Devon Rover

I'm now based in Somerset. I get to 4 or 5 Rovers games a year. For convenience and, to be honest, increasingly due to disassociation with what Rovers has become, I attend a few Exeter City and Bristol City home games each year. Neither feels anything like the same as watching and supporting Rovers. The Bristol City games in particularly make me feel like I'm cheating on a lover!! I'll never feel the same emotion at any other club I watch but, to be honest, the less and less that Rovers feels like "my" club, the less that extra buzz really matters. Its sad but I feel like I'm fighting, with diminishing success, the loss of love for something that used to matter so much to me. One day, I suspect that politely clapping a local team that I don't love as much but who's ownership doesn't treat me, as a supporter, like an idiot will be enough for me to just stop going to Rovers, altogether and to simply listen out in hope for news of ownership change, but little more in the meantime.

I can't see a win, either. Here or for the foreseeable future. But i also can't see any toxic reaction coming. The time for that is several years past, with little if any impact from those sporadic occasions during Venkys time here. I think most fans have given up fighting/wasting effort/money/hoping. I had planned to travel up for this one but I simply dont see the point in terms of the game, the 'product', or the ability of the fanbase to influence the future of the club. Negative, i know, but what at the Rovers is leading towards anything different? 3-1 to Saints and Rovers propping up the league. Ismael praises the performance.

Get behind the lads ffs. They just need a goal. Some time to settle in. We are in transition. Buy into the project. Write the next chapter. Unfortunately it is evident to anyone with eyes and not wearing blue and white tinted specs that this team, despite having some endeavour, is woefully short of ability, experience and confidence for even lower championship level. The manager is a disaster and the transfer window has basically set us up for a relegation "fight", at best. How any genuine Rovers fan can still defend the absolute clusterfuck of a club ownership, exec and management is utterly beyond me. But I'm running low on emotional energy to give to it. Which I guess is part of the plan of that ownership and what seems to be an exec strategy of dumbing down, cutting costs, and lowering expectations. Why would any of us fans/supporters bother anymore if that is the aim? There are other clubs to give money, time and thought to, as painful as that is to write and think.

The formation change is probably appropriate in the circumstances as we'd very likely be thrashed with our usual formation and approach. But with the personnel, and no Cantwell to create anything, I really dont see it making a huge amount of difference. It's so bleak tuning in for what is most likely a routine defeat against Coventry bloody city. Getting ready to hide behind the sofa...

Starting to come down heavily now, though. Enough hours of heavy rain ahead to waterlog the pitch. I'm still expecting a late call off, not least because officials, club etc will be desperate to avoid the embarrassment of another mid game abandonment.

Would all make sense. We made the journey up last night. Would love to have a Rovers game to watch before we drive back to the south west - whatever the result.

Really frustrating, this. Some weeks ago I bought a couple of tickets to take my eight-year-old to his first game in a year. We are setting off on the 240 mile drive in a few hours, got a hotel booked, to watch the game tomorrow then drive 240 miles back. I can't not go as he will be devastated - especially if the game goes ahead. But there is clearly a likelihood that I'll have to manage the huge disappointment of getting all the way there just to wake up and have it called off. Really not sure what to do. But how ridiculous is it that we are probably the only set of fans thinking like this and fully anticipating our stadium not being fit to hold a full match, again. I think I'll be risking it, as my son has been so excited for seeing Rovers again, despite my 'expectation management'!!

There is a time for holding your nerve and sticking with something in the belief things will turn around. Then there is a time for making things change by trying something different. For me, we are in the second of those. The tactical approach this season isnt working. I would try something different to take control of a significant slump. That's an important part of a managers job and I think he needs to take meaningful action, now. But I agree that the team and formation above is probably what he will stick with again. 2-0 Stoke.

This is not intended to be negative, especially as I think those statements are very good. But what is the intended audience and influence for them? Until Glen kindly posted them above, I hadn't seen them. That's probably because I'm not a group member. But I would imagine it isn't group members who need to receive and read the statements but those of us outside them, and the media, if they are to have any effect. Have I missed those anywhere, in which case ignore me?!

I should add: I don't think the decision to stop the game was wrong and it isn't the main issue in the grand scheme of things. Im just not sure a justification for it based on danger is necessarily helpful or appropriate. But I've asked the question because I may be misunderstanding.

It should, but it won't.

This might have been covered already but, genuine question, what is the "danger" to players in playing out the last 10 minutes of a match 16,000 people have paid to attend, on a pitch where the ball won't bounce or roll? My 16-year-old plays football matches each Sunday on pitches that undulate and contain random holes. Occasionally the pitch, which has no designed drainage, becomes waterlogged during a game. Is that any more or less dangerous? Because they play to the end unless there is lightning. I'm a bit confused by the references to danger.

Agreed on ability and style of team that he'd need. In terms of selling or loaning him - I don't really care, to be honest. Either way, we aren't going to use the sale money and/or wage saving to invest in the team. The money we have received from other sales in the transfer window (and previously) primarily subsidises and mitigates Venkys' losses and inability (unwillingness) to invest. In my mind, the more money we bring in through player sales, the longer Venkys can drag out the destruction of Blackburn Rovers. If we have to get rid of Gueye for financial reasons then, on balance and outside of the window, I'd favour loaning him out and hoping he finds a semblance of form that enables him to contribute something more to our team on his return. Because we aren't likely to replace him with anything much better.

That's definitely one word. I was thinking of the words "the lazy part-time bastards".

Totally agree. It is easy for any of us to comment on what departed staff should do but, having been in a similar position before, it can impact on your self-confidence, health, and anxiety levels about future career opportunities (if you have years ahead still to work). In my situation, I became nervous, withdrawn, and just desperately keen to find a way to move on. Blowing a whistle, or engaging a lawyer, were the last things I, or my family needed me to do. For others, it might be exactly what is needed to move on, but I think it's important not to judge what someone should or shouldn't do - even if it seems like the logical/ required thing. The greater good doesn't always come into it when it is family, health and mortgage payments on the line. This is all desperately sad stuff, though, for all except those very senior at our club, Whilst they are here, it isn't my club.