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DE.

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DE. last won the day on June 20

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  1. I'm still a long way from feeling like I can judge Eustace definitively yet. Last season was a survival job and he managed it, one way or another. This season we were among the favourites to potentially be relegated and our start has been better than expected, albeit with a couple of recent performances which show we're a long way from being a solid team. I feel like the next two home games - both in terms of performance and team selection - will give a better idea as to where we are, but it's going to take a while before I'd be confident in saying extend his contract or get rid of him. Too early to say one way or another at the moment, and I still have the overwhelming sense that until the ownership changes we're doomed to tread water, at best, no matter what.
  2. I would be shocked if Netflix does any kind of follow up. Considering they are now in a deep partnership with WWE, they'll be aware that any further digging into the worst aspects of McMahon and WWE could damage the brand as a whole. This documentary was designed to bring casual fans up to speed on WWE history, whilst painting Vince as a piece of shit - and emphasising that he's now gone from the company, so no need to worry about that anymore. Dark Side of the Ring has done a lot more to expose WWE and Vince's truly disgusting behaviour, and there's also a six part Behind the Bastards podcast on Vince which I'd highly recommend, as it goes into far more detail. As far as the recent charges against McMahon are concerned, Janel Grant's lawsuit is online in painful detail and if you can stomach it, then it's worth reading to get the full picture of how depraved Vince (and those surrounding him) are. It's pretty horrendous though, so not something you'd want to read if you can't deal with stuff like that. As far as Ashley Massaro's suicide is concerned, the details are much more horrific than just Massaro refusing to go along with storylines, unfortunately. She was raped on an overseas tour whilst she was drugged by somebody in the US military, and WWE covered the whole thing up. No charges, nothing. Funnily enough the documentary didn't cover that. I would imagine her suicide had a lot to do with that incident, and Vince is far from the only one with her blood on his hands. Fact is plenty of people inside and outside the industry knew what Vince was about for decades before the recent allegations finally took him down. He benefited from the media largely ignoring wrestling because it's always been considered low-brow and unworthy of serious reporting. In a way, WWE's ascension into a more respected form of entertainment over the past decade or so laid the groundwork for Vince's downfall. Not to mention the fact that the current allegations were so horrific that even Vince couldn't escape the fallout this time.
  3. A good management and coaching setup can do it - or if not, move the player on and bring in a more suitable option. At a normal club, anyway. Not all players are capable, but I don't see Dolan's flaws as something so deeply ingrained that they couldn't be improved with some serious coaching. But then, we don't seem to have too many players in the team who have improved their game at all. Pears has always oscillated between looking reasonable and looking awful. Brittain has always been crap at defending and sometimes decent at attacking (before him, Nyambe was the opposite). Carter hasn't really improved noticeably. Hyam has actually gone backwards. Pickering continues to be a 6, occasionally 7/10 performer who occasionally has a stinker. Trav inconsistent but ultimately not really any different to the player he was 3 or 4 years ago. Dolan continues to be very inconsistent. Gallagher never improved during his time here. Hedges hasn't added anything to his game since arriving. Adam Wharton had obvious potential and should have been tearing this league apart, but we never really got the best out of him and as a result he had to go to Palace before bigger clubs realised he could fulfil his potential and started circling. It should have been obvious here, and it could have led to a bidding war which meant we got a lot more than the £18m we sold him for. As it stood, only a single PL club was seriously interested, which is ridiculous but seemingly Rovers weren't doing enough with him as a player to make his best attributes obvious. Not even going to get into the likes of Vale, Leonard, Buckley, etc who have gone absolutely nowhere despite being highly regarded at youth level. There will be plenty of others in that category. Now, you could just say we have an entire squad of players incapable of any improvements or changes to their game, but I don't consider that very likely. What often happens is that the players we have with potential (going all the way back to the likes of Josh King and Tom Cairney) get bought by other clubs and significantly improve, having never really progressed here. Brereton is perhaps the one exception I can think of in recent times, but the Chile situation arguably played a bigger part in that than Rovers did,. and he still often reverted to BB from BBD when his confidence was shot. Armstrong basically left us with the same attributes he came to us with - pace and good Championship level finishing ability. Ash Philips was stolen from us before he ever got to the first team. The players deserve criticism to some degree, but when I see lack of progression in the vast majority of them year after year (at least at senior level), and this mentality issue that has been around for a decade now, I have to conclude that the club's structure is a bigger problem than the players on the pitch. Some players with potential will play well enough, irrespective of coaching, to get a move elsewhere. Players with capped potential, which is inevitably what we're left with these days, need strong coaching to be effective. It's been a long time since I've seen any evidence of that. Granted, JDT did try, but he was attempting to get most of them to play at a level that was beyond them so it was unlikely to work long-term without backing from the owners to reshape the squad - which, obviously, was not forthcoming.
  4. Staying true to their identity - wouldn't have it any other way.
  5. I assume the game plan at Preston was similar, as from memory by the 35 minute mark neither side had a shot on goal. I think we do need to be a little more attacking on the road, although I can understand Eustace's attempt to be pragmatic as our defence is susceptible to bring breached. It's a difficult balancing act but we do seem to need a bit of adjustment somewhere.
  6. Lol yeah indeed, I lumped him into the wrong bracket there. With him it's more general question marks over professionalism.
  7. I'd be okay with Dolan and Hedges continuing as squad players with a wage that reflects that. I think both are good options to come off the bench, for different reasons. I wouldn't want them re-signing as first team players with wages reflecting that, as I just don't think either are in that bracket if we have any serious ambition to ever get out of this league. Now, if you're factoring in Venky's, our lack of budget and the chances of us signing worse than Dolan and Hedges as replacements... well, it's a different conversation. Depends how much faith you have in the recruitment team continuing to work with what is likely to be a minuscule budget.
  8. Ultimately whenever he gets a run in the first team, he's usually struck down by injury soon afterwards. It's been a common theme in his time with us and. as you note, even at the beginning of this season he was struggling and put in a couple of pretty poor performances which were attributed by most to him not being fit. If he can keep himself injury-free then he's one of the few players I'd be happy to keep, as I like his versatility and think he's a great player when he's fit and on form - but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that his fitness issues are a big part of the reason he hasn't nailed down a place in the team or on the pitch. One of the other issues we have with JRC is that he wants to play CM - by his own public admission - but his best performances have come from RB/RWB. There could also be a clash there between him and Eustace, if JE would prefer to play him on the right but JRC is adamant about being in the centre. I imagine JRC would play on the right if he had to, but, we keep playing Carter there with JRC on the bench, so... I don't know.
  9. His injury record surely plays a part in that. Very difficult to have a position nailed down or be relied upon as a central part of the team when you're out of action as often as he has been. Obviously not his fault, but it is what it is.
  10. As I say mate, when it comes to Rovers we've seen this script before. There's still a lot of players - Pears, Hyam, Brittain, Pickering, Travis, Dolan, Hedges, Sigurdsson, JRC - who have been a part of our regular collapses. It isn't Eustace's fault, as he doesn't have the scope to completely remodel the team, but I'd need to see a lot of these players go before I'd be optimistic about our chances of bouncing back from setbacks. I can't just reset my memories and forget what they've been a part of in previous seasons. Raising hopes only to completely destroy those hopes time after time. A lot of the players in the team have burned me as a fan too many times before. I don't really trust or believe in them. I know they have talent, which they occasionally show, but the mentality isn't there and for many of them probably never will be. Most of them could get away with it in a team of stronger personalities, but in one where they make up a significant portion of the first team... not so much. I like some of the players we've brought in and think many of them do have a better mentality, but not enough of them are regular starters. They're either veterans in and around the fringes of the first team (McFadz, Weimann, Batth, Baker), youngsters (Duru, Beck, ACD) or relative unknowns in this division (Cantwell, Gueye, Ohashi, Toth). If at least some of them could push the usual suspects out of the team then that would be a start. I suppose we'll see as the season goes on. I would absolutely love to be wrong and see the lads steel themselves and put these past two poor results behind them, showing the fans that things have changed. Maybe that will happen - we live in hope - but past experiences just leave me in a pessimistic place at the moment.
  11. Honestly can't see him getting more than 4 or 5 with the way he shoots, and I'm sure I read before we signed him that he wasn't much good with his head either. We don't really play in a way where he'd have a lot of chances to fire a header towards goal anyway. He's got 3 league assists so far and I think he could get into double figures there, as he has shown capability for an incisive attacking pass. In terms of goals, though... I'd love him to prove me wrong, but I don't see him scoring many. Other players are going to need to step up there if we're going to play him as our primary striker. Goes without saying that's a bit of a concern.
  12. It's disappointing that after keeping some clean sheets we're back to shipping goals again. Our away form hadn't actually been that bad before the last two matches. A draw against Norwich at Carrow Road is respectable. Same with Burnley at the Turd. Preston was an awful performance, but a local derby and we took a point. Our home form has obviously been better, but it's not like before Tuesday we've been struggling badly away from home. The obvious concern is that we haven't won a match away from home yet, but the draws we did get before Tuesday were okay. Coventry and Plymouth were two good chances to get our first away win but we've been really dire in both. Whilst we're in an okay position at the moment, thanks to our home form, we've seen this script play out countless times before under Venky's when we start losing. Should we pick up a win at home to Swansea then there's no need for panic, particularly as we have another home match against WBA after that. No need to be majorly concerned quite yet, but the next couple of home matches feel like they'll be a real barometer as to whether we need to be seriously worried or not.
  13. When Dolan's form craters like this he needs to be taken out of the firing line. We've seen that time and time again over the past couple of seasons.
  14. Gueye has already shown some good link up play in previous matches with some very nice passes, so I think as a general footballer he's better than Gallagher. Problem is he can't really shoot properly. His technique for shooting is just... strange. Like watching a goalkeeper trying to shoot. For a striker it's quite unusual not to have a somewhat decent technique, but he doesn't seem to have that. I think Gueye has something about him, but he hasn't been the same player since returning from his suspension. Then again, the team as a whole has largely been poor during that period, so have to hope for some improvement after the international break.
  15. I think Eustace's comments actually reveal a lot without him outright stating things. He admitted that our gameplan today was to frustrate Plymouth for an hour and then try to nick a goal in the last 30 minutes. If he was talking about one of the division's better teams then you'd say fair enough, but he's saying he doesn't think our team can match up to teams like Plymouth for an entire match - away from home at least. Absolutely no disrespect to Plymouth, who seem to be going along nicely after a rough start, but imo those comments alone speak volumes about where Eustace sees us as a team. He's probably not wrong, especially after witnessing our last two performances, but yeah... a lot between the lines there.
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