roversfan99

Ive no idea what your point is anymore. That makes no sense.

So its just pesky injuries. We finished 7th last season. Travis and Tronstad missed big chunks of the season, Ohashi was out for ages, Beck was out repeatedly, Carter was out repeatedly, Wharton was out all season, Kargbo ripped his hamstring as soon as he started a game, Cantwell kept missing games. Sorry, doesnt add up.

If Baradji, Tavares and Gardner Hickman are all considered "box to box midfielders." Then why arent you asking why we signed 3 of them when we play only 1, whereas we have just made do with Montgomery who came into the season having never started a game there (he seems more of a box to box midfielder too to me) and Forshaw who clearly doesnt have the body to play regular Championship football. I dont think Tavares is a box to box midfielder either to be honest. You are really tripping yourself up trying to deflect any blame away from the club in favour of just blaming injuries.

You dont factor in quality. We have a large number of players mainly signed in the summer who in theory should provide that cover but are that bad that they dont. The injuries we have in midfield wouldnt be problematic if Tavares wasnt woeful, Henriksson wasnt woeful and Baradji wasnt signed with a long term injury. Its easier just to make excuses. Cut backs in wages overlooked. Cut backs in concourse food quality for some reason not overlooked.

As fans, we cant possibly know how many we will realistically be able to get. All we can surely comment on is how many we need. You keep mentioning a "long term Tronstad replacement" ever since Nixon came out with his propaganda piece saying thats what we supposedly want. Alebiosu cover will be too late with AFCON. We would save travel costs on Harris as their fans would be queueing up to drive him here. Very poor. If so many players have impacted us positively, then why are we doing so badly? You always talk about stockpiling. How many of them are first 11 quality AND are reliable in terms of fitness? None I would suggest. How about trying to improve the quality of the first 11? Novel idea I know.

How can I possibly answer that though. Under this regime, probably none, maybe at a push one or two. But we should try to fix as many of those glaring holes as we possibly can. Lets hope that Henriksson, De Neve, Tavares etc are actually not absolutely terrible but in fact turn out to be brilliant for us. Dont hold your breath on that though.

Some might call it brave, some might see it as a luxury couldnt afford. If Tavares and Henriksson werent so bad and if TGH wasnt at best bang average then it might not be such an issue. Well whatever, pedantics aside. The main reason for how weak, thin and imbalanced our squad is self inflicted. It always comes back to the owners. But notably, whoever is directly involved in choosing transfers is mainly to blame. Hence why I am not just following the narrative of misfortune. There obviously will be some hard luck with injuries but its not the main reason our squad is so poor and imbalanced.

And I never said it was realistic. And I know that it wont happen. Its just roughly how light I think the squad is. I have no doubt that even come February that the squad will be nowhere near how we need it to be.

Its easy to almost exclusively dismiss any errors made by people at the club in favour of pushing the hard luck and woe is me narrative. The main reason for our lack of depth is due to failings in recruitment. We have a number of new signings that if they were even ok, the squad wouldnt look as exposed as it does. If Gueye/Henriksson/Tavares/De Neve were even ok then we would at least have some competition for places. Baradji shouldnt just have made his first useful cameo on December 9th to make us think there might be a player in there, not far off half way through the season. And again, the defensive problems are totally self inflicted. You seem to be justifying and making excuses for the recruitment. I get that no club has a 100% recruitment success rate. But its about 2 things. To have half of our signings not only not really working but being absolutely awful, thats whats not acceptable. And also, its as much about what we didnt do in the summer that is costing us, especially in defence. We have injuries, its the middle of December, all teams have injuries. If you just want to pin it all on injuries and not look internally, then thats fine, Gestede will be happy with that at least. And that all levels out with us in 20th. We can seperate home and away form but ultimately it all comes down to where we are with those combined and its crap.

I wonder with Cantwell back whether Ismael will be tempted to go back to a back 4. The change was made when Cantwell got injured and initially it worked really well for 3 games but not so much since. Cantwell has to play but im not so sure it suits him as much, and it also would lack balance if we had both him and Miroshita with just one proper midfielder doing all the work, even if its Tronstad. The issue is, the squad is so horribly imbalanced and full of crap whichever way we play. The defence is a bombscare, Miller is poor, McLoughlin is below average and Pratt has done remarkably well for a young lad who was at Chorley a month ago but I dont think honestly he is at the level yet. We also have the issue of right back with Alebiosu about to leave for AFCON. And with Hedges out, we dont have any competent options whether its left wing back or left wing.

But we have loads of summer signings and/or Gestede signings that are simply not good enough. If they were even ordinary, and had we not let Hyam go or at least sufficiently replaced him, then the squad would look far more competitive. Toth is just unfortunate although Pears has been fine since he came into the team. Tronstad again unfortunate but hes only missed a small number of games, it happens. Cantwell, again unfortunate. But you will get injuries. The primary reason we look so stretched is because of failings in the summer. The main area we are stretched is in defence and that is because we came into a season with 3 natural centre backs, 2 of whom have terrible injury records. It might not be directly Ismael's fault but it is the fault of those above him. Montgomery has not shown that he is capable at this level, how many games has he started for us? Not having him as a major loss. We have had 3 midfielders on the bench in the 3 games that Forshaw started. Tavares, Henriksson and Baradji. All summer signings. The first 2 are awful, Baradji we signed knowing he wouldnt be fit for ages. So we cant complain on that one. No sympathy in midfield, we are short because of a mixture of signing awful and injury prone players. No sympathy in defence for the reasons I mentioned above. The main reason for our lack of depth and imbalanced and poor squad is not just hard luck. Its poor recruitment. Dont let them fool you otherwise.

Quite frankly, the squad shouldnt be so short and have so many absolute wasters in it.

Nor would he be had the supposedly £2m midfield signing been anything other than atrocious.

But some of those injures were predictable and we should have taken steps to mitigate against them. Wharton and Carter injured, always going to happen. Forshaw playing 3 games in a week, always going to happen. Hedges has had issues with injuries in the past. Baradji signed injured. And the main reason we appear so thin is that so many summer signings (and a couple Gestede brought in last year) are nowhere near the level required.

Need a lot more than that.

2 really poor teams who will finish in the bottom 6 playing out a poor game absent of quality. Tavares deserves a shoutout for being absolutely hopeless. Miller also poor. Baradji with a bright cameo but thats the first time hes offered anything and its December which is the issue.

https://owngoalnigeria.com/2025/12/08/tella-boniface-tolu-uche-iheanacho-not-in-super-eagles-28-for-afcon-three-new-players-in/ Reportedly has made the squad. Which is awful for us.

The fact that theres a chance of a 3rd game not finishing as planned is embarassing. The fact that presumably in the hope that the game is passed fit to play and finished, then they can pretend there was never any jeopardy. That they havent said a word about potential inspections is absolutely pathetic. No care for people travelling especially a long way from Oxford.

They are the sorts of idiots who are best ignored anyway though. They dont need an excuse as they come up with enough of their own. Fixing the pitch does not excuse not investing in the team to any rational person. They still do the same now, they still have to. The one exception was the season we sold Wharton because the whole fee counted as profit. Had he not come through, even with the court case, they would have had no choice but to offset the losses again. I dont consider it financial support not to be sniffed at. But all Championship owners have to do the same. It isnt very significant spending, its just offsetting losses that occur even in seasons where they dont spend a penny on transfers. Even Mowbray didnt have continued financial support, it was just one season really of reasonable spending. Similar to Tomasson albeit double the fees. No manager has had any prolonged support, the odd one has had fleeting support. If a manager is performing poorly, or a player, or a staff member, they deserve criticism of that I dont doubt. I also do respect when people kick up a fuss but again that is still largely based on protecting themselves, knowing they cannot succeed in these conditions and maintaining their personal reputation. Its not them taking a personal stand on behalf of the fans as part of a noble and ethical cause. Some of those you mention obviously go beyond that. Suhail is an extension of Venkys. Anderson and Kean also went beyond merely protecting their own self interests. As a side note, a lot of it is speculation. I dont personally believe that all current players are on less than £10k, Cantwell for one wont be, even if I can clearly see the intention to keep cutting the wage bill. Equally, not convinced Mulgrew was on £20k and even if he was, he had become surplus to requirements for footballing reasons, but had a contract from when he was a key player, we didnt do him a favour to keep paying him.

But I dont think its an unfair suggestion to say that you have defended and deflected away from the owners over the years. You often become too fixated with individuals and then anything that happens, you pin it all on them, even at times if theyve left the club. The perfect example is how often you say that they pump x amount in a year, but dont respond when questioned on it. Them raising shares or incurring debt to offset standard Championship losses is mandatory, it doesnt correlate with willingness or ambition. Repeatedly suggesting/speculating that the owners havent been asked for things pins most of the blame on an individual employee. It seems a far reach to think that so many different people simply all didnt ask for money at various stages. Suhail is different to the various other members of staff that have been here over the past 15 years, in that hes essentially an extension of Venkys. He was a Venkys person before he gained any power here. His primary focus is to support Venkys objectives, which focus on cutting losses and conflict with Rovers objectives, and he knows his job is always 100% safe. All of the others have been employed specifically as Rovers employees, none of whom could have 100% job security. The others, no matter how incompetent do not fall into that same dangerous category. No matter how incompetent they are or were, and regardless of if they ever tried to strengthen the stabilitt of their own job. I think you misconstrue what I say as me sticking up for Waggott, for Mowbray, for Broughton etc. Its not what I am doing. I am not comfortable with giving them such big chunks of the blame in a way that alleviates the blame away from the problem and the common denominator throughout these 15 years. Suhail has been the biggest symptom of all but even he isnt THE problem. An excuse to who though? If anyone defends the owners for again cutting costs on account of a throwaway comment of a pissed off manager stressing the importance of not having a pitch in working order, then they clearly are not very bright.

Its not in any way an excuse. It wouldnt excuse cutting the budget somehow even further. My issue all along is that you consistently look to deflect away from the owners. You do criticise them at times to an extent but there are often mitigating circumstances. One being the suggestion that its just that they repeatedly havent been asked for money, year after year. By numerous individuals, numerous times.

But on Ismael, he has come out publically when we all expected him to bat it off/blame the ref/authorities has had a go at the embarassment caused by those above him instead. I am not a fan of Ismael to be honest. And you arent. But I can acknowledge that I like that he has done that as an individual thing rather than twisting it. The owners (if it was specifically them) shouldnt be interfering with matters they cant possibly be in the best position to judge. But especially with hindsight, I cant fathom how not selling a player for £4m who (and the owners wouldnt be aware of this) had downed tools to exchange for 2 new players who could benefit us both short and long term would be deemed as a positive. The spending thing, you are twisting it as if they were ready and waiting to go on a spending spree, similar to how you regularly suggest that they are/were "pumping in £20m" a season as if its anything other than something they have to do to cover the losses all Championship clubs incur. And most importantly, the owners. Dont forget that.

I think you are allowing your dislike of individuals to cloud your judgement. As has been proven by quite a few different individuals. I also referenced that I dont like the idea of it being either the pitch or transfer money. But that is not the take home conclusion of what Ismael said today. He spoke very critically of those above him, he said it is "embarassing" and questioned the structure at the club. Him saying that he would sacrifice funds just to me suggested quite how desperate he is not to be embarassed in such a way again. Similar to how you have twisted Mowbray going out of his way to stop the owners from investing loads of money or wanting to sell 6 months worth of a Rothwell who downed tools in order to get a couple of new players in another season where the owners had turned the taps off.

I wish he hadnt offered to reduce the transfer budget to compensate although I understand its just him stressing the importance. It should be either or. We badly need new players and a suitable pitch.

He has spent all season making excuses, and didnt look internally when this happened the first time. Fair play to him for having a go today though, not only at the embarassing pitch situation but also a little go at the structure of the club too with too many "heads of." He is spot on. Anyway, who do people want as the next manager? One thing Venkys and the board dont like, its stuff like this.