v Cardiff City (a) - 20/02/2024, 19:45

[Lancaster Rover]

He’s not being helped with the Tuesday - Saturday rotation of games at the moment. Meaning he’s getting very little time to work on patterns, etc. 

Coming off the back of the worst transfer window in memory, general calamity at every level of the club and a threadbare squad that looks bereft of confidence I think 5 points is a decent return regardless of who the opposition is. 

[JHRover]

9 minutes ago, roverblue said:

I don’t know who can get the message through to Waggot and co but they are looking at a total decimation of the season ticket holder base this summer.

The performances on the field and the clown show off it have pushed me and plenty others away for next season.

No matter how good an earl my bird offer goes out there is no way I’m even considering getting one until it’s clear there will be some reinvestment in the squad.

I doubt Waggott or anyone else down there has even given it a seconds thought.

It will be kicked down the road until the season is out of the way and they can get India to sign off on the pricing.

Forget about early birds, promotions, price reductions or anything outside the box. It will be £400 a head again with at best a £20 discount if you buy quickly before the transfer window unfolds.

It will be marketed as a 'new era' with Eustace's photo next to it. Yes they are that idiotic.

Total decimation of numbers incoming and totally deserved.

[arbitro]

I guess turgid would describe the game more than other adjective. It really was two sides who appeared low on confidence and their desire for clean sheets and avoiding defeat was paramount. It was slow despite a wet pitch, players from both sides couldn't pass water and mainly just played safe. Instantly forgettable until the introduction of both Buckley and Dolan. They both provided something that the game and Rovers needed. Buckley got us on the front foot and passed forward at every opportunity and we played a lot more in the Cardiff final third. Dolan had the energy and drive and the Cardiff defenders seemed uncomfortable when he was on the ball. We could have nicked it in that final half hour with a bit of luck as we had three opportunities to score in a few seconds. I'm happy with a point and a clean sheet and it wasn't half as depressing on the drive home as it was coming back from Birmingham last week despite Highways England and Wales doing their best to spoil it.

We have to accept that Eustace isn't Tomasson and simply won't play the kind of football which enthused most of us. He is far more pragmatic which if it gets results is fine. There were a few mutterings I heard last night about the style ironically from some who previously had been critical of the previous manager. Winning is the main thing as always and ultimately Eustace will be judged on that but his style will just add fuel to the fire if results are poor.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

2 hours ago, Paul Mani said:

A terrible offensive performance but nevertheless a first clean sheet since November and a point on the road are huge positives. As are 5pts in 4 games since the managerial change vs 5pts in the previous 11.

If Dolan pops that chance away and we win  1-0 then it’s a peak Allardyce style win. But the more I watch JE, the more I get Hughes vibes. Hughes focused initially on being hard to beat, creating a togetherness ‘us against the world’ and deploying a pragmatic approach. Then once the base was set, added those attacking patterns and suddenly you have a very capable team.

For as long as the lads are behind him, JE has the chance to turn the ship around. I said a week ago that I didn’t expect to see a Eustace style team until we were safe and most likely not until next season. I stand by that…

I agree with you there but my worry is we’ve got “ knife fight “ style players going into a “ gun fight “ at the moment. We are trying to play a style of football that lots of them aren’t equipped to play. That’s why it looks a mess at the moment.

Edited February 21 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[Hasta]

8 hours ago, bluebruce said:

Not sure about that, more that he was failing at shots that were mild tests. Reckon he would probably have made all the saves Pears made tonight.

Pears' abilities are being massively overstated, as are Wahlstedt's shortcomings, mostly by people who vociferously wanted Wahlstedt out the team and don't want to admit the replacement is only a little bit better. Neither keeper is good enough for us at present.

That's nonsense. People wanted Walhstedt out the team because some of the goals (Huddersfield opener, Watford at home) were stuff you'd really expect your first choice keeper to be dealing with. We know Pears has clangers in him, but they seem to be further apart than Leo's one every other game. I don't know how saying Pears "Not being great himself" is massively overstating his abilities either.

I prefer @RevidgeBlue take on this. I wanted Wahlstedt in early season as I thought he would be better. However I'm not stubborn enough to admit I was wrong. People seem to either not want to admit that, or not want to admit Gregg signed an absolute dud for a significant fee.

[joey_big_nose]

Eustace is getting a lot of stick for the style, but based on feedback from his previous clubs, Birmingham and Kidderminster, he sounds like hes played different ways at different times.

He certainly doesn't seem a committed direct style manager like Allardyce or Pulis.

He inherited a situation (ie. 5 points in 11 games , more goals conceded than anyone else in the league, at a rate of around 2.5 a game for the same 11 games) where to adopt anything apart from a direct defensive approach would be absolutely mad.

Hes doing the right thing in a way that looks pretty effective to me. I want to see some midfield and offensive improvements, but again things looking up again with Buckley coming back.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

2 minutes ago, Hasta said:

That's nonsense. People wanted Walhstedt out the team because some of the goals (Huddersfield opener, Watford at home) were stuff you'd really expect your first choice keeper to be dealing with. We know Pears has clangers in him, but they seem to be further apart than Leo's one every other game. I don't know how saying Pears "Not being great himself" is massively overstating his abilities either.

I prefer @RevidgeBlue take on this. I wanted Wahlstedt in early season as I thought he would be better. However I'm not stubborn enough to admit I was wrong. People seem to either not want to admit that, or not want to admit Gregg signed an absolute dud for a significant fee.

Neither of them are really up to playing well regularly at this level as Kaminski was. If you rolled them both together you wouldn’t have a Roger Jones, Jim Arnold or a Terry Gennoe.

[joey_big_nose]

3 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I agree with you there but my worry is we’ve got “ knife fight “ style players going into a “ gun fight “ at the moment. We are trying to play a style of football that lots of them aren’t equipped to play. That’s why it looks a mess at the moment.

I dont know... Reckon if we play the likes of Gallagher, Dolan, Szmodics, Buckley, Tronstad, Garrett, Hyam, Wharton, McFadz, Chrisene, Hedges, JRC, Carter theyre all hard workers (some of the hardest workers in the league there) who can put a foot in.

Ayeri and Moran are lightweight and not up to the battle but Id say we've got a fair few fighters.

[tomphil]

3 hours ago, superniko said:

Eh? 1 week ago there was a 7 point gap (now worse at 6) AND we had a game in hand, so not sure how you’ve spun a positive there. We’ve move up 1 place in the league, thanks to Plymouth, but that paragraph is borderline delusional. 
Even if you mean 2 weeks ago, prior to Stoke, we’ve only increased the gap by 1 point, in the meantime all whilst playing 2 teams below us, and 1 practically level with us.

 

Stop fucking moaning we got a point from another tricky game and we are going the right way so try and be a bit positive for once even eh, it won't kill you.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

1 minute ago, joey_big_nose said:

I dont know... Reckon if we play the likes of Gallagher, Dolan, Szmodics, Buckley, Tronstad, Garrett, Hyam, Wharton, McFadz, Chrisene, Hedges, JRC, Carter theyre all hard workers (some of the hardest workers in the league there) who can put a foot in.

Ayeri and Moran are lightweight and not up to the battle but Id say we've got a fair few fighters.

We’ll see. You missed out Fleck, he’ll have a go if we can ever get him fit. That goes for several of the other players, “ if we can keep them fit “. Some of them can’t play 90 minutes regularly, “ Gally I’m looking at you “.

[tomphil]

We played like that many times under Mowbray anyone being honest will testify to that the only difference was they were angled long balls to Gally wide, or Arma or latterly BBD.

Pears looks ten times more steady than he did and made two smart stops last night, i'm 100% convinced we lose that game with Leo he'd have found away to gift it.

Where is the realism ?

We set out to be stodgy, we were we got a point and a clean sheet, job done.

[roversfan99]

8 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

No he isn't, we should have snapped Ipswich's arms off at the elbow.

He's an expensive liability both in terms of the fee paid for him and his wages.

If we had have sold him we would be favourites for relegation. He has been a big plus since he returned from injury not only with his 3 goals and 4 assists but with what else he brings. We need to get every minute we possibly can out of him whilst not allowing him to get injured. Im guessing that you couldnt bring yourself to admit that he has looked good since he came back.

[sharpysharps86]

A point away from home, a clean sheet. I'd have taken that before the game for sure. Hopefully it can be followed up with a win on Saturday. Norwich have been free scoring as of late so it'll certainly be a tougher test.

[oldjamfan1]

I'm happy enough with the short term approach from Eustace, and it will be interesting to see how he develops things once we've assured safety (which we will).

An earlier poster said he reminds them of Mark Hughes - I hope they are right. One of Sparky's first home games - it might even have been his very first one - was a miserable, turgid, 4-0 defeat to Boro where Tugay got sent off and the players looked like they had never kicked a ball in anger before . One can only imagine what would have been posted on here about that period but things worked out rather well in the end. 

[chaddyrovers]

52 minutes ago, arbitro said:

I guess turgid would describe the game more than other adjective. It really was two sides who appeared low on confidence and their desire for clean sheets and avoiding defeat was paramount. It was slow despite a wet pitch, players from both sides couldn't pass water and mainly just played safe. Instantly forgettable until the introduction of both Buckley and Dolan. They both provided something that the game and Rovers needed. Buckley got us on the front foot and passed forward at every opportunity and we played a lot more in the Cardiff final third. Dolan had the energy and drive and the Cardiff defenders seemed uncomfortable when he was on the ball. We could have nicked it in that final half hour with a bit of luck as we had three opportunities to score in a few seconds. I'm happy with a point and a clean sheet and it wasn't half as depressing on the drive home as it was coming back from Birmingham last week despite Highways England and Wales doing their best to spoil it.

We have to accept that Eustace isn't Tomasson and simply won't play the kind of football which enthused most of us. He is far more pragmatic which if it gets results is fine. There were a few mutterings I heard last night about the style ironically from some who previously had been critical of the previous manager. Winning is the main thing as always and ultimately Eustace will be judged on that but his style will just add fuel to the fire if results are poor.

 

Thanks for report there arbitro. 

Eustace has gone back to basics currently similar to back Hughes did when he first came in here. Sometimes not great but can affect. More time here he will develop our attacking football. Time on the training ground is needed for Eustace 

 

[joey_big_nose]

Shame JRC (and maybe Hedges?) are both injured again. If we lined up like the below I think we'd be  hard to beat and offer enough going forward. Ayeri was a total waste of time but JRC in the system as the third CM could link up midfield and attack well I think, and offer a bit of a goal threat....

                           Pears

         Hyam     McFadz    Wharton

Brittain    JRC    Buckley   Tronstad   Hedges

             Gallagher    Szmodics

Not much on the bench though. Dolan can make an impact, but that's it I think. A couple who can come in and do a job in terms of stodging things up (Garrett, Chrisene) but no one who is going to come up with some quality to win a game.

I suppose the point JDT would make is that we committed so many players forward under him as we had very few players who could make something happen individually, so to create chances we had to have big overloads. Now we have stopped committing  we might be defensively sound but it's going to be very dry in terms of chances.

However.... not sure I totally agree with that view. We had a lot of openings yesterday where a good final ball would have put us through, but we were really really poor at passing until Buckley came on. Hopefully Buckley and JRC coming back in will open things up again. Maybe Fleck as well while we wait for JRC?

Edit - also it's probably lambs to the slaughter, but we are so short on decent attacking options we should probably be having a look a Gilsenan as someone to bring on up top. Feels like he may have the ability to make things happen individually.

Edited February 21 by joey_big_nose

[rog of the rovers]

Eustace's job from now until May is to keep us in the league. The pragmatic approach, whilst hard to watch at times, is actually exactly what we needed.

In JDT's last 12 Championship games we conceded 2.41 goals per game!

Eustace has seen us concede 4 goals against in the last 4 games

Edited February 21 by rog of the rovers

[MarkBRFC]

5 minutes ago, rog of the rovers said:

Eustace's job from now until May is to keep us in the league. The pragmatic approach, whilst hard to watch at times, is actually exactly what we needed.

In JDT's last 12 Championship games we conceded 2.41 goals per game!

Eustace has seen us concede 4 goals against in the last 4 games

This is definitely the Eustace word for "journey" or "project". Never read the word so many times!

For what it's worth me and the lad went last night with it being our half term, thought the side looked a bit leggy and really off it on the ball until Buckley came on.

Cardiff still managed to create 3 or 4 good openings though and would have beat us quite easily with better finishing.

Happy with the point and clean sheet, but still think there some heavy defeats to come yet this season. Luckily with at least 5 or 6 sides as bad as us around us I think that keeps us up.

Next season is going to be horrific though I feel, we'll make Rotherham look competitive.

[CD_93]

In a world where we were a sensibly run club both allowed to buy and capable of buying football players, we probably would and should have sold Gallagher for real money by now and brought in an upgrade.

Knowing what we do about how we're run and what happened during the transfer window, I cannot believe that anyone seriously believes we still should have sold Gallagher for nothing but pocket change - just to clear a wage - which wouldn't go towards another player anyway.

Better to have for the rest of the season than not.

Edited February 21 by CD_93

[RevidgeBlue]

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

If we had have sold him we would be favourites for relegation. He has been a big plus since he returned from injury not only with his 3 goals and 4 assists but with what else he brings. We need to get every minute we possibly can out of him whilst not allowing him to get injured. Im guessing that you couldnt bring yourself to admit that he has looked good since he came back.

You can't really count the Wrexham game against League 2 opposition.

Has he really looked that good since he came back. Reportedly dire against Birmingham and again last night.

[booth]

1 hour ago, tomphil said:

Stop fucking moaning we got a point from another tricky game and we are going the right way so try and be a bit positive for once even eh, it won't kill you.

I'd have taken the point beforehand and thank goodness is wasn't another loss, but a "tricky game"? Cardiff were possibly the worst opposition team I've seen this season and if expectations weren't so low we'd be unanimous lamenting a good opportunity to take all three points.

Also I'm not sure how you can say we're going the right way. A better team would have punished us which is quite worrying going forward.  There was dicking about at the back, silly cross field passes and poor defending so I can only imagine those saying we're more pragmatic weren't watching.

Edit: just pointing out, I'm not blaming Eustace here (as someone suggested last night) just as I wasn't blaming JDT. He's not got much to work with and some of these players have underperformed for 2 managers now, in some cases 3. With even a slight upgrade (a decent fucking midfielder to replace Wharton would be nice) we could have taken 3 points last night.

Edited February 21 by booth

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

If we had have sold him we would be favourites for relegation. He has been a big plus since he returned from injury not only with his 3 goals and 4 assists but with what else he brings. We need to get every minute we possibly can out of him whilst not allowing him to get injured. Im guessing that you couldnt bring yourself to admit that he has looked good since he came back.

That’s only because we wouldn’t have replaced him. We couldn’t even sign a player that had come over here with the express reason of signing for us ! We’d have been stuck with Vale, Leonard and Telalovic, if you rolled all of those three together you wouldn’t have an adequate replacement.

Gally has about 1 decent game in every 3 or 4 matches. 

Edited February 21 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[superniko]

2 hours ago, tomphil said:

Stop fucking moaning we got a point from another tricky game and we are going the right way so try and be a bit positive for once even eh, it won't kill you.

You sound like the players in their Waggott meeting - is that you Dom Hyam complaining about negativity?

What you wrote was factually incorrect. I corrected you and your reply is 'wHaT aBOuT sOmE POsiTIviTy?' I'll be positive when there is something to be positive about. 

It wasn't a tricky game, they'd won 1 in 7 and not scored at home in 3. Basically have the same form over 10, 15, 20 games as we do. We had 2 shots in the whole match (one was Hyam from 50 yards), the worse of the two teams again, got away with a 0-0 draw, play like that all season and we're finishing rock bottom as variance events itself out and that match finishes in defeat more than it does victory.

 

[BlackburnEnd75]

I'm not giving Eustace stoke. He wouldn't have been claiming that one if we were losing it. 

He didn't take a training session, I'm pretty sure he didn't pick the team.

It's 2 draws and a defeat in 3.

We look a bit more solid defensively but I feel we've sacrificed a lot to get that. He's got them scrapping though.

If the players stay fit we will stay up. As for progress beyond that my hope is that its a case of a manager 'building from the back first'

[M_B]

11 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

No he isn't, we should have snapped Ipswich's arms off at the elbow.

He's an expensive liability both in terms of the fee paid for him and his wages.

It's just my opinion, if anyone thinks we could sell Gallagher for £1-1.5 million, sign his replacement for that money(even if it was used), and on less wages, but also be a better player, I think it's for the birds.