1 hour ago, arbitro said:

In the months before my retirement John the real difficulty was motivation for me. As I got closer to the day the harder it was to show any enthusiasm. Perhaps Mowbray has been on this 'journey' too.

Same for me Tony; I never thought I would check out, but I did. Maybe he was ticked off sufficiently with Venkys after the window to not see why he should bust a gut to make them £150 million richer.

13 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

As poor as their form has been, 4 points is 4 points and an additional 4 points would still have had us in with a realistic chance of 6th.

The tonkerman has really had to go some in the second half of the season to put us out of realistic  contention altogether.

I’m sure they are consoling themselves at Loftus Rd and The Hawthorns that they haven’t been quite as bad as Mowbray as they look at their lost playoff places.

2 hours ago, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

Excellent from Linz that. As you say, summed up so succinctly. I hope the social media sheep listen to it.

My wife just said “Put her in charge!!”

7 hours ago, arbitro said:

And maybe I'm reading too much into it John but aren't Warburton and Bruce out of contract at the end of the season too.

Interesting thought, Tony. Given how thin-skinned he is, and how hard he thinks he works, not being offered another contract could easily have eaten away at him. Add in being overruled by the self-same owners on selling Rothwell to bring in a couple of players to further add his stamp to the promotion push (in his mind), and I could well believe he himself has downed tools. Would tie in with your comment about training being perfunctory and dull these days.

4 minutes ago, AllRoverAsia said:

A kind poster recently posted a league table when we had beaten Middlesbrough and gone 2nd.

The link below is from the same time but shows when most teams have played 28 games, so its a little bit more accurate.

You can easily play around with the number of games to see what the table looked like at that particular point.

https://www.worldfootball.net/schedule/eng-championship-2021-2022-spieltag/28/

Almost equally as shocking is QPR and west Brom both only got 4 more points than us over the same period. Don’t often see three contenders all implode.

Back to the game, I knew we were goosed even before Stoke scored. Pickering sent a ball miles ahead of anyone, Travis passed straight to an opponent and Gallagher trundled one out of play - not a word of admonishment from any of their teammates. Mediocrity isn’t only tolerated in that team, it’s expected.

Van Hecke, Wharton and Johnson off at HT, Ayala Rothwell and Buckley on.

Looks like we’ll be relying on Van Hecke again for putting Diaz in as no-one else in that team can pass five yards.

1 hour ago, Mercer said:

Think you live in a fantasy world.

Think Rovers are fecked which is due in no small part, IMO, to the gross mismanagement of Mowbray, Venus and Waggott.

Getting time for the annual prediction of insolvency by Christmas

22 minutes ago, Darwen Rover 007 said:

Genuinely think Tony has lost the dressing room... although results weren't great up until the Derby game, alot of our performances were still half decent.. since that game we have been diabolical..

The only reason we are still close to the play offs is because of how poor everyone around us has been..

I'm hoping we replace Tony with someone of  class.. and we can start afresh

Even if he has lost the dressing room, players with an excellent chance of getting to the must be even thicker than I thought if they downed tools when there’s a lifetime of riches beckoning. Or maybe, like the manager, they aren’t very good.

Dack has been a complete passenger since coming back apart for one header, Gallagher is useless and Brereton back to being more of a liability than a threat. Giles doesn’t care, Buckley and Dolan have regressed, the back three have fallen apart and Kaminski couldn’t find his arse in the dark. The miracle is this lot won as many as they did.

Good riddance, Rothwell. 

6/10

Promotions are rare - 6 in my lifetime - so kudos to any manager who gave me a one in ten season. Stagnated last couple of years but all the “worst manager ever” comments shows to me how social media atrophies people’s brains: Quigley, Iley, Kidd, Ince and Kean were all far, far worse.

9 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Giles was playing as a LWB and put in an abject performance.

He clearly would rather be anywhere else but at Ewood. 

My reading also, no spirit, going through the motions - bad loan signing.

Get Gallagher and Rothwell on the coach back to Blackpool, they need to resume more suitable careers on the beach and in Tower circus

Get Buckley and Dack on for Gallagher and Rothwell, we need to play in Brereton and Dolan.

This is no better than the last few games IMO, got away with a couple of horrendous defensive errors while they didn’t get away with theirs. Wharton and Rothwell having ‘mares, leaving Pickering exposed. Brereton the only player who looks actually dangerous.

We needed a change of luck, let’s hope it holds for another 45.

Biggest difference so far is a change of luck and our best player being Kaminski

Let me write TonyOz’s opening playerwatch report:

10 seconds -Gallagher jumps 3 feet under the ball then gets dumped on his arse.

1 min - Rothwell gives ball away

2 mins - Nyambe lets ball run under his foot for throw in.

So our season is relying on Gallagher dominating their centre halves and bringing others into play, Rothwell and Travis peppering their goal with shots from the edge of the box and Nyambe and Pickering banging the crosses in. Can’t wait.

I think his biggest strength is in his closing down people/space off the ball, which I don’t think gets marks in your system. He’s far more mobile out of possession than Rothwell or even Buckley.

5 hours ago, Mellor Rover said:

Apparently so yes. 

So in summer we need potentially need:

A manager

An entire recruitment department

A CEO

8/9 signings

Our entire recruitment Dept was two people?

On 04/04/2022 at 10:37, tomphil said:

Wouldn't surprise me if there are a few names we aren't familiar with on that payroll.

You do realise that they don’t need to take on a business that loses £20+ million/year in order to put a few names on a payroll? They could put them on the VLL payroll and not have to bother paying Ayala, Gallagher, Mowbray, Waggott et al for doing even less.

44 minutes ago, roversinmyblood said:

As Martonrover said our squad back then had tremendous talent and so recovered well. Our current squad has talent too but is too thin on the ground, so to expect the same outcome could be seen as being too optimistic. 
However, we have been in the top six on merit despite everything and apart from the top two teams who will be automatically promoted the rest are totally inconsistent so anything is possible. 
When we have our strongest team out we are capable of beating anybody (except Fulham) so we just have to get our confidence back and hopefully our luck will change at the perfect time. 
If we can finish on a high, even if we don’t get promoted, we will have something to look back on and be happy about, especially as we all thought that we would be in a relegation battle this season. COYB

I think there’s been a lot of rose-tinted looking back on that season given we all know what came after. We won 11 out of 15 then went on a run of one win in the next 12, then went into the last game not sure of a place in the top 6. Luckily for us, Charlton, who finished three points behind, won only one of their last five. At the time, I thought we’d blown it, it had all been an elaborate hoax on our hopes and dreams, and that Kenny would eff off back to the golf course. And I didn’t feel any better after 20 mins against Derby County in the first leg either.

53 minutes ago, roversinmyblood said:

I don’t know whether this had already been asked so I apologise if it has, but how does the present second half of the season compare with 91/92 when we went up with Dalgleish?

I seem to recall that we were coasting the league had some bad injuries such as David Speedy and then our form just fell away and we fell out of the playoffs. When the injured players returned our form bounced back and we just about made the playoffs and ultimately promotion. 

I mention this as history seems to be repeating itself. Could we yet see a resurge in form with Dack and Diaz back and get promoted?

Maybe all is not yet lost, remember Rovers always like to do things dramatically!!

The six loses in a row gets all the headlines but we finished the season’s last 16 games W3 D5 L8, while our last 16 to date has been W4 D5 L7, so, results-wise, entirely comparable.