Hasta

Eh? "Looking at the starting line up of the win against Plymouth, every one of them was available for the defeat at Derby, plus he had Tronstadt and Ohashi back." That is gospel. There's no other context to it. Regardless, the goalposts on this discussion are moving a bit. I accept that it is still early in his reign and he doesn't have a full strength squad. All I'm pointing out is that when people keep saying "our form had already gone before he arrived", it hadn't. People will try and write that as gospel going forward and it's clearly not true. 3 from 5.

I agree with you somewhat regards to injuries and squad depth and all that, but this statement simply isn’t true. In the last 5 games before him we played Preston, played well and beat them, albeit we tried to throw it away in the last 5 minutes. We were very good in winning at West Brom and we were far better than Plymouth. Batth missed the Plymouth game and half the West Brom game. However we still looked organised and had desire in those games. That is obviously lacking at the moment. He’s changed too much too quickly. Brushing it off as “well we were this bad before he come in” simply isn’t true.

10 wins from 20 4 from 12 3 from 5 And then 0 from 4 Results had taken a downturn once Travis and Tronstadt weren’t available together. They improved a bit before Ismael came in. Now we’ve not won in four and have lost to 3 of the bottom 5. Also facts.

Come on now. Looking at the starting line up of the win against Plymouth, every one of them was available for the defeat at Derby, plus he had Tronstadt and Ohashi back. Against Cardiff yesterday only Brittain was missing, again with Tronstadt and Ohashi available.

I keep saying it because it is undisputedly true. People keep quoting the stats from the last 14 or 16 games as though it shows the current form is to be expected, ignoring there had been an upturn in fortunes. If I went back to the match threads against Preston, West Brom and Plymouth I guarantee people who are saying how bad our form has been were also saying how well we played in those games. Yes he has injuries. Probably a bit worse than Lowe and Eustace had although he now has Tronstadt and Ohashi back. But we’ve just lost to 3 poor relegation-threatened teams which I don’t believe Lowe or Eustace would have done. I put the blame for that squarely at the tactical switch in formation by VI. The fact is, we weren’t a team in free fall that couldn’t get a win anywhere. We had won 3 from 5.

3 wins from 5

For the nth time today, 3 wins in 5 before he took over. Lets not pretend he’s just continued the status quo.

I fear the momentum is with Burnley slightly at the moment. Leeds dropping points away and Sheff United are scrambling wins by the odd goal.

None compared to Rovers. But unlocking that potential isn’t worth the hassle of trying to get it off Venkys because, as you say,they won’t entertain it. You’d have to have really set your heart or mind on Rovers to pursue it. A more casual potential owner would just wait for an easier acquisition to come up, even if they were like the named clubs above.

I still stand by my gut feeling I said at the time that Wagner would have been far greater than Ismael. I’m even starting to wonder about Karanka now in comparison.

You would only get fan base all on the same page if we were on a proper downward spiral (relegated) AND there was a viable and interested party going public about wanting to buy us. But that second part is highly unlikely. Most people who buy clubs aren’t fans so why go to the impossible effort of trying to prise Rovers away when an Oxford or a Luton might become available far easier and cheaper.

We did that against Wolves a few years back. Decent numbers took part and stayed on the concourse for 18 minutes. Pointless. Venkys don’t give a shit. Only full on boycotts would raise any eyebrows but you simply won’t get the numbers to do it.

I'm not writing him off (although I suspect he will fail spectacularly), I'm saying that his formation change to 3 at the back is perplexing and clearly hasn't worked, and is bizarre change to a team that had just won 3 from 5, regardless of whether some of those were in a "weird" week. The "excuse" that we were in free-fall before he came in simply isn't true. 3 wins from 5. Also some performances during that 14 game spell (Burnley, Leeds and Sunderland) might not have brought victories were miles better than the last weeks fayre.

Won 3 of the previous 5 before he came in. You are saying two of them were because they were 'galvanised' by Lowe. Why weren't they galvanised by Ismael ?

I’m going to have to keep repeating this I suspect, but we had just won 3 of the last 5 league games before VI came in. After one game (which we drew) he changed the entire seasons formation which had been so successful from a back 4 to his ‘favoured’ back 3. We’ve been shit in those 3 games. The injuries, the depth of the squad, the quality of the signings are all on those above, but that one tactical change which is clearly not working is on him.

3 wins in 5 before he rocked up. But it's actually since Jan 1st when Eustace wasn’t even slightly backed when it started.

Problem solved. Thanks Val 👍

Mainly true, but the best (only) result he has had was a 1-1 draw against Norwich using a back 4. 16 minutes into the next game Ismael decided that he’d seen enough and ripped up the entire season’s gameplan to move us to a back 3. We’ve lost every game since. That’s just stupid. Everyone said before the appointment that this season we don’t need someone to come in and make wholesale changes, but that’s exactly what he’s done and it’s not worked at all. That’s on him.

70 points is 6 wins from 9 games. Two of those away at Sunderland and Sheff Utd. What seemed fairly manageable just weeks ago now seems an almost unrealistic ask.

First time this season I’ve got up and thought “I can’t be arsed”. It has a dead rubber feel to it even though we’re only 4 points off 6th.

Bet365 live in play betting page. As of 85 minutes it had 5 shots/ 0 on target.

4-0 now. We haven’t had a shot on target.

3 wins from last 5 before Ismael turned up.

The summer recruitment was ok. January was piss poor. The season trajectory will probably back this up.

Pears big problem isn’t necessarily shot stopping. He can pull off decent saves for sure. See the last minute against Stoke and the last minute on Boxing Day. It’s the other shit like dodgy punches, flapping at crosses, positioning and slicing balls into his own net. That’s something which won’t be shown on that chart