27 minutes ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Funnily enough I have a hunch that the nobbers are going to sneak into the playoffs.

 

If it means they beat Huddersfield along the way, I'd probably take that, it's the best of the 2 options. 

You'd expect Leicester to beat Millwall and Norwich to win at Wednesday. I'll probably be able to find a silver lining whatever the result in the Plymouth v QPR game, but it's Hudders at Preston which worries me tomorrow. 

2 hours ago, Hasta said:

That’s because we scored 5 in a game where we were able to field Hedges, Dolan, Gally and Szmodics for the first time, and we also had JRC, Hyam and Pears playing which JDT didn’t have at the start of January.

If those 7 players had constantly been available during JDT’s last 11 games, does anyone really think we wouldn’t have better stats that what is posted there?

Plus it again desperately includes the Stoke game to prove, err, I’m not sure what. That Eustace’s run is better than JDT’s worst run across 19 months when we had a massive injury crisis?

 

All it does is show that the form has been turned around to a degree, but particularly the defence,hopefully enough to keep us up. 

1 hour ago, Hasta said:

That’s because we scored 5 in a game where we were able to field Hedges, Dolan, Gally and Szmodics for the first time, and we also had JRC, Hyam and Pears playing which JDT didn’t have at the start of January.

If those 7 players had constantly been available during JDT’s last 11 games, does anyone really think we wouldn’t have better stats that what is posted there?

Plus it again desperately includes the Stoke game to prove, err, I’m not sure what. That Eustace’s run is better than JDT’s worst run across 19 months when we had a massive injury crisis?

 

It's almost as if you want Eustace to be worse than Tomasson. 

5 minutes ago, BigBar said:

This was very interesting on the Tomasson Eustace debate.

It is👍

The goals against is obviously the most noticeable, but didn't realise we've actually scored 3 more a well. 

17 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

If we can draw our way to safety then great. But if we do go down it will be too many draws that will have done it under JE.

(I’m talking about JE’s reign and what he could influence, I’m aware that the wheels had come off with JDT and he also would take some blame).

Yeah I agree, but I was talking about Stokegate. Don't really know why it matters so much. 

Don't know what it matters who is credited with the Stoke win as long as we stay up,don't really know why Eustace would get involved in the argument. 

Just consider it as the Tomasson era, and post Tomasson era, no arguments there. 

Personally couldn't care less if we draw our way to safety. 

24 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Tomasson like Eustace would have had to get less than a point a game to get to 50 points. Im not sure that Tomasson would have kept us up but obviously there was a lot of baggage there with him clearly and understandably having the hump having been seriously let down by the owners, that situation had become untenable. So any new manager wouldnt have that baggage. But even relegation form over these last 15 games under Eustace can keep us up which means that it isnt that impressive IMO. Especially with the returning players.

It isn't "relegation form" if he keeps us up, it's all about doing the necessary compared to those around us. 

It's delicately poised going into the final furlong, but there are 8 teams who would swap positions with Rovers. Parity at 10 o'clock on Wednesday night and we'd be in a strong position to stay up. 

A tough one at Bristol,like yesterday it's very important we don't pick up early yellows and see out the first 15 minutes. 

5 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Commendable? Thats strong considering we have less than 1 point per game. You can spin either the lack of wins (only 1) or the lack of losses (only 3) but its points that are important and in that regard, picking up points at the rate we have across a season would send you down in most seasons.

I appreciate that he picked us up in terrible form and I know how keen you are you to go against Tomasson so I feel that you are naturally more inclined to big up the post Tomasson era because you are biased against him, and that whole situation had become toxic. But it doesnt mean that the results under Eustace are commendable. We should get over the line but had he taken us down, which he might but its unlikely now I think, it would have taken a horrendously bad set of results to do so that would have been barely precedented because of the buffer we had due to the points accumulated in the first few months. 

There are certainly green shoots coming through now and signs of improvement to suggest that going forward, the side can get better under him. We have only scored (admittedly 5) in one of the last 4 games in which we all seem to agree have shown noticeable improvement even though we are playing better.

Leeds have the best squad at this level and I would probably suggest that Leicester have at least as good a squad as Southampton.

At the end of the day, it all depends how bad you think the situation was when Tomasson left,it's nothing to do with liking someone or not. 

I think we were going down and Eustace will have kept us up. You think everything would have been OK and we'd have stayed up under Tomasson anyway. 

I just don't see any evidence for your view, other than a couple of players have come back from injury, one of which probably won't play again this season. 

27 minutes ago, martonrover said:

That is where I disagree.

i think we would’ve gone down had Tomasson stayed.

Eustace’s results haven’t been great, but they are better than Tomasson’s had been over a sustained period.

We were cannon fodder and it’s pretty obvious that he had lost the dressing room.

We haven’t won enough games to get clear under Eustace, but he has made us harder to beat.

Hopefully, that will be enough come May.

I've no doubt we were going down under Tomasson. 

We were never going to just start winning, we were crash landing into League 1. Much has been made of the lack of wins, but to lose 3 in 12, only conceding 12 goals has been a commendable effort. 

14 minutes ago, superniko said:

Only 2 more points needed in my opinion. 

With 5 games left, if we get to 48 it means Birmingham or Wednesday need 7 points from 5 so can only lose max 2 matches each. 
Thats not even taken account of the other 5 teams below us.

Good point and we’re very close to being safe.  

Said coming off today, the Wednesday game may actually turn out to be a must not lose. 

2 hours ago, Herbie6590 said:

https://www.brfcs.com/magazine/articles/they-played-for-both-rovers-and-the-saints/473

..... or to give him his real name, Leon Worst. 

45 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Agreed, which was my point. He will have only done close to a great job if he accrues enough points to keep us up - and he’ll need wins to do that (the first one on Monday was very timely, let’s try and almost put it to bed with another tomorrow).

No prizes in ‘making us solid’ with clean sheets and not losing many if too many draws lead to relegation.

 

Well obviously, but I would have thought there's maybe a correlation between "making us solid" and actually having a chance to win a game. 

Unless you think conceding 27 goals every 11 games is the way to go. 

8 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Surely enough points on the board are the only metric that says you are doing a good job of not? You could draw every game 0-0 but go down… but think of the unbeaten run and clean sheets!

If we get enough points to stay up he will have done his job, however he gets them.

We have obviously drawn a lot during Eustace's 11 matches, but the 11 previous we were lucky if we were even in a game, never mind drawing, and conceding 27 in the process. 

At least he's given us a chance we didn't look like having. 

19 hours ago, B16Rover said:

 

Admittedly on the windup slightly here but given we had a manager held ransom, a harder run and no fit players from mid November this doesn't look great 

Tomasson's figures include pre Christmas when we were playing as well as we have for some time. 

It's the post Christmas slide which needed arresting, we were in freefall and going down, hopefully Eustace can keep us up. As someone else has said, you can read stats however you want to some degree. 

If you look at Eustace's matches won, with or without Stoke, it looks poor. If you look at his matches lost and goals conceded he's done a great job. 

Take your pick. 

35 minutes ago, Bohinen1983 said:

I'd have Poveda back in a heartbeat. Fast, skillful and bags of pace- everything this side lacks- get another lad like that on the other flank, a ball carrying centre mid, two new strikers, a keeper, right back, left back and an extra body in centre mid and we'll be in with a chance of finishing 2nd bottom instead of rock bottom. 

Poveda's performance in the home game against Sheff Utd was outstanding, he then got injured the game after, who knows what might have been. 

4 hours ago, aletheia said:

Van Hecke. Think i've raised it before -the issue of the quality of loans which has declined.

Never liked Mowbray as a manager but he did seem to get some good loans. Tosin, Elliot etc

Is that:

down to cash

down to Mowbray's network -agents/personal contacts being better than present incumbents

the dysfuntion at Rovers is so well known that we are a last resort

To be honest, i think those 3 loans fail into the good as it gets category. 

2 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Are you Gallagher's Mum? He's an absolute liability and our top earner to boot.

I would however like to think we could sign Dolan up - failure to do so would reflect extremely badly on Broughton yet again 

You're probably right, I mean, what does Keiran Mckenna know? 

47 minutes ago, arbitro said:

Wow, where did that come from? I thought we would win today but that exceeded my wildest dreams. 

It was a terrific team performance and the type of match when you struggle to pick any outstanding players because they were all on their game. After a tentative opening we simply blew them away with some great pressing and transitioning, both done with a great tempo and aggression. To score five after the dearth of recent goals really was something to behold and credit to Eustace who got his tactics right and the game plan worked exceptionally well. The effort put in was another feature epitomised by Dolan and Szmodics. The former has his detractors and can be inconsistent but the last two games have shown he has these performances in his locker. What can you say about Szmodics? I was thinking the drive home that his goals to chances ratio must be really good because he doesn't seem to miss many. In the last couple of minutes of stoppage time at the end he was still chasing and pressing. In truth I would have taken him off after an hour to protect him but with his attitude he would probably have had a meltdown. It's only one win and we have some work to do yet but I'm going to enjoy the next few days.

Well done to the fans who travelled today too. They really supported the team today and after recent weeks I'd like to think the win is for them.

If Dolan or Gallagher came up for sale at another club, we wouldn't be able to afford them. They're already paid for, it's vitally important they're both signed up. 

5 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

How? We've conceded in nearly every game.

If we'd have had 7 clean sheets I would say that is true but we're still conceding goals only now, today aside, we've totally nullified our attacking threat.

Almost as though having nothing up front means more has to be committed forward to create goals and that, funnily enough, leaves us exposed at the back.

When Szmodics is sold for a pittance in the summer and he's not replaced how many will we win when conceding nearly every game and we've got Markanday and Leonard up front?

In Tomasson's last 11 games we conceded 27,in the 11 since we've conceded 11, and never more than 2.

We've lost 3 out of that 11,all by a single goal. We needed tightening up, we were going down. The bloke has shown some nous. 

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

delighted for him today. 

He has made harder to beat and defensively much better plus having JRC back from injury and having that front 4 available will be massive help to him going forward

Defensively, the turnaround has been impressive. 

Outstanding today, man of the match 

2 minutes ago, DaveyB said:

We absolutely don’t, but God bless your optimism!

Go on then?