v Swansea City (h) - 19/10/2024

[rigger]

4 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I agree on Cantwell. Get him in that position where he can get on the ball more in areas that suit him and has less defensively to do. 

Rankin Costello is a good full back at this level and has struggled with positional changes elsewhere. He isnt the liability that Brittain is and he helps to link our team from defence to attack.

With Ohashi, he has to try and offer more in general play. Numerous attacks broke down as a direct result of really poor (and simple to execute) passes that may have led to him then having chances after that had the attack continued. Gueye must be so hard to play with because he isnt an intelligent footballer nor is he technically any good.

Gueye Is also so hard to defend against.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

18 minutes ago, Forever Blue said:

There have been 3 clean sheets in that period. That’s the managers admitted focus, so the team are performing well. 
 

If it’s fast attacking football you want then Rovers probably aren’t the team to watch. Personally, I enjoy the fact that most weeks we are out-battling teams with greater resources and doing the shirt proud. A lot of the credit for that goes to the manager.

I just want players who can successfully pass the ball to players wearing the same colour shirt. The ball retention yesterday was awful. Get that right and we’ll look a much better team.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

15 minutes ago, rigger said:

I have started asking myself, are the teams we are playing at home really shit, or are we making them look shit ?

I thought Swansea made us look shit yesterday. They passed the ball with much greater fluency. It was when they got in front of goal they had nothing.

Edited Sunday at 10:30 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[rigger]

Swansea seemed to favour attacking our left-hand side. It was almost as if they thought Pickering would be there, not Beck. Perhaps they only looked at  our last two games. 

[Forever Blue]

20 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I just want players who can successfully pass the ball to players wearing the same colour shirt. The ball retention yesterday was awful. Get that right and we’ll look a much better team.

We do pass it well in spurts but, yes, the passing and movement is not a patch on JDTs Rovers. 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Just now, rigger said:

Swansea seemed to favour attacking our left-hand side. It was almost as if they thought Pickering would be there, not Beck. Perhaps they only looked at  our last two games. 

They realised that Cantwell isn’t much of a defender. They were 2 on 1 with Beck much too often for my liking. I was expecting Hedges out left, Dolan out right and Cantwell in the middle right after after half time. Failing that take Cantwell off and put Weimann there.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

1 minute ago, Forever Blue said:

We do pass it well in spurts but, yes, the passing and movement is not a patch on JDTs Rovers. 

Our movement isn’t good enough at the moment. Plus we need too many touches to get the ball under control.

[MarkBRFC]

35 minutes ago, rigger said:

I have started asking myself, are the teams we are playing at home really shit, or are we making them look shit ?

A bit of both. We have found a formula that works at Ewood, dig in and be clinical without any real free flowing football. Could also be argued that we have played some of the poorer teams at Ewood so far, but to counter that Bristol City, Derby and Oxford are all in the top half with Swansea in 13th.

We're doing very well with what we have I think, and hopefully the positive home form continues because I don't see us winning many away games at all this season.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

It depends what people expect from a trip to Ewood. The hard core Rovers “ Junkies “ will keep going. It’s attracting new fans that will be the problem. My grandson is a new fan. He told me yesterday “ I was planning to get a ticket for yesterday’s game but something came up, after watching the game on TV I’m glad I didn’t “. 

[Mattyblue]

Not the case, winning football is what attracts crowds. If you can win with style even better, but it’s a team at the top end of the table that gets momentum building in the fanbase, that leads to more walk ons, that leads to more ST sales the following summer.

Alas, we never really get said momentum as we fall away in the second half of every season.

Edited Sunday at 11:04 by Mattyblue

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

8 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Not the case, winning football is what attracts crowds. If you can win with style even better, but it’s a team at the top end of the table that gets momentum building in the fanbase, that leads to more walk ons, that leads to more ST sales the following summer.

That might have been the case when walk in’s were paying half a crown to get in. Given the prices to watch Rovers these days things have got to be better entertainment wise.  

Another thing that is killing the attendances is “ magic boxes “ . I know guys who’ve paid £80-£100 for a dodgy box that enables them to watch every game known to man. You name a game, anywhere in the world, they can watch it. Rovers home and away - no problem - for what is basically free. Rovers won’t be getting a penny.

So if the football is dull, as it is at present, they don’t get out of the arm chair and they keep their money in their wallet.

Edited Sunday at 11:11 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[Forever Blue]

If we were playing the most agricultural hoofball but were in the top 6 all season, crowds would gradually increase. 

It’s been that way since football began. Rovers are no different. 
 

Waggott would  have to open the top tier of the BBE if we ever made the play offs. 

[arbitro]

The objective in any football match is winning and we did just that. Of course I would have liked a performance with panache and exhilarating football but that costs a lot of money. The first half of last season we saw lots of exciting play but invariably drew or lost. I will take a scabby, scruffy win any day of the week. After a hugely disappointing defeat at Plymouth I was interested to read the managers comments about the game plan and keeping it tight for an hour and then bringing on some attack minded players. An early Plymouth goal put paid to that. Yesterday seemed to be the converse of this as we scored early and were then content (but not entirely comfortable) to defend and play on the break. It's a risky tactic but when it works then in my view we can't have too much cause for complaint. Playing players in their best positions helped us yesterday particularly defensively. Hopefully Eustace has learned from his errors in recent weeks in this respect. 

I'm sure that on their five hour journey home Swansea fans would have been delighted with a scruffy win rather than seeing lots of pretty patterns and no end product.

Each to their own I suppose.

[Mattyblue]

It is the case. You are winning matches every week walk ons increase, you are winning matches every week ST sales increase the following season, that’s the way it is, that’s the way it will always be.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

1 minute ago, Mattyblue said:

It is the case. You are winning matches every week walk ons increase, you are winning matches every week ST sales increase the following season, that’s the way it is, that’s the way it will always be.

I honestly don’t think that applies anymore to a significant degree.

[Mattyblue]

It really does. You honestly think that if we are still top 6 from Christmas onwards walk ons won’t increase? If we finish in the top 6 after winning home game after home game ST sales won’t increase next season?

Of course they will. That’s how it works.

Edited Sunday at 11:43 by Mattyblue

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

10 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

It really does. You honestly think that if we are still top 6 from Christmas onwards walk ons won’t increase? If we finish in the top 6 after winning home game after home game ST sales won’t increase next season?

Of course they will. That’s how it works.

Season tickets might go up a bit, a thousand or two, but the days of filling Ewood are over. As a spectacle the game just isn’t attractive enough. Yesterday I caught myself thinking “ If football had have been like this back in the day would I have got involved ? “

I live in Rochdale and I go on their site quite often. They have exactly the same complaints. Dull football, guys one step up from pub team players being expected to play Pep style football, the centre halves having ten times as many touches of the ball as the strikers. Hardly any goal mouth action. The goalkeepers being able to wear the same kit without needing to wash it etc etc.

Edited Sunday at 11:54 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[arbitro]

9 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I honestly don’t think that applies anymore to a significant degree.

Pretty much everything at a professional football club is measured by winning games. Bigger crowds, commercial revenue and lots of other things are by products of winning. 

[Mattyblue]

Who said anything about filling Ewood? You’ve moved the goalposts to another ground somewhere.

We rarely filled Ewood in the good old days, so of course we wouldn’t in this league. But it is undoubtedly true that you sell more tickets on the back of winning matches, not due to playing ‘good football’, not sure how it’s even a debate.

Of course the by-product of winning  plenty of games is that football usually becomes ‘good’ anyway as the players perform with more and more confidence.

Edited Sunday at 12:04 by Mattyblue

[dingles staying down 4ever]

1 hour ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

That might have been the case when walk in’s were paying half a crown to get in. Given the prices to watch Rovers these days things have got to be better entertainment wise.  

Another thing that is killing the attendances is “ magic boxes “ . I know guys who’ve paid £80-£100 for a dodgy box that enables them to watch every game known to man. You name a game, anywhere in the world, they can watch it. Rovers home and away - no problem - for what is basically free. Rovers won’t be getting a penny.

So if the football is dull, as it is at present, they don’t get out of the arm chair and they keep their money in their wallet.

Prices, constantly winning are two of the contributing factors of poor crowds as well as you say dodgy streaming. But their are other things such as ease of getting tickets, car parking costing the earth and where to go before and after the match means that the whole experience is not worth the hassle especially if the football is crap

[dingles staying down 4ever]

21 minutes ago, arbitro said:

Pretty much everything at a professional football club is measured by winning games. Bigger crowds, commercial revenue and lots of other things are by products of winning. 

Really, tell that to the bottom half of the premiership or the yo-yo clubs. Surviving is the be all and end all and if winning an occasional match happens then thats a bonus

[Mattyblue]

That’s exactly arbito’s point.

How did those clubs get to the PL? By accruing points, and their rewards are those untold millions and millions.

It’s all about getting enough points to get to, and then to stay at, the highest level your club can feasibly operate at. That is professional football.

Edited Sunday at 12:26 by Mattyblue

[ageoftherover]

Was Gueye really claiming that? Can't for the life of me see anything approaching a touch. Looked like it hit a Swansea player if anything.

[dingles staying down 4ever]

8 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

That’s exactly arbito’s point.

How did those clubs get to the PL? By accruing points, and their rewards are those untold millions and millions.

It’s all about getting enough points to get to, and then to stay at, the highest level your club can feasibly operate at. That is professional football.

Not necessarily, avoid defeat and draw every game will see them stay up.....possibly.

A win is a bonus 

[arbitro]

13 minutes ago, dingles staying down 4ever said:

Really, tell that to the bottom half of the premiership or the yo-yo clubs. Surviving is the be all and end all and if winning an occasional match happens then thats a bonus

Ipswich are a prime example of a winning culture after years of stagnation. Two promotions and could probably sell their ground out twice over. They will only survive by accruing enough points and that includes winning. Being a yo-yo club involves winning games too you know. How is promotion achieved?