StHelensRover

Whoever we end up appointing, I will be asking myself why we have got them and Stoke, Coventry, Derby, West Brom et al did not appoint them, having all changed manager in the last couple of months. Whoever we get will surely have applied for those other jobs as well or been considered, but not picked. All those teams except Albion in a much worse position than us at the time.

I feel very flat about all of it. I was planning to go to five of our remaining six away games to try and back us into the playoffs but I now think that will be a massive waste of time and money, not sure I should bother. Already got my Derby ticket but we know how that's going to go

A penny for the thoughts of the players if we appoint an uninspiring dud like Ismael, Wagner, Karanka. Bringing in a cheap cheerful nobody is a finger up to the squad from the hierarchy, basically throwing the towel in on promotion. Players aren't daft, they'll sniff out the lack of ambition immediately. When you got a supply teacher in for a few weeks at school you'd size them up within five minutes to know whether they're serious + whether you can take the piss and whether they're gonna make you do any work. It'll be the same when one of these has-beens walks through the door and starts diddling with the system, if that's who we end up going with. The players will be downing tools and phoning their agents, esp the ones towards end of contracts. They're not Rovers fans, they're players who want to earn as much as they can and win as much as they can. I couldn't be arsed if I was them either.

David or Ryan? (Will yield similar results 😂)

Fwiw I think Leicester made a massive error in potting Cooper, I don't think they'd be as bad as they are right now. He possibly could have kept them up, but we'll never know and they are really staring down the barrel now

The "we won the league at Ewood" is so small-time it completely sums them up as a club and a fanbase. They technically clinched the 2nd division title at Ewood Park with a very good goal, which was their only shot on target in that match. If you add in the context that they had failed to win the title before then because they had mucked up their previous two fixtures against fodder, it's even less impressive. Let them crow about it, division two title, small-time. Talking about "avenging" that result, who cares? It doesn't even come close to the April Fools Day Massacre, the 5-0 could easily have been 7 or 8. Imagine if we'd had social media sites back then, with all the trolling and goading you see online these days, they would have unplugged the internet in B*rnley for a month. I also find it bizarre that their fans regularly post on our forums. I don't think they should be banned, everyone free to do as they like. But I've never been on any of their social media sites, forums, websites in my life and never would, I can't understand why you would.

Why wouldn't you be begging Steve Cooper to come here? I would. Hasn't he gotten a team into the Championship playoffs 3 times in a row, including a win with Forest from when they were at the bottom? He's also done that fairly recently. He would be far and away the best candidate for the job, if we weren't offering league one salaries

Surely not, if they did that's absolutely laughable, embarrassing, tinpot and completely lacking in any ambition if they travelled down on the day, surely not. 😳

No question. Sanderson defended the initial break very poorly but Pears had an age to come out and narrow the angle. The angle should be second nature to a professional goalie they shouldn't even have to think about it, but he ran out too late and made a bizarre angle which allowed him to roll it past him straight in. It was a tidy finish but 9 times out of 10 in the Championship the goalie stops that.

Mad isn't it? You would think (hope) this is final game before an appointment, it's going to be the first tape the new manager watches back. How do you sell yourself as a "first name on team sheet" to a new manager with a performance like that?

Odd that you're not able to give zero as a score, Pears gets ZERO from me 😂

We've been out-thought, out-worked and bullied today. We've been second best in every single metric you could think of, except possession, which counts for nothing. Get them in an hour early on Monday and make them watch it back

Not trying to be hysterical, objectively I think this is the worst performance of the season so far 👎

Jesus Christ he's done it again

Yet another stinker for Pears' scrapbook. He is useless!

90+5 for the Lions Chin up Eustace 😂

There's a long way to go yet in those early kickoffs but if it stays like this, they're in big trouble... 👀

The fourth official has started holding up maracas when we make a sub instead of the board now

League title 😂😂😂

They other sections might have sold out, they were available when I bought mine

Karanka would be the worst of the lot for me, I think we'd miss out on the top 6 and I think he'd be potted in November with us stuck in a relegation scrap. Would love someone to come back to this post when we're in the Premier League under his stewardship but I can't see it. The two ideal appointments would be either Dyche or Steve Cooper. Both know exactly what to do in this position to get promotion or playoffs, done it on multiple occasions. We can't afford either of them though so we're stuck picking from unknown quantities and absolute chancers.

Still baffled as to why so many people want Gary O'Neil. I have a dreadful feeling it's going to be him and he has no business being our manager 👎 It's damning that our current league position should make it the most attractive job around right now for an out of work manager, but that the candidates are all absolutely dogshit. ( maybe that's why they're out of work) I wonder if any employed football league managers besides Wellens are sniffing round it like Eustace was doing while with us, that we don't yet know about. I suppose we wouldn't pay a fee to release them, we're too tight.

Getting points on the board early has the added psychological benefit, it gives our group of players that feeling of being close enough to touch playoffs, while it demoralises the players and fanbases of those chasing us

All the games between Rovers, B*rnley and Preston this season have been very close, cagey affairs and low on quality. Very much the local derby stereotype and this is shaping up similarly

Got to be aggressive from the first minute today, really put it on them early. We tend to start well at home and often dominate the first 20-30 minutes, but then what happens next usually depends on whether we score in that time or not. If we score first today then make it awkward we might take the wind out of their sails. If they somehow get the first goal we'll be in serious bother. Crowd will turn and they will shut up shop.