v Stoke City (h) - 6/11/2024

[Waggy76]

1 minute ago, booth said:

Would it be inflammatory of me to say we're now worse off than under Tomasson at the same stage?

Some posters were critical when I pointed out we had the same amount of points at the same time as last season last weekend. Well it's now more games than JDT and less points.

Szmodics and Wharton were playing 12 months ago.. 

 

[London blue]

3 minutes ago, booth said:

Would it be inflammatory of me to say we're now worse off than under Tomasson at the same stage?

Some posters were critical when I pointed out we had the same amount of points at the same time as last season last weekend. Well it's now more games than JDT and less points.

You could argue it either way, I think.

We're in dire straits right now. Losing tonight is a sad indictment of the current squad.

[Mercer]

1 hour ago, danger19_80 said:

Pears was not the problem tonight 

Didn't say he was.

My point is Johansson showed the value of having a very, very good goalie between the sticks.  Pears is not and has cost us time and time again just as he did last Saturday when he parried the shot straight back to a SU player for their 2nd goal - how many times have we seen that happen!?  Good goalies push their saves as far wide as possible and not straight back into the danger zone.

[booth]

3 minutes ago, Waggy76 said:

Szmodics and Wharton were playing 12 months ago.. 

 

Which makes some of the statements not so long ago about us doing better than last season even more ludicrous.

[Groundhog]

2 minutes ago, Paul Mani said:

Nah, I 100% disagree. It’d have been really hard to change that tonight. We were literally creating chances at will. The manger can’t do anymore than to put a team out that is effecting the game….we missed the Leonard chance and Johannson made two great saves AFTER the second goal went in!!

The manager has got games wrong this season. Today wasn’t one of them. 

I totally agree with you - it hurts tonight and there's a lot of understandable knee jerk reactions.

We did everything we could - I normally criticise us for not getting enough men forward, but we created a host of chances. We seemed to want to play with energy, enthusiasm and actually cause some trouble in the final third - there's a lot you can land at Eustace's door about our front line being more taken with pressing than scoring, and also having two very slow, defensive midfielders, but tonight we did actually create chances. We're just not scary enough, there's nothing in the final third to get opposition defenders worried.

What we are seeing is the fine margins of the Championship and the dumbing down of the squad by the Venky's writ large on the pitch, causing mistakes at both ends. It's like Stockholm Syndrome, death by a 1000 cuts so we don't notice the gradual decline. We can't compete with the likes of Stoke to get the signature of a player like Cannon, so have to take a punt on Big Mak. 

We're expecting hard working but bang average players to become clinical. We're relying on a 34 year old defender to play 3 games in a week with zero cover, that's going to create a problem at some point and lead to a mistake. We've got an unproven lad up front who's played a season already and we replace him after 60mins with someone who can't strike or head a ball, also unproven. The other options are Dolan and Leonard, we just don't have the goalscoring ability to turn slim chances into goals. Those are players that would support a forward line, not be relied upon to make a difference. 

We need a player to match Cantwell's ability, he sticks out like a sore thumb.

[roversfan99]

Another bad night at the office and the fact that we have 2 goals and 4 points in 7 games is embarassing. I can not see who is going to score the goals to avoid us slipping into a relegation fight.

It all comes down to the owners and their unwillingness to spend but Gestede has really found a couple of duds with the peanuts available. Ohashi, constantly offside or seeing the ball bounce away from him. And Gueye, wow, what a joke.

Hedges again shite, summed himself up taking too long when clean through. Cantwell looks like he is frustrated because no one is on his wavelength, even better in a central role.

[roversfan99]

23 minutes ago, Paul Mani said:

I’m happy to castigate the manager. We were poor against Sheff United, but honestly, the manger can’t do more than he’s done tonight. Put players on the pitch in positions to play their game.

The number of absolute sitters weve missed in the last three games (I’ve counted 7) is unbelievable. Hyam and Weimann at Watford. Hedges at the back post vs West Brom and Hedges, Ohashi, Gueye and Leonard tonight. Then when we actually smashed the ball goalwards, Johannson was unbeatable. Not our day…

I fuckin hate football. 🤣🤣

How do you look back at your comments about Gueye and Ohashi after a friendly v Stockport? They seemed to be the second coming but are both well off it.

[Upside Down]

33 minutes ago, J*B said:

Rudy says we should be grateful. 

Well add Rudy's name up there as well.

 

[Groundhog]

Double post

Edited 13 hours ago by Groundhog

[booth]

Just now, roversfan99 said:

How do you look back at your comments about Gueye and Ohashi after a friendly v Stockport? They seemed to be the second coming but are both well off it.

To be fair they both started well but they came back from the defeat against Coventry as very different players.

[simongarnerisgod]

it`s over is`nt it,after so many false dawns ending up in venkys sabatage it makes you question the whole point of rovers at the moment,after boycotting the coyle shambles i had renewed hope when mowbray took over,it`s been sucked out of me since then and now i could`nt care less if we lose,definately my last season unless the indians **** off

[Waggy76]

6 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Another bad night at the office and the fact that we have 2 goals and 4 points in 7 games is embarassing. I can not see who is going to score the goals to avoid us slipping into a relegation fight.

It all comes down to the owners and their unwillingness to spend but Gestede has really found a couple of duds with the peanuts available. Ohashi, constantly offside or seeing the ball bounce away from him. And Gueye, wow, what a joke.

Hedges again shite, summed himself up taking too long when clean through. Cantwell looks like he is frustrated because no one is on his wavelength, even better in a central role.

I fear Cantwell, will be sold in January and replaced with a loanee from Bournemouth & Boscombe! 

[jim mk2]

Johansson looked an excellent keeper for Rotherham in the game at Ewood last season so I'm not surprised he was outstanding tonight. He should have been a big target for the club in the summer

[booth]

Cringing at the post-match interview.

"I thought the performance was outstanding from the first minute."

"The most important thing is that we were very good tonight, and we were doing all lot of right things."

"We've made a lot of strides forward this season."

"The result wasn't there but the performance was excellent."

"We could have won the game by 5 or 6."

Not with those forwards John.

Signing off, I feel like I'm in some bizarro world.

[Groundhog]

1 minute ago, jim mk2 said:

Johansson looked an excellent keeper for Rotherham in the game at Ewood last season so I'm not surprised he was outstanding tonight. He should have been a big target for the club in the summer

I wonder if we are even identifying these players, anyone with half a football brain could see his potential.

Is he on our "A" list and we just can't afford him or organise ourselves to make the approach, and therefore we end up with an unproven keeper in Toth. Or is he even on the list at all? 

[simongarnerisgod]

2 minutes ago, booth said:

Cringing at the post-match interview.

"I thought the performance was outstanding from the first minute."

"The most important thing is that we were very good tonight, and we were doing all lot of right things."

"We've made a lot of strides forward this season."

"The result wasn't there but the performance was excellent."

"We could have won the game by 5 or 6."

Not with those forwards John.

Signing off, I feel like I'm in some bizarro world.

delusionism,always a sign the manager has run out of ideas

[Waggy76]

1 minute ago, Groundhog said:

I wonder if we are even identifying these players, anyone with half a football brain could see his potential.

Is he on our "A" list and we just can't afford him or organise ourselves to make the approach, and therefore we end up with an unproven keeper in Toth. Or is he even on the list at all? 

Theres no list, ring a few agents in August and hope for the best! 

[Ghost7]

5 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Johansson looked an excellent keeper for Rotherham in the game at Ewood last season so I'm not surprised he was outstanding tonight. He should have been a big target for the club in the summer

Two words. The owners. 

[Penwortham Blue]

49 minutes ago, arbitro said:

You don't need to be a football genius to see what the problem was tonight. We probably created more chances than we have in any other game this season but couldn't score. Fair enough their keeper was inspired (he usually is against us - I'd have loved him here) but the number of good chances we failed to convert was our downfall. Hedges, Ohashi, Leonard and Gueye should all have scored but when you don't you are susceptible and when you have the sloth like centre halves we do then you are at risk. Eustace disappointed me tonight with his changes and the timing of them. It was clear early on that Stoke were happy with a point and we didn't capitalise on this with another striker on the pitch at half time to try and get the all important first goal. Instead his change was Ohashi off for Gueye. When he finally brought Leonard on with six minutes to go and we got some decent balls into the box we looked far better and Stoke were rattled. I guess that's the price we have to pay for a cautious manager. After the last three games we need to get back to basics and with that in mind I believe he should go five at the back on Saturday and try to grind a result out to get some confidence back. Oh and Stoke were the worst footballing team I've seen at Ewood this season but their shithousery was good. Some of our lot take note.

I thought we played well tonight, there was no lack of effort but somehow we contrived to miss chance after chance and Stoke, who were really poor, got very lucky. I actually felt sorry for the Manager and players tonight, we deserved much more.

[simongarnerisgod]

3 minutes ago, Penwortham Blue said:

I thought we played well tonight, there was no lack of effort but somehow we contrived to miss chance after chance and Stoke, who were really poor, got very lucky. I actually felt sorry for the Manager and players tonight, we deserved much more.

thats why we are in trouble,loads of possesion without any end product and now we can`t keep the goals out at the other end,eustace needs to change the system to get more players forward,either or sit really deep and try to counter attack

[DE.]

I could understand calling it bad luck if we'd drawn 0-0 whilst missing a hatful of chances... but we lost 2-0 - to a team that I believe hadn't scored away in the league since August? - so clearly the manager did something wrong, whether we missed a bunch of sitters or not.

The sign of a team in trouble is when you're playing OK but still losing (and even worse if you're not scoring either).

One night fluffing your lines you can put down to bad luck. 3 goals in 7 matches is more down to poor management and coaching (these players are capable of directing the ball into the net, they've done so earlier in the season and in the past, Gueye aside it isn't beyond any of them).

Eustace's tactics have never worked away from home this season. Now they aren't working at home either. He needs to adapt or he's going to take us down. Venky's will still be 100% to blame, but nonetheless, we're only heading in one direction at the moment.

[JHRover]

28 minutes ago, simongarnerisgod said:

it`s over is`nt it,after so many false dawns ending up in venkys sabatage it makes you question the whole point of rovers at the moment,after boycotting the coyle shambles i had renewed hope when mowbray took over,it`s been sucked out of me since then and now i could`nt care less if we lose,definately my last season unless the indians **** off

Every club or competitor in professional sport has to have an aim, target, ambition. Something for people to look towards, rally behind.

I'm afraid eking out survival in the second tier whilst trying to unearth a few players to sell to pay the owners' bills every year whilst the stadium crumbles just isn't good enough.

Forget about promotion, building, improving, getting bigger or better. They've proven that isn't the aim and won't be allowed in any event.

So knowing all this the aim and purpose has to shift and in this case it can only be reaching the day these people are gone for good. Until then we are at best drifting along.

[DaveyB]

A cautious manager produces a cautious team - how many times do we choose the simple, risk-free pass, even if it’s backwards or just lumped forward out of the danger area? We play virtually all of our football in front of the opposition, happy to go sideways and backwards over and over again, never willing to take a risk or play a pass that might open a defence up. 
Couple that with an absolute lack of creativity in the squad (Cantwell is skilful and tidy in possession, but I haven’t seen any real creativity from him yet) and you have to conclude that the only way we’re going to score this season is from opposition mistakes (a la Bristol City) or individual moments of magic (a la Burnley). Unfortunately both of those sources are fairly limited and I fear that we’re in for tough struggle to stay up this season - as others have pointed out we were in a similar position this time last year and we only just squeezed our way out of trouble, and we don’t Sammie to perform miracles this time around. 

[1874]

Does anybody know what position Weiman is actually playing

[tomphil]

Have we ever won a game when kicking into the BBE first ?

It never seems to have the desired effect.