v Stoke City (h) - 11/02/2024

[jim mk2]

Just now, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I can still see all the goals now, clear as a bell.

 

Hated Gerd Muller, great player and all that, but genuinely hated him

And that England team was better than the 1966 team

[AllRoverAsia]

56 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

I've never been the same since, and it was 54 years ago

Horrible

It spoilt the year, well not quite as I got my first shag. Now that I recall it was during that WC period. 😊

[Oldgregg86]

5 minutes ago, AllRoverAsia said:

It spoilt the year, well not quite as I got my first shag. Now that I recall it was during that WC period. 😊

It’s better when there angry isn’t it 😂

Edited February 10 by Oldgregg86

[AllRoverAsia]

1 hour ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I can still see all the goals now, clear as a bell.

Don't do what I did and go onto YouTube to rewatch. It's past 7am here and I'm still awake and that viewing has made sleep unlikely, so it's coffee time to at least make me feel awake.

But Keith was a real class act.

Edited February 11 by AllRoverAsia

[AllRoverAsia]

1 hour ago, jim mk2 said:

 

Hated Gerd Muller, great player and all that, but genuinely hated him

And that England team was better than the 1966 team

And what a goal machine, but playing for the Bayern and West Germany sides of those days was an invite to score for a top striker.

My memory is that he scored loads from close in, certainly most from inside the pen area.

[ABBEY]

1 hour ago, Riversider28 said:

We Riversiders are amongst the most knowledgable Rovers supporters inside Ewood. We only”moan”, along with the majority of the crowd, when the football served up is blatantly below the standard we know Is achievable. I don’t recall hearing anyone moaning today and as long as the fare served up today continues, you won’t hear any dissent from our side of the ground. By the way Simon, which totally satisfied with everything part of the ground do you sit?

You riversiders aint been same since the Teddy Bear stopped

[tomphil]

1 hour ago, Riversider28 said:

We Riversiders are amongst the most knowledgable Rovers supporters inside Ewood. We only”moan”, along with the majority of the crowd, when the football served up is blatantly below the standard we know Is achievable. I don’t recall hearing anyone moaning today and as long as the fare served up today continues, you won’t hear any dissent from our side of the ground. By the way Simon, which totally satisfied with everything part of the ground do you sit?

You can't be very knowledgeable about the last tens mins of every game though. 🤣

[Upside Down]

4 hours ago, KentExile said:

Its what other clubs have been doing to us for the past 2 months.

The annoying thing is JDT has shown in the past (first half of last season and notably against Watford at the start of this season) that he is able to be pragmatic.  I just think he was unwilling to do so for the past few months as he was disillusioned with the job

That's been my take on things.

Once the injuries started to deplete the squad I think he just thought fuck it, you'll get what you asked for.

Also once the Sweden job came about I think he'd had one eye on that.

Last season we were hard to beat and mainly suffered due to not having a decent goalscorer.

[Upside Down]

1 hour ago, tomphil said:

You can't be very knowledgeable about the last tens mins of every game though. 🤣

Hahaha was just about to say this.

1-1 game on a knife edge, shall we stay and watch?

Nah fuck that, let's get the car warmed up.

[Paul Mani]

4 hours ago, KentExile said:

I am still am not sure why you think that? 

Swag left Coventry 4 years before McFadzean arrived there, and it is very evident from Rovers social media videos that Broughton is still very much in place.

Genuinely interested if they are fishing buddies, or that they were once in the scouts together, or that there is something to link them, in even the slightest way?

duplicate so deleted.

Edited February 11 by Paul Mani

[Upside Down]

5 minutes ago, Paul Mani said:

Just a hunch..but put it this way, they weren’t Gregg’s or JDT’s signings and I’d put my mortgage on them never being on our shiny new scouting teams list either.

I will go one further and say, knowing JDT was going a couple of weeks ago, Swag spoke to Eustace about taking the job and HE chose McFadz and Fleck. Conspiracy theory or not, this happens in businesses everyday. 

Why wouldn't they be the egg's signings?

His job is finding the players.

He found and lined up Danny Baath in the summer and the owners pulled the pin on the deal.

His remit is to find the players that the head coach requests. He has to work within the constraints placed on him by the owners.

Hard to find a top striker when all you've got is a pocket full of buttons and a manky banana skin.

[Paul Mani]

16 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

Why wouldn't they be the egg's signings?

His job is finding the players.

He found and lined up Danny Baath in the summer and the owners pulled the pin on the deal.

His remit is to find the players that the head coach requests. He has to work within the constraints placed on him by the owners.

Hard to find a top striker when all you've got is a pocket full of buttons and a manky banana skin.

Like o say, just a hunch…I for one have never been against GB and JDT. I just felt a wind of change in the couple of weeks before this came to a head and Gregg has been nowhere to be seen.

IF those late signings and Eustace were the work of GB then great..hopefully we’ll hear from him very soon, right? I just don’t think they are…

Either way, the two older lads do seem to trace back to Eustace which shows an element of forward planning. But, then was it Eustace who pulled the plug on McGuire preferring to spend any cash they do have, himself in the summer? 

Edited February 11 by Paul Mani

[AllRoverAsia]

A bit of entertainment and it's worth watching to see our goals from a different angle.

That pass from Brittain to Dolan was something else.

Bits of the crowd are hilarious, it would show SWAG what booing at players is really like.

Burger is extremely brave or mad.

Rovers, under Waggott, banned our fans from videoing matches at Ewood a few years ago, is that still the case

 

Edited February 11 by AllRoverAsia

[roversfan99]

Eustace a week before his arrival which was following Tomasson left with the McGuire farce being cited as a reason. Supposedly vetoed the deal so he could spend money in the summer? Very wishful thinking.

[Old Codger]

1 hour ago, AllRoverAsia said:

A bit of entertainment and it's worth watching to see our goals from a different angle.

That pass from Brittain to Dolan was something else.

Bits of the crowd are hilarious, it would show SWAG what booing at players is really like.

Burger is extremely brave or mad.

Rovers, under Waggott, banned our fans from videoing matches at Ewood a few years ago, is that still the case

 

Fair play to that lad (Sam) for his honest appraisal of Stoke's abysmal effort yesterday. I think we can all identify with the despair and anger that he captures on the Sam Cam. My goodness though - if our players were 'hurt' by chants at F-Waggott, the direct jibes and total vitriol spouted at their entire team by 3100 Stokies yesterday is going to burn their squad to the core 🙂 

Rovers got the tactics exactly right on the day, and perhaps we saw first hand how JDT had created the tailspin that had seen us drop like a stone since December. It's been well said above, that football is a results game, and that there needs to be a level of flexibility to adapt when things aren't going well. The changes yesterday were significant and made a massive difference to basically the same group of players. McFadzean is that well drilled, experienced head that every defence needs, Hedges was amazing in terms of his energy and commitment coming straight back into the side where he left off, Dolan showed he knows where the onion bag is, Brittain was good and bad in equal measure and made 2 but nearly cost us 2, and Sammie was well worth the price of admission, Pears looked a safe pair of hands and the Tronstad -JRC pairing worked well, whilst Gally put in a good shift (should have scored when put through, and went the wrong side of the keeper for me). They were my stand-outs . Telalovic looks incapable of breaking his duck though, and surely needs to be off the team sheet for the next while so that other hungrier strikers can chance their arm.

We are not out of the woods yet, and had that penalty been converted we might have had a very different outlook this morning. But as it stands it feels like a new broom has swept the corridors already and the self-inflicted cobwebs and constraints of the JDT era are already a memory. Now, let's get to Big Club and give the Gurning Chump a bloody nose, eh?

COME ON YOU BLUES!

F-WAGGOTT OUT!

VENKY-RAO-DESAI-SUHAIL-SHADOWGHOSTS OUT!

[KentExile]

5 hours ago, Paul Mani said:

Like o say, just a hunch…I for one have never been against GB and JDT. I just felt a wind of change in the couple of weeks before this came to a head and Gregg has been nowhere to be seen.

IF those late signings and Eustace were the work of GB then great..hopefully we’ll hear from him very soon, right? I just don’t think they are…

Either way, the two older lads do seem to trace back to Eustace which shows an element of forward planning. But, then was it Eustace who pulled the plug on McGuire preferring to spend any cash they do have, himself in the summer? 

There isn't any link there either

Yes all three were at Coventry at one point or another, but none of them were there at the same time as any of the others.

Eustace was at Coventry 1996 - 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eustace

Fleck was there from 2012 - 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fleck_(footballer)

McFadzean was there from 2019 until we signed him the other week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_McFadzean

* Waggott was there from 2013 - 2015, which means he never signed or sold any of these people, and his only overlap was with Fleck, who was already there when Waggott rocked up, and was still there when he resigned 2 years later https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/FKc4o-maeIjThZF3QPcISHHYkS4/appointments

 

I really do not see it as any kind of stretch to think that all three of those were the work of Broughton (seeing as that is his job),  Based on the comments of both JDT, & Broughton himself about how the squad would benefit from more experience

GB - https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/23857362.gregg-broughton-lack-experience-blackburn-rovers/

JDT - https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/24023305.tomasson-discusses-happiness-blackburn-rovers/

 

I am not suggesting you are against JDT, GB, or anyone else, I just think that on the basis of all evidence, that your hunch (which you seem to have formed on the basis that 2 new players, our new head coach, and Waggott were all at Coventry at one time over the past 30 years) is wrong.

 

Edited February 11 by KentExile

[rigger]

10 hours ago, AllRoverAsia said:

I totally agree, putting the onion in the onion bag has always been what football is about. Get the ball to where you know you can hurt the opposition rather than pretty triangles out wide which invariably fail.

Pears looked like a keeper today and one reason is he can kick it a bloody long way.

Funnily enough most of the keepers on our books have decent long kicks, under JDT it was an ability under-used.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Maybe our luck has changed. That was a really poor penalty. The idea of the stuttering approach to the ball is to get the keeper moving one way and then pass the ball to the other side. Johnson did the first part ok but inexplicably passed the ball straight at Pears !

When did one of our keepers last save a pen ?  On such small events your season can change.

Fergie was one loss from being fired and got a stroke of luck. Ditto with Howard Kendall in his first spell at Everton. 
They were losing 1-0 in the FA Cup  at Oxford and all the talk was of Kendall being sacked in the morning. Then an Oxford player inexplicably passed a ball back to the keeper that went straight to Adrian Heath in front of goal. He slotted it home and they got a draw. They won the replay and then they were off and running, winning trophies etc.

 

 

 

Edited February 11 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[Ossydave]

I genuinely wasn't going to go yesterday had JDT still been there, no disrespect to him really I just couldn't bear watching more of the same.

New manager appeal swung it for me and I'm glad I did now.

Some really good performances across the pitch, notably McFadzean, actually I think I'll just call him McFadz it's easier. He was barking orders all game and really made an impression. 

Whether there was an element of players trying to impress the new gaffer or not I don't know but they did seem like a bit of a weight had lifted off their shoulders.

A big swing on the stats yesterday, 37% possession and made it count. Number of passes was also hugely down on the QPR game. Not sure if it was a Johnson and Lowe decision to play this way or Eustace, but it was a welcome one.

Edited February 11 by Ossydave

[Paul Mani]

1 hour ago, KentExile said:

There isn't any link there either

Yes all three were at Coventry at one point or another, but none of them were there at the same time as any of the others.

Eustace was at Coventry 1996 - 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eustace

Fleck was there from 2012 - 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fleck_(footballer)

McFadzean was there from 2019 until we signed him the other week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_McFadzean

* Waggott was there from 2013 - 2015, which means he never signed or sold any of these people, and his only overlap was with Fleck, who was already there when Waggott rocked up, and was still there when he resigned 2 years later https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/FKc4o-maeIjThZF3QPcISHHYkS4/appointments

 

I really do not see it as any kind of stretch to think that all three of those were the work of Broughton (seeing as that is his job),  Based on the comments of both JDT, & Broughton himself about how the squad would benefit from more experience

GB - https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/23857362.gregg-broughton-lack-experience-blackburn-rovers/

JDT - https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/24023305.tomasson-discusses-happiness-blackburn-rovers/

 

I am not suggesting you are against JDT, GB, or anyone else, I just think that on the basis of all evidence, that your hunch (which you seem to have formed on the basis that 2 new players, our new head coach, and Waggott were all at Coventry at one time over the past 30 years) is wrong.

 

Yeah….because we only EVER speak to people we directly work with during a specific time. We don’t form our network from long-standing relationships in the places we work and talk to people afterwards about how this guy is doing or how that person is to work with. Oh wait….

It’s fine if you don’t agree with me, or believe it. I’m ok with watching how it unfolds going forwards. As I said, it’s just a hunch, fingers crossed, GB will come out very soon (as he does after every window) and tell us all about how he instigated those signings and the targeting of Eustace. 🤞🏽

Q - Is there no part of you that thinks GB is inconspicuously quiet?

Oh, and as far as I can see, Gregg, who never misses a chance to do the PR ‘standard’ welcoming handshake piccy with new signings, was last seen doing this with McGuire, (the one that “fell through”) and maybe it’s me, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen a single picture of him welcoming McFadz? Fleck? Eustace? Probably just a coincidence, let’s see…. 👀

Edited February 11 by Paul Mani

[chaddyrovers]

Good solid win for Rovers. 

We played a 5-2-2-1 formation with Szmodics and Dolan just behind Gallagher. Chrisene at left centre back with McFadzean and Hyam, Brittain at right wing back and Hedges at left wing back. JRC in centre mid with Tronstad.

Tactical, we played more direct, no short goal kicks and more counter attacking. Johnson said post game that Eustace and Gardiner spent 3 or 4 hours with them the night before discussing tactics for the game. 

It was a brilliant start by Rovers. 3 nil and very comfortable. Stoke look poor. 

Ennis and second half Stoke came at us with more intent and got a penalty. Pears brilliant save it. 

After them Rovers had to show a different quality to our first half display and we did. Defending with heart and desire. Probably should have 1 or 2 more goals Rovers second half but didn't. 

Rovers won 3-1. 

Set pieces was changed and we put into the box every time apart from one time in the first half. Hyam was the main target every time at the back post. 

Players encouraged the fans a number of times to be louder and louder. 

Eustace came down to the touchline during the second half about 60/65 to managed the players with in heavily shouting at them, given them encouragement and changing subs. Just before he came down we were ready to bring O'Riordan on but instead it was changed for Telalovic and Garrett to come on. O'Riordan did come on a few minutes later. After the game he shaked every single Rovers player hand and clapped the fans. His post match interview said he wants him, the players and the fans to be family and we battled together. 

Great to get the 3 points. Onwards and upwards now. 

John Eustace's Blue and White Army 🔵 ⚪️ 

[tomphil]

A point worth noting with the change of tactics yesterday we didn't really miss Adam.

Can guarantee if JDT was still here we'd have played the same, lost and bemoaned the missing presence of the 'on the turn' specialist.

I hope Eustace doesn't turn us just into a long ball side we just need to add the ability to mix it up and vastly improve set pieces at both ends.  

As for GB i assume his focus now will be on finding Leo and Tel some football somewhere else in a few months time.  I still think he'll be off  in summer but personally i'd prefer to see the DoF model carry on for enough time to give it a chance with a head coach who can maybe identify the basics first and build from there.

Yesterday was a start but lets not expect miracles.

[rigger]

3 minutes ago, tomphil said:

A point worth noting with the change of tactics yesterday we didn't really miss Adam.

Can guarantee if JDT was still here we'd have played the same, lost and bemoaned the missing presence of the 'on the turn' specialist.

I hope Eustace doesn't turn us just into a long ball side we just need to add the ability to mix it up and vastly improve set pieces at both ends.  

As for GB i assume his focus now will be on finding Leo and Tel some football somewhere else in a few months time.  I still think he'll be off  in summer but personally i'd prefer to see the DoF model carry on for enough time to give it a chance with a head coach who can maybe identify the basics first and build from there.

Yesterday was a start but lets not expect miracles.

Smokey Robinson will do.

[Gav]

Equally as important as the 3 points yesterday was the show of dissent in the stands, it certainly improved my mood seeing the banners on show aiming this latest fiasco at the clowns at the top table. 

Well done to all concerned.

VENKYS OUT - NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

Edited February 11 by Gav

[KentExile]

27 minutes ago, Paul Mani said:

Yeah….because we only EVER speak to people we directly work with during a specific time. We don’t form our network from long-standing relationships in the places we work and talk to people afterwards about how this guy is doing or how that person is to work with. Oh wait….

It’s fine if you don’t agree with me, or believe it. I’m ok with watching how it unfolds going forwards. As I said, it’s just a hunch, fingers crossed, GB will come out very soon (as he does after every window) and tell us all about how he instigated those signings and the targeting of Eustace. 🤞🏽

Q - Is there no part of you that thinks GB is inconspicuously quiet?

Oh, and as far as I can see, Gregg, who never misses a chance to do the PR ‘standard’ welcoming handshake piccy with new signings, was last seen doing this with McGuire, (the one that “fell through”) and maybe it’s me, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen a single picture of him welcoming McFadz? Fleck? Eustace? Probably just a coincidence 👀

Me too 🙂 

Edited February 11 by KentExile