v Birmingham City (a) - 13/02/2024 19:45 KO

[pick32]

Not panicking, the new manager has had two days to implement tactics and get to know the players, the fact he just names Johnson’s unchanged 11 shows this, think with fleck and Fadz in the team we have enough experience and fight to stay up. Looking forward to Buckley and Wharton coming back

[47er]

55 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

Parts of that are absolutely true, but I don’t know how you’re arriving at relegation being a certainty, when we’re seven points clear of the drop zone and two of those teams play each other tonight….

Its not a certainty till its mathematically impossible for us but its not looking good.I wouldn't bet against it at this point unless you gave me daft odds.

[den]

We’ve voluntarily moved on from trying to pass the ball to each other, excellent movement around the park and trying to play football the way it’s meant to be played. It was going downhill for sure but that’s because the squad became weaker and weaker. 
 

We’ve moved on to that long ball, hoofing it crap that we saw last night. Any more of that and the fans will be right on Eustaces back. There’ll be shouts at the players of “can’t you just do the basics like pass it to a teammate”.  “F’ing pub football” etc, etc. Seen it all before.

why anyone would want to move back from passing football to “get it up front quickly” “more direct” football beats me. This is inevitably where that kind of football gets you.

Edited February 14 by den

[Bronzed A Donis]

We've "built" or more like reduced a squad to only being able to play 1 way, the way that "increases value" with ever diminishing returns as the players are mentally weak, physically weak and not as good as they or us may think they are.

Eustace has clearly got his work cut out if he and the squad feel a change of style is what is needed to dig us out, his eyes will be wide open now. We don't have the players to battle our way out. Especially if JRC out now.

I am not going to criticise Eustace , last night was plan B, keep tight and hope for bounce of the ball, the plan B we never saw (but need) under JDT because Plan B is worse then Plan A with this squad. He needed to try and keep a clean sheet and embed that mentality I get that.

If Eustace can get to 50 points he will have done a very good job,with this sows ear of a squad. A Mowbray team could have put 5 past us.

Thanks Raos.

Edited February 14 by Bronzed A Donis
Fat fingers

[Mattyblue]

So now we don’t have to play the one way as this is what ‘increases value’ in the squad?

Hard to keep up with all ‘the models’ at this club.

[Bronzed A Donis]

6 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

So now we don’t have to play the one way as this is what ‘increases value’ in the squad?

Hard to keep up with all ‘the models’ at this club.

Thats because nobody has a clue what they are doing Matty and we lurch from one bad decision to another. 

Football is a simple game, but suits and data bods think otherwise....

[Old Codger]

The fact is we allowed Big Club at least 5 other clear chances to score, which they fluffed before the law of averages meant one bobbled in. How much real work did John Ruddy actually have to do last night? Not much at all, and if Telalovic had buried that last minute header we would have pulled off an almighty travesty to get a point from what was an abject performance across the board.

The writing was on the wall when Pears played their man in, and you could see the veneer of Saturday's confidence evaporating steadily as the game went on. Big Club played with a sense of purpose and appeared to have some kind of system for moving the ball forward and pressuring our back line. We didn't appear to have the means to counter their system, and were fortunate not to be on the wrong end of an embarrassing tubbing.

Nobbers at the weekend will be yet another wake up call, as we sleepwalk into footballing oblivion.

All thanks to the corruption that permeates the club, its ownership and their penny pinching / pound ignorant approach. 

VENKY-RAO-DESAI-SKULKING_SHADOW_HIDERS OUT!

CRAP-WAGGOTT OUT!

[chaddyrovers]

Disappointed with the result and with our attacking side of our game. Never got our attacking side of game going all night. Very poor. 

Defensively, I thought we were much better. McFadzean, Tronstad and Hyam our best players. 

Telalovic should have scored tho. 

Eustace has had 1 training session for a hour with this squad. Its deffo work in progress under him

 

[ABBEY]

4 hours ago, NeilInBristol said:

Hahaha

He said that 3 times like it's his mantra

He said nothing of use, very generic comments but he did slip in that 50points is the target that is what he was brought in for. Get us to 50 points. 

Well you've got 15 games to get 14 points John. 

His words not mine!

Has the new manager been Bristol and shagged your peg or what ?

[Gav]

I was sat with a Brum fan for most of the day yesterday and he was telling me they're not playing badly, they just can't score at the minute, the chap that scored last night has just come into the club in January.

So last night was pretty much true to form, Brum created plenty but couldn't finish, it could have been 3/4.

As for out lot, nothing changes really, we are a depleted squad cut to the bone financially and that doesn't change with a change of manager. Our only hope is we have players returning to fitness and they will make a difference, but will it be enough.......

 

 

[Torgeir]

1 minute ago, Gav said:

I was sat with a Brum fan for most of the day yesterday and he was telling me they're not playing badly, they just can't score at the minute, the chap that scored last night has just come into the club in January.

So last night was pretty much true to form, Brum created plenty but couldn't finish, it could have been 3/4.

As for out lot, nothing changes really, we are a depleted squad cut to the bone financially and that doesn't change with a change of manager. Our only hope is we have players returning to fitness and they will make a difference, but will it be enough.......

 

 

Spot on.

 

Everyone was singing the praises of Dolan, Hedges and Gallagher after the weekend, but they were noshow'ing us again last night. We have too many players that blow hot and cold unfortunately. We need more Tronstad's.

[NeilInBristol]

40 minutes ago, ABBEY said:

Has the new manager been Bristol and shagged your peg or what ?

I'm still bitter about the whole situation over January mate. It's really frustrating. JDT was openly talking about the BS at the club in the media. It was so refreshing. Yes we lost a few games in Dec but we had so many injuries and our squad is poor anyway. This guy won't do any better with the squad we've got but he also doesn't show me any hope of him publicly criticising the BS in the club so I'm annoyed 

[funny-old-game]

7 hours ago, Roverthechimp said:

Crap - devoid of a plan a let alone plan b

School level defending (chase the ball) and only SS trying to get the team to stop dropping deeper before he himself was forced to come deep to get the ball

Total lack of cohesion and sloppy play all round - Eustace has to tear them a new one after that or else our players council will talk about togetherness in league 1 (unless their wages are reduced)

I can SS and Dolan leaving in the summer and then we are fcked

Felt sorry for Telavovic - could have been the start of a rovers career having done the hard bit of getting in the right places but that miss and the lack of support from his teammates (even Ruddy gave him a “you ok”) is probably the end

Going back to basics?

We threw the baby out with the bath water regarding any sort of possession or creativity. I couldn't see any sort of plan and still conceding 6 or so chances before they scored. The set up seemed to stretch the team into different parts with NO cohesion and definitely no plan A,B or C.

When you think how long it took for the players to play, train and jell under JDT, I don't think JE has enough time or games left.

Very worrying!

Edited February 14 by funny-old-game

[Commondore]

Early days, but very worrying that the defensive frailty of Tomasson's days persists (three missed opportunities to get the ball out of the penalty area before their goal!) while the attacking flair seems to have been replaced with counter attacks as our sole route towards goal. If Eustace is just another bog standard Championship coach we're in trouble. 

[tomphil]

Encouraging them to clear the lines quicker and be more decisive in defence will result in more balls flying upfield to no one or into touch.

It should though prevent a goal like we conceded last night and several other opportunities they had.

Bog standard championship stuff i'm afraid and at the min we just need points not style and if they'd cleared that last night we could have hung on for a 0-0 which would have be welcomed mostly.

[Wing Wizard Windy Miller]

Last night we were shit. Plain and simple.  Have to expect a lot more of those performances between now and the end of the season. 

 

[jim mk2]

I made a point of watching Gallagher in particular last night. For a man of his size and athleticism he is very weak and does not pose any physical threat. He won a couple of flick-on headers but usually didn't  have the aggression to outmuscle their centre halves. 

He's also not mentally alert, always seemingly a yard off the pace, never quite there in front of the defender to shield the ball or latch on to through balls. He chased a good one in the second half that would have put him through on goal but again just wasn't tough enough to get ahead of the defender 

Basically he's seems a "nice" boy who doesn't relish the tough stuff that forwards have to do. Defenders must love playing against him. If I were Eustace I'd order Hyam and Co to give him a kicking in training., just to get a reaction. 

 

[Mashed Potatoes]

2 hours ago, NeilInBristol said:

I'm still bitter about the whole situation over January mate. It's really frustrating. JDT was openly talking about the BS at the club in the media. It was so refreshing. Yes we lost a few games in Dec but we had so many injuries and our squad is poor anyway. This guy won't do any better with the squad we've got but he also doesn't show me any hope of him publicly criticising the BS in the club so I'm annoyed 

We'd lost more than just a few games - from the beginning of December until his departure we had taken 5 points from 11 games under JDT and were heading for relegation. The manager is employed to get results on the pitch not to talk about BS at the club - by doing so he gave the players an excuse for failing which they duly did.

[NeilInBristol]

2 minutes ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

We'd lost more than just a few games - from the beginning of December until his departure we had taken 5 points from 11 games under JDT and were heading for relegation. The manager is employed to get results on the pitch not to talk about BS at the club - by doing so he gave the players an excuse for failing which they duly did.

Interesting take

I don't agree with all above though because the players are at fault because they aren't good enough and the club hasn't provided him with the right players who can do a good job. We lost so much quality and experience last summer and then losing Adam made us weaker. 

[roverblue]

We had lost 7 home games already by Xmas eve, sick of hearing about this December slump.

[Dolly blue]

3 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Disappointed with the result and with our attacking side of our game. Never got our attacking side of game going all night. Very poor. 

Defensively, I thought we were much better. McFadzean, Tronstad and Hyam our best players. 

Telalovic should have scored tho. 

Eustace has had 1 training session for a hour with this squad. Its deffo work in progress under him

 

Wow Chaddy…I thought Hyam was a liability..indecisive, very poor on the ball , no leadership…glad you didn’t think Brittain was decent…. an absolute pussy cat…if he played half as well as he talks we’d be ok …a “ man “ who lacks balls .

[RevidgeBlue]

Not read the rest of the comments....by christ that was a tough watch.

You wonder for the millionth time how dollopers like Hedges and Gallagher have ever carved out a career in professional football.

What was Brittain doing for the goal? He's a bit of a liability defensively.

If we play like that until the rest of the season we're in trouble. We probably needed a change but under JDT at least you felt we had a chance of outscoring the opposition.

Last night we showed nothing.

[Mattyblue]

50 minutes ago, roverblue said:

We had lost 7 home games already by Xmas eve, sick of hearing about this December slump.

We were a point outside the play offs going into December after winning 6 games in 8.

The slump started in December.

[islander200]

59 minutes ago, roverblue said:

We had lost 7 home games already by Xmas eve, sick of hearing about this December slump.

Again we weren't anywhere near the relegation spots at that point.

After the outgoings and incomings in the playing squad, did you expect us to be higher than 7th place and only 1 point outside the playoffs going into December?

[tomphil]

You simply cannot lose the senior players we have, cut the already modest budget we have, sell the talent we have and reduce the wage bill and plug holes with youth, recruit the types we mostly have without having some serious adverse effects.

It's the perfect storm for disaster and that's before we include all the background stuff and fed up already small fanbase.

Takes very shrewd operators on and off the pitch to steer any championship club through those waters.