v Swansea City (a) - 20/1/26

[HowzBRFC]

Injuries are part of football, but the volume and morale of players and fans is down to the environment.

Rovers has suffered the same fate, fading away for the last 5 years, but when has the manager or board going to look in the mirror. The lack of planning, transfer gambles, common sense around letting the whole spine of British, championship experience walked out the door was criminal. The attendences are poor so i'm not surprised the players prefer playing away with some atmosphere. 

The injuries are because:

• The recruitment over the years has been terrible so players can't get rotated as quality nose dives. Most recently Val played Litherland & Forshaw 3 games back to back .... hamstrings gone
• The pitch at Ewood is a mud bath and will take its toll on the players 
• The pitch has resulted in playing 2 extra games 
• I'm sure there are more examples

Val and the board can't moan, they caused this. The fans have a right to moan and be worried for the future. 

[G Somerset Rover]

One big upgrade he could make is to swap out captain marvel, McLoughlin, for Pickering at LCB - Harry has never let us down in that position. He was also extremely liked by two managers who shouldn't ever be mentioned in the same sentence as Valerien Ismael.

Clearly it's pounds, kids and favourites before common sense, so I don't expect anything to change.

Edited 4 hours ago by G Somerset Rover

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

1 hour ago, G Somerset Rover said:

One big upgrade he could make is to swap out captain marvel, McLoughlin, for Pickering at LCB - Harry has never let us down in that position. He was also extremely liked by two managers who shouldn't ever be mentioned in the same sentence as Valerien Ismael.

Clearly it's pounds, kids and favourites before common sense, so I don't expect anything to change.

Maybe they’ve hoping to off load Pickering and they don’t want him getting injured ?

[roversfan99]

@ruggles1995 you say that Baradji tried but I dont think he did at all, again. He was signed after a very strange career, being relegated from the Swiss league having been in the lower leagues in Italy before that. A Championship move should be an absolutely massive opportunity for him.

He clearly has more ability than most of our signings but he just strolls around, doesnt bother running back, regularly gives the ball away dawdling and just is symptomatic of how we have been run down. Hes is one of our more talented players, we have plucked him from obscurity and he cant even be arsed.

Another symptom would be that McLoughlin has regularly worn the armband and often (not last night) played in the middle of a back 3. Absolute crap.

[RevidgeBlue]

5 hours ago, OsloRover said:

If you all think Dom Hyam would have solved our leadership problems you’re deluding yourselves.

Two words - Lewis Travis. I always said he was the heartbeat of the team when we were doing better

But according to many he has a sub par scuffler.

[RevidgeBlue]

37 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

@ruggles1995 you say that Baradji tried but I dont think he did at all, again. He was signed after a very strange career, being relegated from the Swiss league having been in the lower leagues in Italy before that. A Championship move should be an absolutely massive opportunity for him.

He clearly has more ability than most of our signings but he just strolls around, doesnt bother running back, regularly gives the ball away dawdling and just is symptomatic of how we have been run down. Hes is one of our more talented players, we have plucked him from obscurity and he cant even be arsed.

Very strange player, looks like he has a lot of ability, but generally it never seems to quite come off for him and I can't quite decide whether he's putting it all in or not.

I'd be surprised if he's still here next season option or no option. 

[Torgeir]

How many senior players have had their contracts renewed this season? Scott Wharton is the only one I can remember but he's a true Rover and spent the majority of his senior career on the treatment table unfortunately. 

Ismael is blaming injuries but the game last night was dead and gone and the two subs he made were youth players. Why isn't he letting Ohashi rest for 15-20 mins when he's highly ineffective? Toss Pratt up top, who cares... if we're waiting for everyone to come back from injury in order to be able to win games, Ismael should ensure we don't take maximum risk of suffering further injuries

[Mercer]

14 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Thought it was £75k but thanks for the time line. Could it have been £90k with Terry Garbutt chucked in?

That would have been an extremely dark day in my young life.

What's the saying - It's always darkest before the dawn?

True in 1974, but now we don't have a Gordon Lee, we have the current twonk and I can't see any signs of a dawn whatsoever.

Think Gordon Lee used the proceeds to rebuild - his first four signings were all instrumental in our success:

• Graham Hawkins was the key one - stole from PNE for circa £20k
• Andy Burgin a class act at full back from Halifax - think his fee was less than £10k
• Graham Oates - so influential in midfield and chipped in with goals - circa £15k
• Ken Beamish - did what he needed as a number 9 for us in the Third Division - circa £25k

Happy days - who will ever forget the Ewood promotion clash with Plymouth when Rovers fought back from 2-0 down to run out winners at 5-2.

1975 - promotion was our aim to crown a centenary of fame!

2025 - 150 years on, wonder what the 2025/26 epitaph will be!!!!!!!!!!

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Mercer

[RevidgeBlue]

3 hours ago, ruggles1995 said:

Tronstad - easily MOM. Needs help.

Im going to have a rant now and I dont care what people think.

Do people just write the above before the game without even watching it? He was absolute dogshit last night, it was the 25 th minute before I even noticed him touch the ball. He then perked up a bit until half time before being useless again in the second half.

People tend to say "Oh he's had enough or he's off at the end of the season or he's had enough of the manager's tactics" as if that's some sort of excuse. 

it isn't. Some or indeed all of the above may be true and that would be understandable in many respects but at the end of the day he's a professional footballer paid to perform. With so many young players in the side we need the senior players like Cantwell, Tronstad and Baradji to stand up and be counted. On the contrary we've had the square root of fuck all out of either of the first two in recent weeks with Baradji only performing in fits and starts seemingly when he feels like it.

Yes, the manager needs to go asap. But until he does, our so called better players still need to pull their finger out and put in a genuine shift.

[London blue]

Who played better than him yesterday Rev?

I didn't watch the game, so I'm not trying to catch you out. I'm interested.

[roverandout]

4 minutes ago, London blue said:

Who played better than him yesterday Rev?

I didn't watch the game, so I'm not trying to catch you out. I'm interested.

Jorgensen 

[RevidgeBlue]

17 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Think Gordon Lee used the proceeds to rebuild - his first four signings were all instrumental in our success:

• Graham Hawkins was the key one - stole from PNE for circa £20k
• Andy Burgin a class act at full back from Halifax - think his fee was less than £10k
• Graham Oates - so influential in midfield and chipped in with goals - circa £15k
• Ken Beamish - did what he needed as a number 9 for us in the Third Division - circa £25k

Happy days - who will ever forget the Ewood promotion clash with Plymouth when Rovers fought back from 2-0 down to run out winners at 5-2.

1975 - promotion was our aim to crown a centenary of fame!

2025 - 150 years on, wonder what the 2025/26 epitaph will be!!!!!!!!!!

 

May be rose tinted spectacles but there were some very decent players in the 1975 line up.

Sir Roger, Burgin as you say very classy, Waddington and Faz, Hawkins,Oates, Metcalfe, Parkes.

Remember Mike "The Rock" Hickman who I think came in midway through the season? He'd scare the shit out of the current line up!.

Lol

[RevidgeBlue]

5 minutes ago, London blue said:

Who played better than him yesterday Rev?

I didn't watch the game, so I'm not trying to catch you out. I'm interested.

Powell, Jorgensen and I thought Atcheson was generally pretty good apart from was it his header out for one of the goals? 

Apart from that no-one. They were all crap.

[London blue]

Fair, obvious answer is Jorgensen I guess.

Low bar at the moment.

I do tend to disagree with you generally on Tronstad but would agree he's been sub par recently and that as a senior player I expect far more.

[den]

As regards Tronstatd, he’s tidy on the ball and passes it well. It’s hard to see anything beyond that. I wouldn’t say he’s a terrier who puts opposition players under any kind of pressure in midfield, I wouldn’t say he’s a terrier who gets close to his midfield opponents. He certainly isn’t any kind of creative player either. In short if I were in the opposition team he certainly wouldn’t scare me. 
 

He does what he does relatively well but that’s not a lot.

Edited 1 hour ago by den

[roversfan99]

He isnt in the team to scare the opposition. He was our best player for me last night which is not saying much. He is very good at what he does and its a very specialist role. Problem is, there is a mess around him. 

It is pretty embarassing that we signed a new centre back and after 1 game are not playing him, considering how poor yesterdays back 3 was individually. 

Centre back like other positions is an area where you could write down enough names to suggest we have more than enough bodies yet quality wise its impossible to put together a competent defence. Forgetting how good or otherwise Cashin is, his profile made no sense. Our centre backs are poor in the air, so we sign a really short centre back. We badly needed someone who is right footed and who can go in the middle, Cashin doesnt tick any of those boxes.

Atcheson clearly has talent but isnt ready to be playing at this level. O'Riordan looked out of his depth and when the pair are looking for a dominant partner, they get McLoughlin.

[Mercer]

27 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Remember Mike "The Rock" Hickman who I think came in midway through the season? He'd scare the shit out of the current line up!.

I do indeed!

If I recall correctly, signed from Grimsby for £10k and drove over to Blackburn to sign in a hire car as he didn't have his own car!

He got 2 of the goals against Plymouth at Ewood and that might have even been his debut (51 years ago so having to dig deep into the memory bank for the smaller detail).

[Tomphil2]

1 hour ago, Torgeir said:

How many senior players have had their contracts renewed this season? Scott Wharton is the only one I can remember but he's a true Rover and spent the majority of his senior career on the treatment table unfortunately. 

Ismael is blaming injuries but the game last night was dead and gone and the two subs he made were youth players. Why isn't he letting Ohashi rest for 15-20 mins when he's highly ineffective? Toss Pratt up top, who cares... if we're waiting for everyone to come back from injury in order to be able to win games, Ismael should ensure we don't take maximum risk of suffering further injuries

If Wharton wasn't injured and had had a good season they'd have had him out the door the min there was a sniff of a fee.

100% guaranteed.

[Tomphil2]

45 minutes ago, den said:

As regards Tronstatd, he’s tidy on the ball and passes it well. It’s hard to see anything beyond that. I wouldn’t say he’s a terrier who puts opposition players under any kind of pressure in midfield, I wouldn’t say he’s a terrier who gets close to his midfield opponents. He certainly isn’t any kind of creative player either. In short if I were in the opposition team he certainly wouldn’t scare me. 
 

He does what he does relatively well but that’s not a lot.

The centre halves particularly McClaughlan need protecting and the defence tightening us as whole like Eustace pinpointed when he came in.

Tighten it up, get Pickering back in and if they can't get a shield in front of them with the likes of Forshaw, Tronstad and TGH we might as well give up.

They need to become a unit again and build from there, 4 at the back now imo. Andre back up top and the new guy playing off him, drop Yuki and drop off a bit to allow space in behind.

Edited 18 minutes ago by Tomphil2

[den]

13 minutes ago, Tomphil2 said:

The centre halves particularly McClaughlan need protecting and the defence tightening us as whole like Eustace pinpointed when he came in.

Tighten it up, get Pickering back in and if they can't get a shield in front of them with the likes of Forshaw, Tronstad and TGH we might as well give up.

They need to become a unit again and build from there, 4 at the back now imo. Andre back up top and the new guy playing off him, drop Yuki and drop off a bit to allow space in behind.

The centre halves do indeed need protecting. Ours don’t get much protection.