Blue blood

Blimey didn't realise how tight the play off situation was either. A goal for Swansea and Forest are out of the play offs. Shows that there were a couple of catch-able teams had we kept plugging at it.

Half of it is. And that's our biggest problem...

Think you can see it two ways really. On one hand we are solidly mid table and have been in no danger of relegation. And that is with obvious redeemable errors, such as picking favourites rather than on form and shifting formations and playing players out of positions. And we have some utterly crap players, such as a keeper who has cost us games we weren't looking like losing. If we are mid table with those handicaps, without them you think we should be looking up, The flip side is we do all these errors repeatedly, have 4 non scoring strikers, and will need 7+ players replacing due to age and loan returns before anything else is done to the team which doesn't at all bode well for next season.

Apparently Birmingham want him for their next manager. Having worked for one case with problematic owners I can't see him wanting to go to another club like Brum where there's problems (or us for that matter.)

4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 it's a bloody slow build when you haven't settled on a preferred formation in three full seasons....

And as we saw last season, irrelevant to the manager's position. Call me old fashioned but I prefer it when the manager's win/loss record mattered.

Absolutely. And a poor time to have a wobble too for Brentford, right before the play offs. They're uncertain enough without going in on a poor run.

Feel a bit for Charlton. Had some key players not refused to play they'd have had more of a chance.

it would be impressive how bad he was if it weren't at our expense. We should have known when Wigan weren't gutted about not getting him back.

Goodness it's a tight league. One goal at any number of games and everything changes again. Edit - well done Rovers. Normal service resumed...

I wouldnt call WBA or Brentford a big club. Yep that is a genuine frustration. Am not sure how/why you are proud of this as it isn't on merit of the club.

Wigan, Coventry, Rovers - you don't have to look far to see the EFL have been horrifically negligent with their fit and proper tests. Guardians of the game and the football league - not in the slightest.

Carlisle have produced or developed on loan a few handy young keepers. Westwood, Gillespie and Krul (I think) were all there early on in their career. All 3 imo looked very talented/promising although unsure how they have developed since. Not too sure really how much our keeper coach was involved in that, more a comment on the club doing well there for a period.

No I think it's pretty factual that without those 5 we would be in trouble. You seem to be struggling with the difference between commenting on squad strength and saying players will leave. I'm talking about squad strength not whether they will leave. For example if I say without a car I would struggle to do my job I am not predicting the car is going to break down or crash, but rather staying an essential for the job. To dismiss such a statement as pure speculation totally misses the point. It's not about likelihood but capability. Likewise in both cases said capacity issue could occur and it's worth thinking on the risks or probability issues. That's what others are talking about, how likely are we to need to sell? Whilst there is a huge element of uncertainty - we can't see into the future - evidence can be weighed up and judges conclusions made. Also scenarios can be formed - of X then Y. Admittedly there is an element of speculation to this but one based on reason and probabilities. So, apart from totally misunderstanding my post, since you don't seem to like any sort of uncertainty I would suggest this perhaps isn't the best thread for you!

Never said they did. What I did say was those 5 are crucial to our success and without them we are more likely to struggle than succeed. Another interesting thing to note from those 5 is most have been with us for ,3 seasons. I guess you could argue Armstrong joined permanently last season but even so to not have any of your best players be brought in 2+ seasons is a tad worrying. Add in that 3 are academy graduates that is both encouraging as an affordable source of talent but also a lot of pressure to put on the academy.

Take those 5 out and you are looking down instead of up...

Indeed. And this is what makes it so dangerous. Those in the favourites group will coast, those outside of it will be demotivated and full of resentment. It's a terrible way to run a club.

This is what annoys me most I think. It's one rule for his favourites, one for the others. Walton Bennett and Gally have all been rubbish for most of the season and keep getting selected, Mulgrew and Smallwood had umpteen chances before being dropped. Some of the younger lads are dropped if they have one bad game or "have played a lot of football." Best 11 plays is a load of balls and it's hypocrisy like this which makes me dislike the man.

Said it before and will keep coming back with it. Just because someone has an opinion doesn't make that opinion valid, true or unchallengeable For example my opinion may be Walton is the best in the world, Messi it rubbish, Smallwood is better than Kante, that Rovers natural level is league 2, and that Watford will win the prem next year. None of those opinions are valid, true or unchallengeable. So staying that's my opinion isn't a valid get out clause when people challenge said views.

And this is why we need Venkys out of the club and should be railing against such a terrible system.

In a word, yes. The primary school milk monitor has more authority than Waggot. And even in best case scenario that he does have authority then there is the minor issue of conflict of interest as his mate got him the gig.

Which shouldn't be used to excuse TM, a terrible keeper or be happy about the current situation. That said I'm fairly confident that the target, even with our lunatic owners, didn't include wasting £12 million on strikers or more pertenent to the discussion a keeper who drops so many clangers. Simply put if Walton is here next season we know that winning is not in the remit of the manager or owners. We would be using a proven failure who over the course of the season has demonstrated he isn't good enough. If we sign him it can only be for non footballing reasons..

It's a simple debate imo. TM isn't that good a manager, he is ok at best. In fact I think he is ok rather than useless but definitely not good. We are owned by Loons who are controlled by an agency that are third rate. All managers come from here. So given the pool and people making the selection the chances of us making a better appointment then TM are minute. The odds of making an appointment as good as TM isn't great either, in fact the likelihood is we would get worse. In no other club would the possibility of getting a worse manager be a reason to keep the current one. However in the circumstances at Rovers it seems a very compelling and strong motive. So roll the dice and very likely get worse/no benefit or stick with someone very limited who can't do it either. What a choice. No wonder we are stuffed until.Venkys go. Once we have a better owner TM will be out like a shot - would have been fired 3 times over at a normal club imo - and the possibility to progress becomes real. But until Venkys go we're stuck between a rock and a hard place with no way out...

Great post. Agree with 99% of it. Very well put. Only thing I would disagree with is the fear of another Coyle or substandard manager. Given the agency choses the manager or limits the options (look at last 3 for.compelling evidence of this) and Venkys history of appointments, and you have to say that it's a very real and genuine fear. It doesn't excuse TM or make him a good manager and in a normal club he would have gone three or four times by now. But just as the evidence points to TM being mediocre at best the evidence also points to the very real handicaps we have in appointing a new manager. In fact I would say imo the only reason for keeping TM is the extreme likelihood we will appoint worse.

To be fair it could only be an improvement on Coyle. I mean it literally couldn't get any worse bar a Kean 2 situation and that was a unique set of circumstances we will never see again. TM is distinctly average but the agency in charge does seem to specialise in dross. So yeah it's a lot more risky changing managers now even though TM isn't that good.