Dreams of 1995

Some great challenges made and no whiff of an argument from either side. Out of your seat stuff. I like Brentford, the way they played was difficult to set up against. Quick football all round. Travis and Johnson absolute shit houses in the middle. Couple of errors from brilliant but completely up for it. Marked improvement second half.

I don’t think there was anything mentally weak about our performance today.

Travis second half performance was unbelievable. What a man. Could be happier but also delighted with the players today. A lot of confidence going into Stoke and Swansea this week.

Do you know what lads I’m actually as equally gutted as I am impressed. Top 2 form sides put on a spectacle. We looked dangerous every time we got forward, in behind the back line and looked at one point in absolute control. Pegged back by a worldy. Reminiscent of the Torres goal against us the once. Honestly you cannot criticise a man for that goal, it was beautifully taken. The penalty definitely shouldn’t have been given but it probably levelled out the penalty he gave us. Knew he was going to give it. I was impressed with us all over the pitch. We went there and gave it our all, not a fault to give really. I’d have taken a draw at the start but so so gutted not to come away with all 3 points. Armas 1-1, he a fraction off side at the very end too. On another day it could have gone any way. Take that form into stoke and Swansea and we will win. We are the two sides to beat right now and neither could beat the other - says all ya need to know. Onto next Tuesday full of confidence now. Great game.

I promise you it isn’t

These little catch lines of how people are always out to portray others as something there are not are getting boring man. It's a forum - you are judged by the content you put out. If you aren't putting yourself across as you intend then that's your look out and up to you to change the way you word things to suit. Alternatively, discuss your points and try and change that perception. Is it discussion we want or an echo chamber? You've changed from an undoubted failure to your opinion. That's better. It's an opinion at the end of the day but you won't get full agreement from the fans on that. If you are going to throw the word failure around you save it for when something has failed: Whittingham or Gladwin. Gallagher is playing and we are winning matches when he plays. The money spent on him is testament to the fees commanded in modern football and is £5m a lot of money for an English centre forward? We have all seen the difficulties clubs are facing trying to attract quality strikers because they demand such insane fees. £5m on Gallagher isn't money wasted. His goal scoring record should be better but I'll wait until the side is properly settled before I judge him. I fully expect us to go out for wingers in the summer which will solve the problem of playing him out wide. You know, in my opinion, Downing and Antonsson were successful for what we needed them for. Each played their part in the promotion, cost us nothing and then left without any fuss made. That to me is a successful interaction between a player and a club. You won't deem that successful because they didn't turn up trees or get sold for multi millions of pounds but they did the job required, reached targets and moved on. How is that not a success? It did exactly what was intended to do. What I will end the post on is that I've not implied you are out for the manager but you are dealing in absolutes. "He is a failure" then when it's argued against you are trying to claim people are out to paint you in a negative spin. Of course it will be argued against because there's not many people who will call Gallagher an objective failure. You put in your posts plenty of caveats to as why people can't be considered as successful signings but none for why they are considered failures. To me failure is something that has been exhausted and is no longer workable. Gallagher has brought results, as shown in another topic, and has scored some goals too. He has a future at this club. To me that isn't a failure and to judge him as so only discredits the supposed facts you are using to back up what is ultimately just an opinion.

Gladwin is definitely a failure. I apologise for that. Was always a bit of a weird signings. You go on about people being defensive but you make outlandish statements like the one in bold man. Gallagher isn't "undoubtedly" a failure. The entire fan base will stand with you in saying Gladwin, Caddis, Whittingham and maybe even BB. How can you say that Rothwell, Bell aren't successes if they have played but Gallagher is a downright failure? It's like it's one rule for one and another for another. This isn't me saying Bell and Rothwell are particularly successful signings but by the same token you can't call Gallagher a failure. Gallagher might get 10 goals next season and linked with a big move away like Armstrong now - would that turn him around from an undoubted failure to a success? I also forgot Armstrong from the list of successes. Perhaps tells me you are more keen to spot the failures than the successes. We can all go into individual opinions of signings, which effectively this discussion is, but by and large I will judge the incomings / outgoings of Mowbray based on the state of the squad now vs the state of the squad when he arrived. Is the squad in a better state? Yes Is there more value in this squad than when he arrived? Yes However, are there arguments to suggest 12m could have been better spent? Definitely. However, speaking from a broad range like we are, it is without doubt that our squad is far better therefore it would be unwise to call him unsuccessful in recruiting. Coyle was unsuccessful because he brought in past-it players or chancers (Stokes) that didn't have any resale value or ambition. Now the argument is he didn't have 12m but that's a different matter entirely; Mowbray works with what he has got. At 20 years old I'm willing to give Brereton another 2 years. Likewise I'm adamant that Gallagher isn't an undoubted failure. It's harsh on the lad. However I'll let roversfan99 have his moment because he's adamant for all the world he is. You can't change the opinion of a man who has his mind up, no matter how often he tries to say his thinking is fluid when it comes to Rovers. We've posted stats about how we win games with Gallagher on the wing but he's still, in his eyes, an "undoubted failure". A player who has played the majority of our games as we sit here 3 points from play offs, 1st in the form table since December and he's an "undoubted failure" because of a few poor games.

Antonsson scored some valuable goals for us and was instrumental in our winning spell pre-Christmas of that season. A lot of accusations of revisionism on this thread so let's not do that ourselves. Nuttall got a few goals for us too. Signed on a free, left on a fee. Does he deserve to be behind so many of them players? It was decent business for the club really. He performed very, very well for our U23s in their great season. Payne was back up to Dack. Not particularly great but useful in his time here. A loan signing isn't bad. Difficult to disagree with the likes of Caddis, Hart, Whittingham, Harper. Although they were free / loans so it's not exactly an outlay for the club. They filled a gap where required and were largely League 1 signings. I also think it's harsh on Johnson. He's not been spectacular but he's had a few good performances too. If that post was meant to signal Mowbray as a failure in the transfer market then I think it's done the opposite for me unfortunately. Brereton so far is the only signing I'd consider a real failure because he cost a lot of money. Most of his signings have been free / loans and they are that for a reason. Some work out, some don't. I think his good signings far outweigh his terrible ones. Good - Dack, Holtby, Downing, Reed, Tosin, Smallwood (for the league), P. Downing (League 1), Outright Bad - Brereton, Caddis, Whittingham, Harper. I even think Harper in that list is a bit of a tough one for him. He did ok when back at West Brom. Overall I think there's too much desire from both sides to either label Mowbray as a big success or a big failure. He's neither, really. He's operating within the clubs limitations and we unfortunately were at a position where we couldn't attract the better names when he came. This season he's added the likes of Tosin, Holtby and Stewart Downing to the club and his signings are showing much more promise, naturally.

I like Dominic Samuel to be truthful. He has been unlucky with injuries but that's probably why he's at the level he is at. He hasn't played much football for a 25 year old and you wonder when he'll have a full season. I hope he starts on Saturday because I think he gives us an extra bit than Gallagher does out wide. The more the week goes on the more I feel a bit anxious about Buckley starting. You look at Brentford's defence and you can imagine a young lad like him being kicked about a bit by Pontus and co. Problem is we don't have many other options. Dack bounces off players like that and that's what makes him so good whereas our younger lads, or even if Rothwell or Holtby where about, have it in them to go missing against an opposition like that. Nervous isn't even the word about Saturday for whatever reason. I still maintain we can "afford to lose", maybe a counter phrase to a "must win", but a win and we are well in the mix after a superb couple of months. Coupled with the fact I think a few players are back in the coming weeks and it will be a sensational weekend.

Defo the latter. We are never far from a conspiracy theory on here ?

Whilst it isn’t a must win game a win certainly changes our season. Confidence is key at this stage of the season and more often than not teams that go into the play offs with that confidence get promoted - see Aston Villa. a loss and our season isn’t over, so in that case it isn’t must win. The Stoke and Swansea games are though.

I’d probably rather JRC than Chapman. Don’t think he does much when he comes on. Pace can be a game changer though. Don’t think Brereton should be dropped from the bench though. He’s been ok in his last few games when coming on.

But this season he’s Rovers’ number 1. To describe him as Brighton’s no 4 is a bit harsh because he’s our player for the season.

Walton is a good goalkeeper. Don’t know whether he’ll leap straight into a top tier club mind but I’d imagine we will see him there eventually. As we will with Raya

The phrase there’s no smoke without fire springs to mind. Goals and assists are what I care about. Swear people said Dack had a bad attitude too. He’s loved here. Ive always had Rovers fans as a club where bad lads can thrive. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s one for that myth thread there is somewhere. There’s endless talent come through here that perhaps had an attitude that wouldn’t fit in most places. Dunny being one, loved a drink. Bellamy, Bentley, Savage, Diouf as mentioned. Tugay was a heavy smoker which may not have washed at most clubs. I’m kind of rambling here but I wouldn’t say no to a player based on what other fans and clubs have said about him. As an example I never saw much of Rodwells supposed bad attitude here. He did alright on the pitch he just wasn’t good enough for what we wanted.

Even so we have never festered around the bottom half. We’ve been largely mid table which is exactly where most posters expected us to be. All in all I’ve been happy with this season and don’t particularly see any part of it as a failure. We can agree to disagree on that. It’s obvious you see the good points and the bad but I took objection to the use of the word festering - it would imply we spent a lot of time there and that simply isn’t true. I suspect that the fact he went to a club like Hull says a lot about the player. Such a cheap deal for a man with so many goals and assists - why only Hull? It’s no use crying about spilt milk though and any arguments about whether he’d be a good or bad signing should probably wait until after the season to see how he’s done in this league.

Nah. It's overpriced. You can show interest in a player and then wait for the price back. Nothing wrong with that. Incidentally wasn't it you who criticised us for not going in for Maddison? He was £2,5m, clearly out of our budget if £3m is, so why would you have wanted us to 'chase an unrealistic target'? The goalposts move constantly at the moment. You are very good at using words to accentuate a point. "Festering" near the bottom would mean that we've spent a lot of time this season there. I decided, as usual, to do a bit of research: Matchdays 1 - 3 = Bottom Half. Matchday 4 - 11th Rather than list each matchday I'll zip ahead, for the sake of ease Matchday 5 = 13th Matchday 10 = 12th Matchday 15 = 16th Matchday 20 = 10th Matchday 25 = 13th Matchday 30 = 13th Matchday 33 = 8th In what part of the season did we "fester" near the bottom? The first 3 games? I'd never ever ever consider the first 3 games as festering. The table changes dramatically up until about gameday 12. Source: https://fussball.wettpoint.com/en/tables/england-championship.html We may have different definitions of festering and realistic.

If you don't think Ronan Curtis is a realistic target for us then you must think very little of the club. The £3m asking price was unrealistic but the player definitely not.

Yeah man it is a bit of a hap hazard statistic but without the data from things such as Opta it's impossible to put anything together with more accuracy. We do score most of our goals early on though and the line ups suggest he did start those games on the wing. With any luck we sign a right winger in the summer and this argument is dealt with then. We need to find some players who can can find the byline and cross the ball, it's a timeless skill because it is so hard to deal with.

Will we? If this current squad is sitting where we are now then the positions I see need filling are: GK, CB and wingers. I wouldn't say that's necessarily a overhaul. I suppose it depends on your definition of overhaul but I'd argue that adding to the squad isn't necessarily overhauling it. I'd consider an overhaul being what TM did when we dropped to league 1. We saw 19 players arrive between 17 / 18 and similar went the other way. Last season we had 7 incomings: Downing, Gallagher, Walton, Tosin, Cunningham, Holtby and Johnson with only Raya departing. Would you consider that an overhaul? I'd say we need about the same, 5 or 6 signings next summer, however we should see more departures with Mulgrew and Smallwood needing shifting. I think 'significant overhaul' is a significant overstatement.

I suppose you can want the man out and still appreciate all the work he’s done. It would have been with a heavy heart I’d have seen him gone but there’s been twice now where I’ve resigned to the fact we need a change. One, though, was totally reactionary to our terrible start in League 1 and I dare anyone to say they kept faith with him during that. Tony has this club in a better place now and, if we didn’t win a game until the end of the season, I’d be in the camp of saying goodbye but I’d also have tremendous appreciation for all he has done for this club. As someone who doesn’t live local anymore our reputation has grown massively since he’s came, to the point where someone actually said to me today “you have turned a corner and look to be on the way back, it’ll be good to see you back in the Prem”. I had to remind him we were some way off ever being close to what we were but it was nice to see that our stock has risen. He spoke more about how we seem to be operating normally and getting the right players in etc etc, it wasn’t just based on our league position.

It also has the potential to springboard us! This feels like a titanic game for us and I’m excited for it already - it’s only Monday!! Not felt like it in some time. If we lose I will be absolutely gutted but the test then becomes whether we can pick ourselves up. Make no mistakes this is a game we could lose easily, Brentford are no mugs but all the team can do is give it 100% and I’m sure all our fans will be happy regardless

Jesus. No one is taking pot shots. Stop being so over sensitive because every now and again you get it wrong. All people are saying is that on here it seems the man can do no right, so right now when he’s getting it right people are trying to highlight the fact. For example, we are plagued with injuries, still winning, and the likes of yourself are trying to peddle the line he’s winning BECAUSE of the injuries. It’s comical and, on occasion, can only be met with the derision it so deserves as discussion is simply a no go. Make no mistake that all this whinging about others is coming from the same guy that has brought up Chaddys support of Bowyer several times when in discussion with him, as if to discredit his opinion. When the shoes fits and all that ? Plenty of excellent discussion is still held on this board amongst some posters, I had a decent discussion only yesterday about Gallagher with Hasta n co. If you aren’t included in that discussion then perhaps you need to take a look at why, because it certainly isn’t the case across this entire board.

Ok, I'll bite. How is it selfish?

Keep the team how it was vs Charlton, we were better in every aspect. They have some good defenders but when we've got corners / attacking free kicks get Lenihan, Johnson and Adarabaiyo on Raya and let's put the little tit under some pressure. He has a drop in him. It's on Sky which often means a Rovers loss but I'm going to go for a score draw here. 1-1.