[Archived] Where do the issues lie?

[West Yorks Rover]

we lack a hard tackling midfielder player to protect the back four

Plus next season, how do we replace Rhodes, Gestede and King if they do leave this summer

I'm not sure Rhodes will go, seems to be happy here and the Venksters' won't sell him cheap.

Although I think he'd score more with a better manager and he'd be happier still.

I wonder if we could tempt Palace with a Gestede Murray plus cash part ex? We could then look at a 4-2-3-1 formation.

Get Baptiste in at CH and a decent def mid in the mould of Eustace at Derby or Bridcutt at Sunderland.

Difficult to see it happening but it could be doable.

Sorry, completely off topic there. I'm with Abbey by the way, Venky's and their inertia are the problem.

I reckon Murray would be good for us and be a great partner for Rhodes, but he may be on more than £600k wages ?

Clever player, good in the air and on the floor.

[RevidgeBlue]

only way things will change is get rid of the idiots in pune and the idiots running it in england.

no matter what happens no matter what changes nothing will change as has been proven.

So.....If nothing else changed, but Jose Mourinho replaced Gary Bowyer as manager next season results wouldn't improve? Come off it Abs.

On the pitch, poor manager, no quality either offensively or defensively in midfield.

[ABBEY]

That's a venky quote of ever there was one .. Jose to Ewood

[RevidgeBlue]

That's a venky quote of ever there was one .. Jose to Ewood

Hypothetical of course but I'd maintain that results would improve markedly with the same players und er a Mark Warburton, Eddie Howe, Kenny Jackett, Sean Dyche etc

[chaddyrovers]

Look at Howe's results at Burnley or Jackett's results at Millwall in their previous jobs before managing their current clubs.

Neither were outstanding just had them mid table in the league

[Exiled in Toronto]

I can't remember a more ineffective central midfield in all my time watching Rovers. When I started we had Knighton and Rogers, then in the third div it was Garbutt and Oates, Parkes and Metcalfe and do on ad infinitum. The current lot would come nowhere near displacing any of those. Forty goal strikers but how many from midfield? Hopeless.

[Andyblue2]

Look at Howe's results at Burnley or Jackett's results at Millwall in their previous jobs before managing their current clubs.

Neither were outstanding just had them mid table in the league

Howe never settled ooop North, I know that for certain (family etc)

Jackett got millwall promoted and into play offs twice and a cup semi....

Bowyer has the luxury of running the shop from top to bottom and we are wallowing in mid table and once the forwards are sold we will be in the bottom half consistently.

[onlyonejackwalker]

I can't remember a more ineffective central midfield in all my time watching Rovers. When I started we had Knighton and Rogers, then in the third div it was Garbutt and Oates, Parkes and Metcalfe and do on ad infinitum. The current lot would come nowhere near displacing any of those. Forty goal strikers but how many from midfield? Hopeless.

It's not only central. Where's Scotty or Noel?

[RevidgeBlue]

It's not only central. Where's Scotty or Noel?

Good shout.

[Mr. E]

It's the manager. Nice guy or not, Bowyer is unable to make the most of the talent we have and motivate and encourage them enough to show some consistency. We also have no real leader on the pitch either. The sad thing is if we somehow keep the talent together for next season, it will be the same story with Bowyer still in charge.

[Exiled in Toronto]

It's not only central. Where's Scotty or Noel?

Or Windy Miller, Dave Wagstaffe, all shoe-ins versus the current squad

[K-Hod]

I wonder if we could tempt Palace with a Gestede Murray plus cash part ex? We could then look at a 4-2-3-1 formation.

Get Baptiste in at CH and a decent def mid in the mould of Eustace at Derby or Bridcutt at Sunderland.

Difficult to see it happening but it could be doable.

Sorry, completely off topic there. I'm with Abbey by the way, Venky's and their inertia are the problem.

Murray has played nearly all the games at Palace since Pardew took over, so I doubt he'd come sadly.

[Rover_Shaun]

Bloody hell I'd take David Mail too!

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

1. The number of injuries and general fitness levels point to issues with conditioning.

2. Tactically we are set up wrong for the players we have - we defend far too deep considering our lack of pace up front.

3. Re 2 - need more pace up front (even if it means selling Rhodes to afford it - with hindsight not selling Rhodes at th start of the season was a mistake).

Overall I think we have a decent squad (with some weaknesses) - though he has done a good job in some ways, IMO Bowyer is the reason we have underachieved this season. Though there has to be some concerns around the general management structure of the club - I personally don't know enough about it to say it is a major issue or not.

[den]

The issues?

Simple for me. The manager is naive and the players are nowhere near as good as some folk think.

We don't win enough games because we don't control enough games. We don't control enough games because the players aren't good enough................... And on, and on.

the teams that win most games are the teams with the players who perform well week, week out, home and away. I could count on two or three fingers who's done that for us.

[DanielMB]

The problem is we have scored 61 goals and about 40 of those comes from 2 people

Goalscoring wise we compare ourselves to Watford because they also have 2 strikers bagging 20 each. Watford though have scored 88 goals. That tells me that our problem is that our wingers and midfield contributes with too few goals.

Cairney = 3 Goals

Conway = 3 Goals

Marshall = 6 Goals

We are not nearly dangerous enough from the midfield.

And ofcourse we are conceding too many goals.

[ABBEY]

1. The number of injuries and general fitness levels point to issues with conditioning.

2. Tactically we are set up wrong for the players we have - we defend far too deep considering our lack of pace up front.

3. Re 2 - need more pace up front (even if it means selling Rhodes to afford it - with hindsight not selling Rhodes at th start of the season was a mistake).

Overall I think we have a decent squad (with some weaknesses) - though he has done a good job in some ways, IMO Bowyer is the reason we have underachieved this season. Though there has to be some concerns around the general management structure of the club - I personally don't know enough about it to say it is a major issue or not.

Fitness ? Was Maj right ? Underachieve ?

Are you on a one man crusade ? 😇

[RibbleValleyRover]

Talking about on the pitch It's the manager.

This squad is far from perfect but there are teams achieving more in this league with less resources. You look at some of the playoff teams and compare their squads to ours and there simply isn't that gulf in class there.

IMO two critical things about Bowyer:

1. He rotates way too much, he's like the Rotation Rafa of the Championship. You look at the teams doing better in this league and they don't change a winning lineup unless they are forced to due to player fitness or suspension. I think the reason he rotates so much is when you are a Reserve Team Manager you do chop and change because you want all your young players to get playing time to develop. Bowyer appears to have taken this mentality into the top job.

2. He's not a good change on the fly tactician. He can develop tactics for a particular game but when the opposition makes tactical changes during the game he can struggle to respond at times. This was something I expected because he had a severe lack of experience going into the job, but I did think with experience he would get better at this. He simply hasn't.

Off the pitch it's the Venky's and the board below them, but the Venky's are going nowhere so nothing can change on that front. The most annoying thing about it all is that even with all the disasters during their ownership to date they still have it in their power to sort it out and in the long term (and I mean a few years of good management and decision making) could win the fan-base around.

1. Admit their mistakes and show they are willing to learn from them.

2. Sort the board out, give them full autonomy to make the day to day decisions. Pick someone who has experience and can command respect in the sport. This person will be the go-between the Manager and the Owners. No need for the Manager to fly out to India every few months to consolidate his position and bypass the board

3. Decide to not extend Bowyer's rolling one year contract. Let the new board carry out a proper and thorough managerial search and appointment process.

4. Offer the new manager a financial incentive for Promotion next season.

It's not hard, the Venky's could do this if they really wanted to.

[broadsword]

It's not hard, so clearly Venkys have no interest in sorting things out.

They're happy to carry on with Mister Gary because he's a nice man. Again, I have to say I wonder at the motives of Venkys, I don't think promotion interests them at all. I wonder what they're playing at.

Two things: did Venky's give Dunn a new contract because they thought it would be popular for the fans? (In the same way that they decided to keep hold of Rhodes.)

Why is Bowyer not playing the kids more often if venky's are only interested in the capital appreciation of the squad? I guess Bowyer is trying to save his hide and plays safe every time.

I can't shake the feeling that they're so thick they're happy for the club to fall to pieces so long as they can make (comparative) tuppence happenny on free transfers and bargains. It's utterly moronic and sends the wrong signal to the manager entirely. "As long as you can blather your way into explaining away non-performances and make a bit of dough on signings then we'll keep you on." really does appear to be the order of the day.

I can only think the sh*t will hit the fan next season. Something, surely, has to give here. You cannot run a football club in this manner.

[Blue blood]

To me it's simple the manager not getting the best out of the players through poor formation, selection and tactics.

Ok so the midfield isn't that great, but the rest of the team is fairly strong, and in attack downright dangerous. Most managers in this division would love to work with a squad that has those strengths and weaknesses.

The midfield problem could have been mitigated quite easily, either by bringing in the right type of player or changing the formation. I wonder how a 4-2-3-1 would work as we've the players to do that, a rampaging 3 of King, Marshall and Conway behind a lone striker could cause all sorts of problems. Similarly players like Lowe and Cairney would excel in the 2, where their deficiencies are more hidden. It'd also allow our attacking full backs lots of room to run on.

Alternatively there was scope for playing someone in the hole to bring players more into the game. What could have been if Rochina hadn't got injured! But in Judge we had someone else who could have done that role, and brought the rest of the team into the game. We had a decent set of wingers and by pushing one of our centre mids further up the pitch, again this could have worked. (Heck it looked ok with a Murphy Lowe centre mid so I'm fairly confident it could've worked with our current lot.

Alternatively we could have gone 4-4-2 - again we have the wingers. Conway and Marshall can put in a shift and do their defensive duties (albeit it's been a while since Marshall did) and all we'd have needed to loan in was one centre mid who excelled in going forward, or doing the defensive work. Again, for this, perhaps in Taylor or Marshall as others have said we could've moved one inside and turned them into that box to box cm. Hughes redeveloped Emerton and Reid into new positions where they excelled, and a decent manager must have had the raw materials to do that somewhere in the plethora of midfielders we have.

Heck, I'm not a football manager and don't work with the players every day. Perhaps a good manager would've been able to come up with other solutions to the midfield conundrum, - maybe Cairney becomes playmaker just in front of the back 4, maybe Olsson is moved up to left mid, maybe we play 3 at the back. Point is there is talent in the squad, and options available. Problem is the manager is just as clueless now as to how to create a team that works, as he was back when he started.

It's also worth noting, I read on here, we've let the lead slip in 10 games this season. IF we'd have held on to those points, we'd be 20 points better off and comfortably play offs. It's worth noting even in our system that doesn't work, that with a bit more mental fortitude, better organisation, and smarter defending we still should be in contention for promotion! All these things again are things the manager could and should be able to get us to improve at. Maybe this is where the holiday camp feel has really cost us.

Anyhow before this gets too long, the resolvable issue is the manager who can't get the most out of the talented bunch we have. The unsolvable issue is an ownership that refuse to appoint someone who could.

[gumboots]

Did anyone else listen to the commentators taLking about southamptons set up. They have done all the research before people leave. They have a permanent short list of managers and plaYers they will look at and are updating it consistently and that's why when they lost a manager and several important players left the transition this season was almost seamless. Nothing is left to chance and that's how they got out of the mess they were in previously and into the good position they now find themselves in. It's called forward planning and is something we could do with at rovers again.

[Gav]

The issues?

Simple for me. The manager is naive and the players are nowhere near as good as some folk think.

We don't win enough games because we don't control enough games. We don't control enough games because the players aren't good enough................... And on, and on.

.

Absolutely, the very fact Bowyer has brought in so many players for very little money says it all for me, simply not good enough.

The midfield is the worst I've seen in 40yrs, the defence isn't far behind but has shown improvement in recent weeks and we have 2 quality strikers that can't play together.

All that said, we need those 3 idiots to sell the club and sod off back to Pune for good, they're the real problem and we can't move on until they've gone.

[DE.]

Did anyone else listen to the commentators taLking about southamptons set up. They have done all the research before people leave. They have a permanent short list of managers and plaYers they will look at and are updating it consistently and that's why when they lost a manager and several important players left the transition this season was almost seamless. Nothing is left to chance and that's how they got out of the mess they were in previously and into the good position they now find themselves in. It's called forward planning and is something we could do with at rovers again.

Our overlords in Pune are still confused by our relegation in 2012, forward planning might be a bit beyond them at present.

[Andyblue2]

Did anyone else listen to the commentators taLking about southamptons set up. They have done all the research before people leave. They have a permanent short list of managers and plaYers they will look at and are updating it consistently and that's why when they lost a manager and several important players left the transition this season was almost seamless. Nothing is left to chance and that's how they got out of the mess they were in previously and into the good position they now find themselves in. It's called forward planning and is something we could do with at rovers again.

You can forward plan all you want but if the manager you appoint is the wrong man, then your goosed.

[ABBEY]

Absolutely, the very fact Bowyer has brought in so many players for very little money says it all for me, simply not good enough.

The midfield is the worst I've seen in 40yrs, the defence isn't far behind but has shown improvement in recent weeks and we have 2 quality strikers that can't play together.

All that said, we need those 3 idiots to sell the club and sod off back to Pune for good, they're the real problem and we can't move on until they've gone.

You will have the perm on at you don't you know .. Stop crusading your all spoiling my one man venture