v Millwall (h) - Good Friday 18/4/2025, 3pm

[philipl]

The most underwhelming look forward to Easter football I can recall.

Millwall will be coming to Ewood for the win to project themselves into the play-offs which will give the game an edge. They are on quite a run at the moment so the team and supporters will believe. All the noise from the sparse crowd will be from the Darwen End. Likelihood of us getting to half time at least 2 down has to be high.

Montgomery will be unavailable. Travis and Hyam will play. Beyond that we need a random number generator for the starting eleven.

This sort of a nothing game will be a measure of Ismael's abilities.

[Mattyblue]

Crazy thing is despite the horrendous form under this manager, despite him giving up on the play offs from day 1 (despite sitting in 5th with a dozen games left)… just one extra measly win and we’d still be going in to Easter with a sniff, what a monumental, wilful rejection of professionalism and ambition all round.

[roversfan99]

Even if we won all 4 games (obviously we wont) it would take us to only 68 points which I doubt ever has been enough for the top 6.

[MarkBRFC]

Yeah it's obviously not happening now.

But if we had say picked up just 1 more win and another draw out of the last 8 games then we would be going into the final four still being right in the mix.

[Hasta]

As PhillipL alludes to, the only "interest" around this game is that Millwall and their fans will be up for it as they have a realistic shot of 6th, especially if Coventry didn't win tonight. A dead rubber for us unfortunately.

 

Edited Monday at 08:14 by Hasta

[davulsukur]

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

Even if we won all 4 games (obviously we wont) it would take us to only 68 points which I doubt ever has been enough for the top 6.

I don't think Ismael/the club are looking at the play offs as a realistic aim now. I'm sure he was asked post Luton something along the lines of "Now that the playoffs are realistically out of reach, is the focus on next season?". VI's response was waffle about getting the right profile of player in over the summer etc. but there was no defiant "we can still do it" answer.

[Mattyblue]

Any other club you know the manager would still be going ‘we’ve a chance, take each game as it comes. We go again Friday’. Waffle, obviously, but they’d at least pretend.

Flip it round if, say, we were six points from safety would he be saying ‘Ned to focus on the re-build for League 1 next season’?  Probably would actually, what a weird club this is.

[superniko]

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Crazy thing is despite the horrendous form under this manager, despite him giving up on the play offs from day 1 (despite sitting in 5th with a dozen games left)… just one extra measly win and we’d still be going in to Easter with a sniff, what a monumental, wilful rejection of professionalism and ambition all round.

It's actually horrible to look at. All we had to do was beat Cardiff at home (who have only won once in 8 games - obviously against us) and we'd still be in the conversation. 

Knowing us we'll win the next 3 and go into the final day with a 1% chance if about 5 results went our way

[Mercer]

Incredibly difficult game.

Millwall win their final 4 games and 72 points might just be enough to get them into play-offs.

A well drilled, competitive and ambitious outfit to comfortably see Rovers off.

Understand Alex Neil close to becoming Rovers' boss at one time but couldn't get the assurances he wanted (sound familiar?).  Still has his family home a short drive away from Brockhall.

 

[roversfan99]

Have any of your predictions ever been anything other than a comfortable win/battering either way?

[sharpysharps86]

Hopefully Ohashi is available, as it'd be a real shame to see his season end early after hitting a bit of form.

Predicted team:

                      Toth

JRC      Batth      Hyam      Ribeiro

           Travis      Tronstad

Dolan         Cantwell         Hedges

                    Ohashi

If Ohashi is out then Gueye to come in.

I'll go for a 1-1 draw.

EDIT: Gah, just seen on the summer transfer thread that Ohashi's season is done apparently.

 

Edited Monday at 09:35 by sharpysharps86

[jim mk2]

Millwall need to win and will be coming to attack - which gives us a chance as our best chance of scoring goals is on the breakaway. If Millwall go ahead I would suggest that will be it - we just don't have the quality or the skill to unlock packed defences. 

[chaddyrovers]

Just win the next game. Simple as let's get back to back wins 🔵⚪️

[ElTwis]

68 points was enough once for Leicester....interestingly, as with this season at game week 41 the team in 6th on 62. Throw in that the teams above are playing each other....

I know, I know but my 10yo has told me off for being negative about rovers so I'm trying!

I fancy a draw here, the energy of the last 1.5 games to continue and Cantwell to score

[Blue Greyhound]

You've gotta love the optimism. A draw and a win would have us on joint 60 points with 7th place, but we would still of had to win a few more.

If we can get a winning streak going now and miss out by say 3 or less points, then everyone at the club can hang their heads in shame, absolute monumental fuck up of getting promotion.

If rovers have any consistency that can be relied on, it's getting a run together after the ships sailed and beating Sheff utd on the last day.

Interesting to see how it unfolds now, hopefully burnley fuck up aswell as derby and at least the nobbers look to be finishing underneath us, they will class a season above rovers like theve won the league can't stand them either.

Edited Monday at 11:27 by Blue Greyhound

[JHRover]

If we won our next 3 and by some fortuitous turn of events had a slight chance of the play-offs come the last day I am sure that the 'powers that be' would come up with a way of ensuring we didn't get there.

The club don't want the play-offs remember. Waggott confirmed this in his interview in 2023, JDT learned this, so did Eustace. 

[...]

2 hours ago, superniko said:

It's actually horrible to look at. All we had to do was beat Cardiff at home (who have only won once in 8 games - obviously against us) and we'd still be in the conversation. 

Knowing us we'll win the next 3 and go into the final day with a 1% chance if about 5 results went our way

All we had to do was beat all those piss poor teams that languished at the bottom. We couldn't even do that.

[chaddyrovers]

29 minutes ago, JHRover said:

The club don't want the play-offs remember. Waggott confirmed this in his interview in 2023, JDT learned this, so did Eustace. 

JDT knew the middle that budget was cut and the project changed that summer due to Venkys's Indian problems..

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/25031314.tomasson-opens-blackburn-exit-brutal-budget-cuts/

Eustace left basically from reports and info out there cos he didn't the players he wanted and more of a say in transfers 

[Mattyblue]

So like JH said the regime is not interested in promotion.

[chaddyrovers]

4 minutes ago, ... said:

All we had to do was beat all those piss poor teams that languished at the bottom. We couldn't even do that.

We could say that all season with defeats at home to Hull and Stoke. Stoke have taken 6 points of us this season. 

[...]

So what is our actual route to playoff as it stands now? 

Obviously we need to win now, who needs to lose, draw above us? Currently at work so can't spend too much time checking

[...]

2 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

We could say that all season with defeats at home to Hull and Stoke. Stoke have taken 6 points of us this season. 

Yes but we've been beaten by teams that have been terrible themselves and still scraped a win. 

How many times did we say on here "two poor teams both not on form" still beat us hence my comment. Should of been beating those teams

Edited Monday at 12:08 by ...

[Mattyblue]

We were fifth with 12 games to go, what types of games we didn’t/did win up to then is irrelevant.

We finish in 8th to 11th and it is purely down to the regime’s decision making this season from not backing Eustace onwards.

Edited Monday at 12:11 by Mattyblue

[...]

8 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

We were fifth with 12 games to go, what types of games we didn’t/did win up to then is irrelevant.

We finish in 8th to 11th and it is purely down to the regime’s decision making this season from not backing Eustace onwards.

Not really irrelevant if that's what we were talking about.

 

[chaddyrovers]

10 minutes ago, ... said:

Yes but we've been beaten by teams that have been terrible themselves and still scraped a win. 

How many times did we say on here "two poor teams both not on form" still beat us hence my comment. Should of been beating those teams

I am disappointed how poorly we played against the bottom end teams in these games at Plymouth away, Coventry away, Stoke at home, Hull at home, Derby away, Stoke away, Cardiff at home, Portsmouth away and first half at home to Sheffield Wednesday. Had we just got around 8 to 10 points more from these we would be in those playoff places