Personally I think it's because he is so scared of how appalling our defence is and thinks this is the only way of limiting the opposition to a number of goals which we can realistically score more from. And he may be right. After all how many 3-2s did we lose under Coyle. How many late goals have we conceded under both. Look at the results we got vs Barcodes and Huddersfield in that almost decent (small) patch under Coyle. Both times it was because the opposition didn't score many rather than us matching them say, 3-3. Problem is given the only quality in the squad is the strikers such an approach doesn't make best use of our very limited assets. Dammed if he does or doesn't imo.

TM - disappointed when appointed, but slowly coming round to liking the guy even though he's probably at best an ok manager. His Coventry experience as others have said is probably his most like for like experience and how that ended probably was warning enough for us. Compare how Warnock did with Rotherham - and just look at how they have done without him, albeit with a few squad changes - suggests that we needed a top class manager like Warnock rather than an ok one like TM. Mind you I like the guy a lot for his straight talking. Yet I never had time for Bowyer for being a nice guy (until the end when he lost it) but limited manager. Perhaps this is a sign Vs are wearing me down. Could just imagine how things would go in my work, if I appointed nice but not good enough people, and yet now at Rovers at the current time I feel it's the best I can hope for. In the cold light of day despite the appalling hand TM has been given, he should have done better - especially with the quality of strikers we have. But Vs and senior management (senior, Chesterton etc.) should shoulder even more of the blame of making it as hard as possible for him, and leaving us in a position where only a top class manager would be good enough.

Once again I'm swinging - this time towards optimism. 4"points isn't ideal but is a decent return. Bristol and Burton are safe Imo and have the look of teams surviving. But Forest and Brum seem in worse positions to me. Don't rate Redknapp and although they may get new managers bounce given they didn't under Zola it could well not happen again. Forest also don't look likely to pick up points either having thrown away a couple of games they should have got something from. Of course we could still implode and get no points but I still think we have just enough in our locker to scrape the points needed to survive.

I don't know. It doesn't say much for TM that he can't get at least some of them organised. Also I hear he's using the word hope a lot. That doesn't fill me with much confidence - I'd like to think a manager had more of a plan than hopefully it'll come together. Nowhere near the levels of ineptitude of Clueless, but it's worrying when the manager is seemingly throwing in the towel.

To be fair the Burton game (which was a draw) he'd only just got in and assessed how bad it was. However the others mentioned, including Norwich, were right clangers. The next two games are probably last chance saloon and will tell us a lot about his ability, even accounting for an appalling team.

Clutching at straws now as am shocked by the implosion under TM in the last few weeks. Thought with a bit of organisation we could stay up but we've really not helped ourselves of late. Reading were vulnerable, Barnsley had nothing to play for, and even a couple of draws would have kept us well in the race. As it is it's no longer in our hands which is even more frightening. The only faint positives I can see is that IF we can beat Bristol City then we're back in it, which with some other winnable games coming up is not out of the question at all. Problem is that we've fluffed one very winnable game, and injuries are mounting up. Add in most players won't be here next season and you feel motivation is somewhat lacking. It's still doable Imo but one more bad set of results against us and that would probably change.

Why people aren't worried by this or play it down after the amount of times the club have been screwed over is beyond me. Why the owners get the benefit of the doubt and the future looks positive after all the farce of the last 6 years is also beyond me. Good info btw Dunnfc, cheers.

No problems with you saying that /having that view, it was the better comment that surprised me (especially in light of your viewpoint.) Steele needs to improve a lot more than better to get anywhere near adequate. Not sure it's worth getting defensive about - wasn't trying to question your football knowlege.

True but there are better than Steele about even with those restrictions.

Chaddy agree with you about the Boro situation but Steele better???? the guy is the worst keeper I've ever seen, along with Fettis and costs us goals and points regularly. Maybe 1 in 5 he has a good game but generally he is poor even for this level. Whilst there are loads of people to blame IF we go down - mainly Vs and clueless - Steele on the playing side is up there letting in soft goal after soft goal. He is a liability plain and simple and can't be spun positively.

Also spoke to a Boro season ticket holder at work today. He said TM was good the first two years then lost the plot in the third. He said he's known for attacking football and will try to outscore the opposition. He said in the first two years he did well for his budget - rated him 7 out of 10 - but then it all went wrong in his third year. Found this fairly encouraging although hope we don't try to outscore the opposition to win games, as our defense cannot be relied upon to do that.

That is wrong. They should be referred to as Manure.

Well that's foolish Parson and a little obtuse if I may say so. The head coach role may mean he is limited in what he can do and who he can buy by Senior so to say it is irrelevant is not quote true. It can have a massive impact. Likewise with who his agent is. Conflicts of interest? Rovers taken for a ride? We've not seen that before! Again these things matter and can have a huge effect on the club.

Having read quotes from him in the LT I'm both encouraged and discouraged. Discouraged if he thinks we're a premier league set up - from our joke owners who don't communicate and take an age on decisions, to a director of football (which doesn't work in the UK) who is pretty incompetent with conflicting interests to a budget of a league 1 team there is nothing premier league about our set up. He's in for a nasty shock on this score. Or he's stupidly naive. However he spent Thursday working on defensive shape which shows he has more of a grasp of what's going on than Clueless did. The fact some of it was new to the players is damning pf the previous regime but gives me optimism we can shore things up. Overall I feel he'll keep us up before running afoul of our owners and failing when the next round of budget cuts kick in.

Positives: He is an actual manager with experience at numerous clubs. He seems an honest bloke. He has worked for numpties before. He literally must be able to organize a defense more. Negatives: There's not too many successes really - WBA, Hibs (?) but the rest are a really mixed bag - Boro, Coventry and Celtic weren't by any means successes, and I'd struggle to say were indifferent spells. . His record at Coventry in particular - a situation very similar to ours - wasn't great which is worrying. He doesn't have his own team. Most of all he's head coach. That means Senior is calling the shots. I think Senior is both clueless and has conflicts of interest which mean whoever the manager is they're really going to be handicapped by the structure. Also there's a world of difference between being a good manager and a good bloke. It's only because we've had some real characters at Rovers that this has even become a criteria. Not sure Big Sam is a good bloke BUT he is a good manager. Had we not had two of the best liars in the business as managers who would really care how nice a chap he was? A lot of the positive feeling is Venkys could do worse. Rationally though, without this fear factor, for a Championship club fighting relegation, it is not a great appointment. With any half decent ownership/executive structure I'd imagine people would be a lot more disappointed- hence why he wasn't on any fans wanted list. Sure our situation is relevant but actually so is the fact we're a championship club and should be acting as one is also relevant. Overall not wild about the appointment - hope however he proves me wrong.

Yesterdays game shows why we've a decent chance of staying up regardless of Coyle. There's enough dross in this division that a few refereeing mistakes and teams not on their game and we will pick up points. Despite their recent wins as well I still have big doubts over Bristol Forest Burton and Wigan to name a few, as to whether they will pick up points with more consistency than us.

Think that's overly positive tbh and posted as much in the Coyle out thread. Feeney as ok after a couple of games blowing hot and cold is a stretch as is Hoban being excellent in a leaky defence. My main gripe is money not spent well especially on a bunch of crocks. Hoban and Mulgrew may well be good players - and am not convinced about the former - but when they miss half the season through injury it doesn't matter how good they are. They could be as bad as me or as good as Messi - when they're out injured it's irrelevant as either way they're not contributing. There's also planning issues - like all 4 cb and 3 cms all being crocks and holes in certain positions but will leave it there. Not a great bit of summer business

Another week goes by and I still think we'll get out of it by the skin of our teeth. Didn't see Wigan putting up this much of a fight but then didn't see Bristol City imploding like they have. My main thought is we cam still scrape a few points together, something that Burton, Bristol and Rotherham look incapable of doing.

You know what, the more I see and hear of us, the more I think staying up wouldn't be too much of a problem IF we had a decent manager. We're scoring lots of goals, bar yesterday, and have some decent players for this division. Any manager with a modicum of organisation could get the 3-2s against in to draws and wins. Also with a better fitness regime, perhaps good but crocked players like Mulgrew and Evans might feature more (though I am less optimistic on this). Add in to which there are so many poor teams in this division and so many unexpected results that the bar is so, so low for staying up. Yes we're crap, but then Burton, Wigan and Rotherham aren't any good - and Wigan have done us a favour in appointing a poor manager. Birmingham and Forrest look like they could implode as well. There's a chance, through other teams self-destruction rather than any merit on our part, that we can still stay up. We don't have to be good, only less bad then 3 other teams. I believe with a change of manager, given what's at our disposal, 4th from bottom is quite attainable. So the big question remains what is plan V? If it's to run us cheaply as possible in this division, then a change of manager should soon be forthcoming to preserve league status. However, if as I fear Coyle is here for the duration as part of plan asset strip, then the above optimism goes out the window. He clearly cannot organise a team to be successful, even from positive and solid positions. Bugger, I've just talked myself out of my optimism. Think the point is though it's another "if only" scenario. If only we had a different manager, staying up would be a real possibility.

To me there are three criteria for a worst player: 1 be a poor talent for the level at which we are playing. In fairness to the current shower few would have been looked at in happier days, in any division, so all players to be ranked in the league/situation we were in. 2 have a significant negative impact on the team. One or two appearances doesn't really do much damage to us or deserve notoriety. Nor does a few ineffective sub appearances. Besides a mistake quickly rectified isn't that much of a problem. 3 statistically do badly for us. We've all seen a few clodhoppers in our time but sometimes they can be effective, even if not very talented or appealing to watch. In light of this I've narrowed it down to two players: Alan Fettis Chris Brown Oh we've had a bunch of other talentless gofers. Douglas always annoyed me in his left mid days but the team did grind out points. Andrews was poor but versatile and got a number of goals. Lowe is the worst captain I've ever seen but in very familiar company. Best was a huge expensive mistake and a prime pillock but got a few goals. And Matteo whilst a horrible footballer helped us be resilient under Hughes. Fettis and Brown however simply couldn't do anything like what they were meant to do, fans lost all hope when the ball got near them and were poor excuses for footballers. Both sadly got a lot more game time then they ever deserved and comfortably deserve this accolade Imo.

Didn't the Netherlands u21 manager select players for a system that worked rather than the most talented? Seem to remember reading something of that ilk at the time.

The next 5 games are a killer and has the potential to see us adrift with Rotherham. We'll get nothing out of Villa and the barcodes, whilst Huddersfield on their day can be very good too (despite their recent tonking.) That means realistically that we have to get wins from Brentford and/or Preston to keep any kind of momentum. But that's a tough ask given both are in better form than us, and with better managers - if not better squads. Brentford's win vs. QPR makes me a tad worried they'll do the same to us putting a ton of pressure on the Preston game. I reckon 4 to 5 points is about right from these games. Think it'll be 5 as the championship is wonderfully inconsistent and we'll catch someone on a bad day. The only consolation imo is that the teams around us could well get similar amount of points from their fixtures, so even such a poor return could be ok for us. A lot of if buts and maybes but that's what we're reduced to.

Amazingly we're still not adrift, and in a much better position than Rotherham. There are also some pretty rank bad teams in this division - Ipswich, Wolves - the wrong managerial appointment in either one (sacking McCarthy may happen with fan unrest) could give them a good downward push. Mind you, it's a poor do when you're best hope of survival is other clubs imploding in a worse manner than yourselves.

1 They are head and shoulders above anyone else we're likely to recruit under Venkys. 2 A good manager with a good team can get capitalize on players strengths, hide their weaknesses and get the total being more than the sum of it's parts. Not that we have that manager mind.

Not sure what you guys are all on about. According to the club, if not science such as line of sight and such trifles, there is no obstruction whatsoever to the pitch or game...