John Eustace - our head coach

[Gamst]

Given the complete shambles that was December and January, I think Eustace has done really well to make us competitive again. Some wins would be nice, but its certainly refreshing to not go into each game expecting to concede at least 3 goals. 

[ABBEY]

15 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Mm, I don’t think you’re right about that. The next month or two will tell.

4 points out of 30 says tippy happy boredom suicide wasn't working.

The dude had a sulk like a tantrumming 2 year old. If he felt as strongly as he hinted then he should of resigned and let rip . Instead he played with future of the rovers without giving a shit only for himself .

If he felt so bad he should of gone to papers and told his version instead of being so soft.

[ABBEY]

59 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Dingle Derangement Syndrome, we saw evidence of that yesterday with pretty much every chant based on Dingles and former Dingles.

We are getting as small time as we used to take the piss out of them for being.

Come and start some none dingle chants with us . We don't bite.

Got everything he deserved the horrible dingle turd.

[BlackburnEnd75]

3 hours ago, roverblue said:

Given how bad our form has been I think results wise he has done well in his first few games.

He has fixed the defence which was the main issue with the team. The way Norwich setup we would have been murdered on the break under JDT.

It’s not pretty but I think a lot of that is down to Adam Wharton not pulling the strings. A lot riding on Buckley to fill that gap now.

His real tests are the upcoming Millwall and Plymouth home games as these are ones we have to win. 

I think he's done okay I think but Its a small sample size especially as I don't really count the stoke win as 'his'. 

I think he's bennefitted from having more experienced players available to pick from and having our best keeper and striker available is a luxury that JDT didn't really have during the bad run. To his credit he seems to be using gally better than most have used him over his time here.

We are more pragmatic, don't lose it in silly areas as much, are less liley to get countered on, offer a much greater threat from set pieces. We hang in games longer, appear more dogged, and actually look more solid the longer games go on.

But I think to say he's 'fixed the defence' is imo complete rubbish. It's still an issue for us. I thought first hour yesterday norwich should've scored more than the 1 they did. Same with Birmingham away, we conceded a lot of chances. We aren't playing a high line and norwich got in behind quite a few times yesterday. Pears has been mostly very good in the last 4/5 games which is gaining us points as much as anything.

We are giving the ball away way too much at present. At times it's aimless hoofing. Nothing wrong with direct long ball football but you've still got to have a purposes with these passes. It's frustrating, as much as JDTs side should've varied it slightly more then so should this side... if a channel ball isn't on move it around and open one up. It's painful to watch at times.

Hopefully when JE gets time on the training ground with this group he can get this refined more. I'm still on the fence with JE.

[Mattyblue]

20 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

We were never going to roll out the red carpet for Ashley Barnes, particularly given his behaviour in the derby last season.

It was intensified a bit yesterday as it was him. Don’t think it’s like that on a week to week basis, in fairness.

It was all a bit lame.

But hey ho, suppose it shows where we are.

[jim mk2]

21 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Excellent post.

Think the family bit was huge - moving your family even from one town to another town in the same county can be difficult enough with all that entails (friends, schools, relatives etc) but from one country to another!!!

Sadly, we will never know how good JDT could have been for Rovers.  I salute his refreshing honesty and would trust him far more than, IMO, all the scumbags now associated with our club. 

 

 

All very true but if we do go down Tomasson will be to blame.

The horrendous run in December and January under him has put us in this precarious position and it's clear now he was not being honest with himself by staying on at the club so long. If he'd resigned sooner we might not be in this mess. 

[Mattyblue]

Nowt to do with the owners, Jim?

[BlackburnEnd75]

Just now, jim mk2 said:

 

All very true but if we do go down Tomasson will be to blame.

The horrendous run in December and January under him has put us in this precarious position and it's clear now he was not being honest with himself by staying on at the club so long. If he'd resigned sooner we might not be in this mess. 

I'll be blaming the ownership tbh.

We were 5 points clear when he left. The let's blame JDT for relegation is a bit of a stretch. Ultimately we don't know where we would be if he stayed, we were on a bad run but we had a buffer to the relegation zone. A manger with most of his key players fit and a slightly deeper squad should keep this team up.

[K-Hod]

11 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

 

All very true but if we do go down Tomasson will be to blame.

The horrendous run in December and January under him has put us in this precarious position and it's clear now he was not being honest with himself by staying on at the club so long. If he'd resigned sooner we might not be in this mess. 

All roads lead back to India.

Venky’s the fuck out.

[Waggy76]

39 minutes ago, arbitro said:

Bloody hell that's a harsh opinion. I was mightily peed off but at that time I'm sure we were in a playoff position and before the game actually above them.

Maybe it was a bit harsh and he was definitely lied to by the owners..

But he couldn't set a defence this season or couldn't be bothered too...

With more  pragmatic performances during November, December and January, we would have a few more points now !

[jim mk2]

3 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

All roads lead back to India.

Venky’s the fuck out.

 

Obviously, but the manager is responsible for results

[Old Codger]

21 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

 

All very true but if we do go down Tomasson will be to blame.

The horrendous run in December and January under him has put us in this precarious position and it's clear now he was not being honest with himself by staying on at the club so long. If he'd resigned sooner we might not be in this mess. 

Complete bollox imo - if he'd been given the resources he asked for and was told would be made available, we'd have never been in the sodding position in the first place. If we go down, it will be VENKY RAO DESAI WAGGOTT SUHAIL scum who are to blame, and nobody else  🤨

[jim mk2]

7 minutes ago, Old Codger said:

Complete bollox imo - if he'd been given the resources he asked for and was told would be made available, we'd have never been in the sodding position in the first place. If we go down, it will be VENKY RAO DESAI WAGGOTT SUHAIL scum who are to blame, and nobody else  🤨

But he wasn't given the "resources"; he knew the "project" he was sold was a lie; he knew Waggott and Co were useless; he knew the club was dysfunctional; he knew it was never going to work.

He offered to resign by all accounts but stayed on. And here we are in relegation trouble because he oversaw a disastrous sequence of results for which he was responsible.

None of this is new but easy to see.

 

[Old Codger]

4 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

But he wasn't given the "resources"; he knew the "project" he was sold was a lie; he knew Waggott and Co were useless; he knew the club was dysfunctional; he knew it was never going to work.

He offered to resign by all accounts but stayed on. And here we are in relegation trouble because he oversaw a disastrous sequence of results for which he was responsible.

None of this is new but easy to see.

 

And they wouldn't accept his resignation, or treat him in any single way that even vaguely honoured their side of the contract he'd signed with them. The onus for resolving the impasse was always with the organ grinder and not with the hired monkey. Generally, when you go to the showroom and put your money down, you walk away with the car with all its faults, not the tits and teeth they wheel out to distract you from the faults in the first place..

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Knowing he could see a train crash coming after the about turn in Summer regarding transfers he would have been wiser to go then. His stock would have much higher than it is now. I’m surprised he took the job in the first place.

Edited February 25 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[K-Hod]

5 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Knowing he could see a train crash coming after the about turn in Summer regarding transfers he would have been wiser to go then. His stock would have much higher than is now. I’m surprised he took the job in the first place.

He did try tbf.

[arbitro]

35 minutes ago, Waggy76 said:

Maybe it was a bit harsh and he was definitely lied to by the owners..

But he couldn't set a defence this season or couldn't be bothered too...

With more  pragmatic performances during November, December and January, we would have a few more points now !

Up until the Sheffield Wednesday match in early December we were fine defensively. After that we conceded far too many goals, many of which were from individual mistakes particularly goalkeeper and defenders. Without going over old ground the results fell off a cliff and that is what managers are judged on. But surely up until December you can't have been too unhappy with results.

[tomphil]

We warned the keeper situation would cost us and it did no doubts about it and there is a whole host of people to blame for that.

Ironically Leo is probably the last one.

[DE.]

At any normal club JDT would have left in the summer. As soon as he offered his resignation, saying this isn't what he'd signed up for - offering to walk away for nothing, as well - it should have been a case of "OK Jon, give us some time to get things sorted from our end and we'll let you go". Instead he was, seemingly, told he'd be held to his contract whether he wanted to be here or not. He could walk out but wouldn't be able to work anywhere else until his contract expired in summer 2025. Whilst the owners are technically within their rights to do that, it's complete stupidity as we then go into the season with a demotivated manager who doesn't want to be here, and players who no doubt were well aware of that fact. It's a miracle that we got the results we did until November with all of that factored in. 

It all leads back to the same place - we're a dysfunctional club owned by people who should be nowhere near any football club. 

Edited February 25 by DE.

[chaddyrovers]

We don't play hoofball under Eustace. 

Eustace has made the defence tighten and more of an unit now then this season. Its effective. 

Also it is overplayed that all Norwich had to do was just played in behind McFadzean. It happened a couple of times cos we pressed much higher up yesterday 

 

[joey_big_nose]

51 minutes ago, arbitro said:

Up until the Sheffield Wednesday match in early December we were fine defensively. After that we conceded far too many goals, many of which were from individual mistakes particularly goalkeeper and defenders. Without going over old ground the results fell off a cliff and that is what managers are judged on. But surely up until December you can't have been too unhappy with results.

Yeah, JDT probably could have done what Eustace is doing now once we went on the bad run in December to shore up, but I think he had got to the point where he decided he wasn't here for long so may as well stick to his principles.

I do think that run and leaving on such a low will have done massive damage to his career though, more than he thinks.

I see Sweden have not announced him....

[roversfan99]

Its not proved very effective at the moment as 3 points from 4 games isnt a great return. And only those who had been staunchly against the idea of changing from Tomassons style would now deny we are playing hoofball. Hopefully we become less predictable on the ball as time goes on but id definitely class it as hoofball.

Sargent also definitely got in more than a mere couple of times beyond our slow back 3.

[arbitro]

4 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Its not proved very effective at the moment as 3 points from 4 games isnt a great return. And only those who had been staunchly against the idea of changing from Tomassons style would now deny we are playing hoofball. Hopefully we become less predictable on the ball as time goes on but id definitely class it as hoofball.

Sargent also definitely got in more than a mere couple of times beyond our slow back 3.

I'm honestly not sure what 'hoofball' is. One fundamental difference is that we are putting more crosses in from wide positions and creating chances from them. Pears is kicking it more and defenders aren't taking chances but this 'hoofball' term is derogatory as we are also playing some decent stuff. It's a lazy description and often when a manager gets tagged with it if tends to stick. One of the best footballing teams in Norwich only had 8% more possession than us and only 16 more passes in our half than us in theirs. The had quite a few more passes than us in their own half but to me letting them have the ball there was part of the game plan.

We also had 60% possession at Cardiff, at Preston we only had 36% and 47% at Birmingham. I personally don't think that typifies 'hoofball'.

[ABBEY]

22 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Its not proved very effective at the moment as 3 points from 4 games isnt a great return. And only those who had been staunchly against the idea of changing from Tomassons style would now deny we are playing hoofball. Hopefully we become less predictable on the ball as time goes on but id definitely class it as hoofball.

Sargent also definitely got in more than a mere couple of times beyond our slow back 3.

On target for  a better return than 4 in 30

[M_B]

Small steps with Eustace by the looks of it. The point at Cardiff maybe showed his nous over Tomasson, to rest 2 players, bring Gallagher off after an hour, give someone his full debut, yet still come away with a draw after the first clean sheet in ages, showed his experience in my opinion. 

Yesterday wasn't easy on the eye, but coming from behind isn't something we do, another notch for Eustace.

Norwich were weak in the air,or was it that Rovers were good in that department? More deliveries please, let's find out.