Only 38 months left on his contract.

1 minute ago, bluebruce said:

Wtf was the point of that from the ref? Ball struck his heel, slowing our attack but still landed to one of ours in space. Blows the whistle, insists on betting the ball then does a drop ball to us, slowing the counter even more and giving Pompey time to get all bodies back.

Are there any half decent refs in this league at all?

I believe it’s the law. If ball hits ref now it has to restart with a drop ball at that spot given to the side in posession before it hit the ref.

1 minute ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Genuinely, how does he want them to play?

He's run them out in a 4-2-3-1, a 3-4-3 and a 4-4-2 system in just 5 games. 

God knows. I couldn’t be bothered watching that first half once I saw the team.

3 minutes ago, neophox said:

Well even if the manager is tosh the players are the same... 

Same players didn’t look as tosh under Eustace. They are obviously  very limited at this level. However A good coach knows what he’s got and devises a system to get the best out of them. JE clearly did that. Ismael is too one-dimensional to do that, so he insists on playing how he wants to play with players not suitable to doing it, hence why they looks shit. 

8 minutes ago, roverandout said:

Michael appleton comes close. I thought he'd be a good out of the box appointment but he was terrible 

To be fair that season was a right shit show off the pitch. Neither Berg nor Appleton showed anything, but the infighting going on makes Waggots reign look stable.  

6 minutes ago, waynerovers said:

I wasn't watching at time but was Coyle worse than Steve Kean?

Tactically probably yeah. But once you add in the lies, bullshit and compliance in the pillaging of the club, not a chance.

Although scratch that. I just remembered Tottenham away 

6 hours ago, RoversTilliDie said:

We beat them 3-0 at Ewood at a canter, no reason why we can't repeat it.

Portsmouth have the biggest difference between their home form and away from of anyone in the league (32 point at home, 10 away). This will be much tougher.

Interesting that Derby give a 6.6% discount if you have had a season ticket for 5 years and a 13.5% discount if you have had a season ticket for 10+ years. Loyalty rewarded, not milked.

Swansea's cheapest adult is £350, but you can also get a free child at that price.

Two facts not mentioned by the LT article or Yasir. I'm sure there's plenty more if you dig beneath the surface.

25 minutes ago, Tomphil2 said:

If you were a finance person sat in an office in London or India with zero interest or connection other than its just landed on your desk this is exactly how you'd go about re-setting prices.

They've just looked at the dearest seats and said well people who go there can afford more so hike it, next is the most popular area that always sells out first, right make those premiums seats as well.

A token gesture to offset this.... well make it cheaper in the riverside so some can move or lump it.

We know the main issue is the people at the top don't listen because they don't care, it's probably not even Waggots doing.

Exactly. They know which home areas are the most populated and have hit them with the price rise.

They are offsetting the argument with "well if you want to pay less move into the Riverside", again knowing most people who have spent 30 years in the BBE or the JW aren't really going to do that. 

For the first time in a while I'm leaning towards the "No" camp. It's not possible to pick from the generic reasons above. I can live with the moved kick-off times as annoying as they are. I can afford to pay more than I am now. I've proved I can even live with the lack of investment. However they all apply.

I'm probably now a "No" because I finally have had enough that the people running the club are choosing to just bleed me dry for my loyalty, rather than doing their job and trying to improve the club and grow the fanbase. And despite cuts, poverty and failure they appear to be getting handsomely rewarded for doing it.

19 minutes ago, MarkBRFC said:

It does have a undercover concourse at the top where they sell beer, no idea if food is served there too though.

OK. In 37 years I've never been in there!

I also don't think I've ever watched a game from the top tier of the BBE or DE stands.

The Riverside.

Genuine question as there may be many, but is there another stand in the Championship that doesn't have an underneath concourse? Where you queue for your snacks in the rain?

They're waiting for it to be signed off from India.

Whatever the price, it will be a short early bird discount period before it starts to leap up. They will feel they need the short period to do something to get sales in just in case the season completely crashes and burns (it has already, but they probably don’t believe that).

The story of Valerien Ismael sacking and West Broms only choice

Practically to a man the West Brom fan base and journalists knew his time was up and the direction of travel was downwards. I’ve never seen that article but it matches pretty much what one of my West Brom’s supporting suppliers tells me of his time at The Hawthorne’s. 
 

Here’s a Watford one:-

Nine league games without a win at home since November 28 during which time they lost six can only really take you in one direction.

2 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Embarrassing post 

Not really.

Ismael still had players from West Brom’s premier league campaign, they still,had parachute moneys and spent £8million on a striker. Therefore expectations were quite rightly high. Theyy were 2nd favourites to win the league that season. They had been in the top 3 most of the season until December and then started playing poorly and had dropped to 6th. So it wasn’t really as ‘shit’ a decision as you say.

They haven’t done any better since because for the last couple of years they’ve spent little and almost gone bust.

If all you are basing the decision to sack him as being ‘shit’ on is purely because they were 6th at the time, then the Kean point stands.

19 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Sacked at WBA when in the playoffs. Shit decision and 9th by Watford..

Have either done better after he left? No they haven't. 

I presume therefore that you think Steve Kean was the best manager Rovers had in the championship. Sacked when 4th in the league. 

3 minutes ago, Forever Blue said:

Pretty please 

Copy the link.

Open http://12ft.io

Paste the link

Click Clean webpage

14 hours ago, islander200 said:

Look at that graph in the 7 games prior to the 6 game winning run 5 defeats 1 win 2 draw, we then don't win in 5 3 defeats and 2 draws ,then win a game then 3 defeats in a row, the squad on multiple occasions thus season have gone runs of games losing .It is not something new created by Ismael.It can't be said for certain we would have won any of those last 3 games under another manager or the previous one 

 

If the comment is "we have been inconsistent and got good and bad results in patches all season, not just under Ismael" then I agree. Nobody is saying we would have won those games under another manager. I've said that Ismael will be better judged at the end of the season. All I am saying is these 3 defeats are not a "continuation of our recent form". 

22 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

After the match I remember being in Salvador Dali’s and The Moorings and can only assume I frequented other establishments along the way.

We ended up in the Moorings. Police came in at about 10.20pm and said they didn’t have to close Sunday hours as they didn’t want everyone spilling onto the streets at the same time.

53 minutes ago, islander200 said:

Look at the post from Booth below lots of mini winless runs ,the 6 match winning run is what put us in the top 6 and the teams closest to us had poor form themselves hence us staying in it for as long as we did.

We struggled against teams lower than us that we feel we should be winning with other managers aswell.

FFS. But that doesn’t make Ismael’s 4 games “a continuation of our recent form.”. 

These 4 games aren’t because “the rot had already set in”
 

Just like when Eustace didn’t get a win in 4 games earlier this season (as identified in Booth’s post) that also wasn’t a continuation of “our recent form“ or “rot”.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Every game is tough one at this level. 

I have said Norwich game was a decent point but he didn't change much. 

Derby bullied us and our back 4 and keeper buckled under pressure. Is that on Ismael? Or the players? We got back into the game and second half we were poor. I put the blame on the players and Ismael? Can we agree on that?.

Stoke away, Hyam's pass cost us but our performance were poor? Is that on the player and Ismael? I would say so..

Cardiff at home, you could see how he wanted to play, get the ball wide and into the box, trying to create more. But defensively we were poor and Pears should have stop both goals. Can we agree on this overall?.

Ismael has made mistakes so far, on Saturday, I didn't understand what his plan was on Saturday when he brought on Woodrow and Cantwell. I still don't get it even not. He should have taken Tronstad off for Buckley to add creativity to the centre of the pitch. 

I cant really argue against much of what you say there Chaddy. I agree with most of it. 

It's purely when people say something along the lines of "the rot had already set in" or "all he's done is continue the bad form we were already in" that is bugging me. It's not true. We had just played very well and won recent games. I'm not sure how that is being disputed. 

20 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

You used 5 games but why not the last 10 games or 15 games. Cos it doesn't suit your point. 

 

OK. Lets remember they were probably tougher games as well. I'll take out the cup win at Boro.

With Ismael

4 games - 1 point - 0.25 points per game

Before Ismail 

5 games - 9 points - 1.8 points per game

10 games - 12 points - 1.2 points per game

14 games - 14 points 1.0 points per game

15 games - 17 points - 1.13 points per game

Suits my point.

And before anyone says, yes we will look at it again at the end of the season which will be a longer period of time and a fairer barometer to judge his impact. But the team's form under Ismael's is currently worse than before he came. Fact.

I watched it round at my Gran's (only she had Sky) and then shot off to the pub afterwards.

Redknapp scored, my brain quickly processed that it was now far more important what was happening at Upton Park so I switched channel across to the West Ham / Man U game. The game had just finished but it took me a few seconds to actually work out it was over, and by the time I realised I switched it back and the Rovers players were celebrating with the game still being played.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

we can all cherry pick stats to suit our argument here. 

2 wins in Eustace's last 10 league games. 

Also you missed that Swansea battered us in Lowe's final game. 

Individual game performances, Ismael's tactics, injuries etc are all subject to opinion. I believe Derby got 2-0 up and then, typically for Eustace, sat back and held what they had. You think we turned the tide of the game due to the tactical changes of Ismael. We don't really know. I can accept people have differing views on this.

The issue I'm taking argument that keeps appearing which is a variation of "we were already in bad form when Ismael took over".

We had won 3 from 5. And they weren't lucky or undeserved wins.

Preston - Great win and much deserved. 

Plymouth - Very good win and much deserved. Control the game from the start to finish

West Brom - Fantastic win and much deserved. Proper team performance who were united and stuck together. 

The argument "we were already in bad form when Ismael took over" doesn't needs stats to suit it. It's clearly not true.

True we weren't winning 5 on the bounce which was always unsustainable, but we also weren't losing 3 on the bounce to relegation candidates when he walked in the door.