same thing would apply with Eustace.

Knowing our lot however..........

Rohl under contract till 2027.Doubt that one year's less compensation would influence such a major decision for a Premier League club. 

[Tom]

All about timing, summer may be a risk if we keep going well but miss out on promotion, for him his stock may never be higher then 

[ruggles1995]

The way this last decade has gone, I wouldn't be surprised, just as its starting to look quite good. 

But realistically I cant imagine hes the top of Wolves list. Sounds a bit like someone stirring a story up out of nothing, family's in the midlands... wolves are in the midlands, hes the in-form team of the championship.... = must be him then!! ......... No chance. 

Hes never going to be on Southampton's list, as they want to play a 'certain way'.

But it would be a Blackburn type thing to happen. 

[roversfan99]

30 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Have to hope that's right. I saw an article online claiming he was under very serious consideration for the Wolves job. There must be some underlying reason other than the fact we're doing well that he appears near the top of runners and riders for virtually every job that crops up.

Eustace CAN NOT be allowed to leave - at the very least not until the end of the season. The owners are allegedly multi billionaires, if they want to keep him at the Club, they can.

We havent seen much evidence of their wealth for a long while. I supppse its a question of who if anyone comes in for Eustace as that could lure him in regardless or failing that, how frustrated he becomes with a lack of backing. Since the summer of 2020, weve spent about £7-8m I think (Szmodics, Hyam and Brittain were £4m combined, Gueye was £1m then aside from that a series of nominal fees up to maybe £500k each) and in that time weve sold Szmodics, Wharton, Armstrong, Gallagher, Phillips, Kaminski and have had the Raya sell on as well as have aggressively slashed the wage budget. He has recently dropped hints about needing reinforcements so it depends how much that boils over.

[arbitro]

There is so much snobbery now in football that managers like Eustace, Allardyce and Pulis wouldn't be popular with lots of fans because of their reputations for not playing the 'right way'. We had it here when we appointed Ince ahead of Allardyce and the story goes that lots of fans objected to the potential appointment of Allardyce. Lots of them changed their tune when he saved us from relegation (as he did at several other clubs) and had us tenth in the Premier League. And sacking him and appointing an upcoming young manager worked out well didn't it.

[Mattyblue]

And plenty were happy to see ‘hoofball Allardyce’ back out the door, the rest, as they say…

Edited Monday at 15:01 by Mattyblue

[Leonard Venkhater]

4 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

And plenty were happy to see ‘hoofball Allardyce’ back out the door, the rest, as they say…

Let's be careful not to re-write history lol...

The Big Sam era was far from easy on the eye. I felt he "fulfilled fixtures"/threw games  to concentrate on beating the teams around us..and the hoof ball was bearable the first season he kept us up...After that, I know a lot got bored and stopped going as often as they did.

The plan to sack Big Sam was made before the takeover. It was an agents' conspiracy.

When he lost his job brutally, so soon after arrival of "the others", most of my friends were shocked. He certainly deserved a chance to manage with some cash behind him.

So, in my opinion several things are true at the same time. The hoof ball( with little funding from the Walker Trust) was awful at times. Nevertheless, he was treated shamefully and we would not have been relegated, had he stayed.

Sam's dismissal had nothing to do with Rovers fans. It was construed to get Steve Kean into the job.

 

[Mattyblue]

Didn’t say it did have anything to do with it. But like I said ‘plenty were happy to have hoofball Allardyce out the door’.

That type of fan was clueless then and they are clueless now.

[rigger]

4 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Didn’t say it did have anything to do with it. But like I said ‘plenty were happy to have hoofball Allardyce out the door’.

That type of fan was clueless then and they are clueless now.

I am one of those fans. I didn't consider myself clueless then nor now. I was pissed-off with going to certain clubs with no ambition to give them a game. Yet still expected to pay premium prices. 

Edited Monday at 15:29 by rigger

[Mattyblue]

I’m afraid the cap fits on this occasion.

[jim mk2]

Aaarrggh, someone mentioned Big Sam - cue all those who say we were right to sack him but replaced him with the wrong guy trying to justify their opinions. I still say his sacking was the worst move this club has ever made

Eustace won't go to the Premier League - boards will look at his painful TV interviews and a playing style that is straight out of the Pulis playbook, and will shy away. He's the perfect fit for Rovers at the moment - and I think he knows it. 

 

[rigger]

2 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Aaarrggh, someone mentioned Big Sam - cue all those who say we were right to sack him but replaced him with the wrong guy trying to justify their opinions. I still say his sacking was the worst move this club has ever made

Eustace won't go to the Premier League - boards will look at his painful TV interviews and a playing style that is straight out of the Pulis playbook, and will shy away. He's the perfect fit for Rovers at the moment - and I think he knows it. 

 

I would say the worst move, was selling to Venkys 

[Leonard Venkhater]

10 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Aaarrggh, someone mentioned Big Sam - cue all those who say we were right to sack him but replaced him with the wrong guy trying to justify their opinions. I still say his sacking was the worst move this club has ever made

Eustace won't go to the Premier League - boards will look at his painful TV interviews and a playing style that is straight out of the Pulis playbook, and will shy away. He's the perfect fit for Rovers at the moment - and I think he knows it. 

 

Agree. Wrong to sack him.They should have backed him...but it was decided long before they showed up. Bastards!

[Leonard Venkhater]

9 minutes ago, rigger said:

I would say the worst move, was selling to Venkys 

It ruined my kids' and my lives....

Edited Monday at 15:41 by Leonard Venkhater

[RevidgeBlue]

55 minutes ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

Let's be careful not to re-write history lol...

The Big Sam era was far from easy on the eye. I felt he "fulfilled fixtures"/threw games  to concentrate on beating the teams around us..and the hoof ball was bearable the first season he kept us up...After that, I know a lot got bored and stopped going as often as they did.

The plan to sack Big Sam was made before the takeover. It was an agents' conspiracy.

When he lost his job brutally, so soon after arrival of "the others", most of my friends were shocked. He certainly deserved a chance to manage with some cash behind him.

So, in my opinion several things are true at the same time. The hoof ball( with little funding from the Walker Trust) was awful at times. Nevertheless, he was treated shamefully and we would not have been relegated, had he stayed.

Sam's dismissal had nothing to do with Rovers fans. It was construed to get Steve Kean into the job.

 

Great post.

[Bob Belcher]

Eustace is a phenomenal manager for this group of players. He clearly knows how to get the best out of them and that has been reflected with our current run of form. Are we in the top 5 in this league as far as talent? Not by a long shot, jmo.  However, we are gritty, cohesive, and have a guy at the helm who know how to get results.

That is all that matters.

[RevidgeBlue]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

Didn’t say it did have anything to do with it. But like I said ‘plenty were happy to have hoofball Allardyce out the door’.

That type of fan was clueless then and they are clueless now.

It's all relative though. Easy to scoff now with the benefit of hindsight but the (not unreasonable) hope at the time was that they'd bring someone better in. They certainly had the wherewithal to bring an elite manager in.

I didn't enjoy the Allardyce era at all.  Walking down to the ground felt like a trip to the dentists. Prioritising certain games and more or less throwing others isn't for me and again imo you EITHER have to be entertaining OR winning matches regularly otherwise there's no real point. If you're winning as many matches as Kendall did, or Eustace is currently doing and are in with a shout of winning promotion or the occasional trophy that's great. If you're boring and going WDL all the time  and are just about doing enough to stay up that's not really much in the way of entertainment imo.

Again it's all relative and I'm sure we'd all take an Allardyce type now if we thought he could get us promoted. As we hopefully have with Eustace.

[Leonard Venkhater]

37 minutes ago, Bob Belcher said:

Eustace is a phenomenal manager for this group of players. He clearly knows how to get the best out of them and that has been reflected with our current run of form. Are we in the top 5 in this league as far as talent? Not by a long shot, jmo.  However, we are gritty, cohesive, and have a guy at the helm who know how to get results.

That is all that matters.

I'm getting that Ken Furphy echo...

December 1973...What was it 4 or 5 wins on the trot.?....Then, in came Sheffield Utd...

[Mattyblue]

I and plenty of others on here were scoffing back then, Rev, no hindsight needed. You were delighted. 

But then you would have been as a good judge you aren’t -  you thought ‘St John’ was a poor chairman and it took you over a decade to realise these lot are charlatans (and the less said about the current hole you’ve dug re that lad lining up with Travis the better).
 

 

[Bob Belcher]

10 minutes ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

I'm getting that Ken Furphy echo...

December 1973...What was it 4 or 5 wins on the trot.?....Then, in came Sheffield Utd...

Yeah haha fair point.

Other clubs might think on what he could do with a bigger budget...

Personally though I think he is not going anywhere.

[RevidgeBlue]

7 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

I and plenty of others on here were scoffing back then, Rev, no hindsight needed. You were delighted. 

But then you would have been as a good judge you aren’t -  you thought ‘St John’ was a poor chairman and it took you over a decade to realise these lot are charlatans (and the less said about the current hole you’ve dug re that lad lining up with Travis the better).
 

 

Im not going to rise to the personal insults  but again you-re talking purely with hindsight. Replacing Allardyce with an elite manager wouldnt or certainly shouldn't have been a problem. Replacing him with Steve Kean obviously turned into a disaster.

"St. John" did a good job overall but was far from perfect and I don't think you understand my stance on the owners. If they're prepared to fund the Club up to the limit allowable under FFP, don't do anything illegal, stay in the background and employ decent people to run the Club then I'll take that all day long, charlatans or not.

If they can't (or in this case wont)  fund the Club then they're as much use as a chocolate fireguard and need to leave ASAP.

 

[RevidgeBlue]

26 minutes ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

I'm getting that Ken Furphy echo...

December 1973...What was it 4 or 5 wins on the trot.?....Then, in came Sheffield Utd...

Hadn't we just beaten Watford away?

[Mattyblue]

2 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Im not going to rise to the personal insults  but again you-re talking purely with hindsight. Replacing Allardyce with an elite manager wouldnt or certainly shouldn't have been a problem. Replacing him with Steve Kean obviously turned into a disaster.

"St. John" did a good job overall but was far from perfect and I don't think you understand my stance on the owners. If they're prepared to fund the Club up to the limit allowable under FFP, don't do anything illegal, stay in the background and employ decent people to run the Club then I'll take that all day long, charlatans or not.

If they can't (or in this case wont)  fund the Club then they're as much use as a chocolate fireguard and need to leave ASAP.

 

I’m not talking with hindsight, you are.

Bit in bold, they’ve not done that since day 1 yet you backed them to the hilt  until the scales finally came out your eyes just *months* ago.