11 minutes ago, Torgeir said:

Didn't Egg mention there was an agreement in place, it just cannot be formalised yet?

We're bound to mess it up somehow. 

Who needs a striker anyway? Only one player has had more shots than Szmodics in the Championship as well - so we're doing something right. 
Top of the scoring charts and joint 14th in the assists.

31 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

So 3 times then?

Or can we class Wahlstedt hitting the bar as us hitting the bar?

2-2 on bar hitting. 

4 minutes ago, Inferi said:

However, our xG has been higher than our opponent's for half of our matches. We are not consistently creating more dangerous goalscoring chances than our opponents.

 

Thought I'd have a look at that in a bit of detail:

Rovers 1.52 v WBA 0.84

Rotherham 0.7 vs Rovers 2.58

Rovers 1.63 v Hull 2.13

Watford 1.48 v Rovers 0.34

Plymouth 1.13 v Rovers 1.42

Rovers 2.38 v Middlesbrough 2.22

Rovers 2.32 v Sunderland 1.84

Ipswich 2.64 vs Rovers 0.66

Rovers 1.24 vs Leicester 1.97

Coventry 0.72 vs Rovers 0.52

AVERAGE OVER THE SEASON:

Average xG for Rovers - 1.461

Average xG for Opposition - 1.546

We're getting worse as well:

So it's fine saying we're just being unlucky and creating more than the opposition.

But it isn't actually true. 

1 hour ago, Displaced Rover said:

Give me shithousing our way to 1-0 wins all season any day. No points for style.

Mark Hughes is newly available 😂

On 02/10/2023 at 16:41, AllRoverAsia said:

And the 3 who look favourable are all loans.

 

Sigurdsson isn't technically a loan - just a one year deal. I don't think he could have signed any longer due to his contract in Russia being 'on pause' but that is due to expire next summer anyway.

You'd think most clubs would have found a way to make the deal become permanent - but we all know what will happen here. He will be a massive success and we'll lose him for nothing to a Premier League club at the end of the season. 

4 hours ago, Penwortham Blue said:

That is all it takes in this league, a few wins. Boro and Coventry last year were rock bottom and ended up meeting in the play offs. As we are currently experiencing, a run of losses and the reverse is true.

Exactly this. If we sort things out quickly and go on a bit of a run - we're right up there.

If we'd have done a Boro and won our last 3 - the top of the table would look like this:

Ipswich 22

Leicester 21

Preston 20

Rovers 19

However, lose our next three and we're right down there. 

I know what is currently more likely. 

1 hour ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Even Grella played for us initially.

Although he got injured by half time on his debut and was out for a month 😂

3 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I think Levy would have stopped it and let him gone for a free transfer. 

I do think Kane made the best decision for him moving to Bayern as he will be playing Champions League football every season and should win the league. 

Completely agree on the Bayern move. It's a great city and a much better career move than Manchester United at present. 

1 minute ago, chaddyrovers said:

I don't think Spurs and Levy would have ever sold to another PL club. 

I think if United wanted him badly enough - he'd have gone there.

Spurs might have accepted an offer from United if they knew he didn't want to go anywhere else and he was going to go for free next summer if they didn't accept an offer. 

7 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Well perhaps Proctor needs sacking as his judgement seems awry!  Seems he was never going to be ready for the season's start - farcical.

 

And yet there were people on here saying he didn't have any issues with injuries and it was all anecdotal 😂

6 minutes ago, Norbert Rassragr said:

Funny how Ten Haag looked promising at one point, and is now failing like every manager since Ferguson. It's going to be a very long time before they challenge for the title.

I thought he was the one they should have gone for at the time. I still thought that last season. It's looking like he's not the right choice at all this season.

Releasing De Gea on a free and spending over £40m on Onana makes selling Kaminski and replacing him with Pears almost seem sensible.

They could have spent the Mount and Onana money on Kane - although their new striker at least looked decent last night.

Definitely enjoyable to watch them toil. 

2 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Given even the dogs in the street knew about his fitness history at Plymouth you would have thought he would have been given the fitness test to end all fitness tests. Maybe it was the fitness test that knackered him up ?

Probably some more cost cutting exercises - fitness test was just him signing a piece of paper to say he was fit. 

2 hours ago, Torgeir said:

They're not looking very potent but are a solid side that's difficult to break down. We have to stay patient and try and expose McFadzean on the break.

They've scored 10 and conceded 9 in their last 5. 

We've scored 12 and conceded 14 in our last 5. 

Neither side have failed to score or managed to keep a clean sheet in those.

Coventry to win and BTTS is 13/5. 

Guaranteed if I put that on Coventry will win 3-0. 

I'm a fan of JDT. I think with backing he could actually get us promoted. He's not perfect, but he's certainly improved a number of our players. 

However, it is also worth remembering the form we have shown this season is a continuation of the dire results at the end of last season.

Purely looking at league games:

First 35 league games - 18 wins (51.4% win rate) up to and including the excellent 1-0 win over Sheffield United at home. We were sitting 4th in the league at that point after winning four on the bounce.

The next 20 league games - 5 wins (25% win rate).

A club winning more than 50% of their games should be aiming for promotion not to avoid relegation. 

Unfortunately, budget cuts, lack of leaders/experience on the pitch, overly attacking set up and lack of a fit striker are all hurting us. JDT has to take responsibility for the overly attacking set up - but the rest of the decline is the fault of the owners/administration. Not even sure he can take the full responsibility for Pears as I feel Kaminski would have been first choice had we not been forced to sell. 

23 hours ago, CrouchingNunhiddenCucumber said:

Sammie you beaut!!!

Problem is we're going to have to score 5 to win it 

Sadly predictable.

13 hours ago, Andy said:

Be surprised if he'd be interested in Rangers.

If he holds out for another few months, a couple of Prem jobs will become available.

He'd snap their hands off if offered the job there.

He'd leave Rovers' for any club who could provide him with any sort of backing you'd expect.

On 28/09/2023 at 07:58, Ossydave said:

Whilst I'm not his biggest fan on the pitch, it's worth bearing in mind he's been through some really challenging times as a young lad, losing his best friend etc. We don't know the full picture but hopefully he is back smiling soon, whatever the issue may be.

Easy to forget he's just a 21 year old lad.

17 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Wahlstedt

Rankin Costello Hill Hyam Pickering

Tronstad Wharton Travis

Moran Szmodics Sigurdsson

 

I'd pretty much go for that - with the exception of JRC in midfield instead of Tronstad, and Brittain playing at right back. 

Tough to drop Carter as it's not his fault that the defence was exposed - but Hill did look alright the other night. 

37 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

Fair play to the 200 or so Cardiff fans, who made a good effort I thought.

333 of them officially. Great effort for a Wednesday night when they knew they'd make wholesale changes. 

36 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

The BBC sports football thread has an article - The Best Volleyed goals in the Premier League - predictably Tugay doesn’t feature or Shearer whilst he was at Rovers.

The Tugay one against Spurs is one of the cleanest volleys I've ever seen - absolutely should be in there.

The Pedersen one against Fulham as well (where Tugay also scored an incredible volley in the same game).

Well we've currently scored more than double any other side in the competition......

Well you can't argue with two goals, two assists and winning a penalty.

Definitely got something about him this lad. Feel he'll still take a couple of months to get used to Championship level football - but the early signs are very promising.

48 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

We also should consider an extra midfielder (or even centre back) but its difficult to know how to play Sigurdsson, Moran and Szmodics as the main attacking 3 whilst retaining any balance.

I'd do exactly that at the moment with Gallagher and Ennis out. I'd have Sigurdsson, Moran and Szmodics as a very fluid front three and have an extra body in midfield to make us less vulnerable defensively. 

Always the option to bring Leonard on later in the game if it's not working.

I had very low expectations for Telalovic from the off.