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

You have to remember we had different personnel in the summer and now in the scouting side. From January, how can Forshaw, Woodrow, Sanderson, Dennis and Karbo look anything other than poor. You are right that the budget is zilch, but I’d rather they had brought in 3 loans of better quality than those 5.

What a snake. He should have stuck with it and seen the job through. 🙄

By bullied I presume he means physically intimidated (like that Preston game we lost from 2-0 up a few years ago). We weren’t. We just couldn’t tackle, close space and were second to every ball. That’s something which we haven’t struggled with so much earlier in the season do to the way we’ve been set up, so I just want to know why changing to 5 at the back would help.

We weren’t bullied by Derby. Pears flapped at a cross and conceded, and then a couple of minutes later it was just shit defending. We’d only been playing 15 minutes and then he switched it. It wasn’t long enough for us to “bullied.” However on the back of that shit 16 minutes defending, he has ripped up the entire defensive structure which Eustace had built which had us in the top 6, and switched to a back 3. Since then we’ve had about 3 shots on target in 170 minutes. It’s knee-jerk and has reaped 0 points.

Yep. It will be like last seasons “we’re closer to the top 6 than we are the bottom 3” around this time last year.