All comes down to the owners, not the Head Coach and his staff. The exception is when we hire a total clown, such as Coyle. The Head Coach at Rovers can do no more than make the best of a bad job.

They are the exception rather than the rule. Luton’s bubble burst very quickly. Ipswich did well to carry the momentum of promotion from League One into their Championship form. Mowbray had the opportunity to do similar with us, but he overthought it and instead chose to drop anchor. The final table will essentially reflect how much each club has spent. Sheffield United are clearly a strong side at this level and would beat us more often than not. Our squad is clearly still lacking in certain areas and we are a middling side, at best. It didn’t help that our recruitment set up was only completed shortly before the beginning of the season, which led to a flurry of hasty, late window signings. That isn’t conducive to a promotion push.

As are ours (reportedly). Stoke, like ourselves, are an established Championship team who are likely to finish midtable, which is about the best we can hope for.

We are a team cobbled together on a shoestring budget. Is it really surprising that we should lose to a side who will probably be promoted, (or certainly go very close)? It isn't good enough, but blame the owners, not the coaching staff. If we lose on Wednesday that would be a different matter, because Stoke are very much in our section of the Championship.

……and he’s a Head Coach who isn’t directly choosing the players we are signing. All he can do is give a cursory nod.

Around and around it goes. JDT's first season was very good on the whole, but we still endured a spectacular capitulation at the business end. We absolutely did not look like promotion material when it mattered. Okay, we had a poor January Window, but that still didn't excuse such a poor run, and for me it set the scene for the following season. At the moment we are doing a little more than just surviving. Yes,. it can be a turgid watch because we have to cut our cloth accordingly, and the Head Coach quite rightly makes the main objective being difficult to beat. We all know that any manager / head coach has a very difficult job under these owners, but we currently have one who is the right fit for our circumstances. It's not good enough in the bigger picture, but surely better to have someone who can make the best of a bad job.

How did that happen, I didn;t say what you replied to ? (see above) 🙂

A big difference is that Szmodics could put the ball in the net even before his overall play improved.

Eustace is doing the best he can to have us competing in this Division. He's on record as saying he still wants more players in to help us become more competitive. Given our circumstances, we're in much safer hands than we were this time last season. A pragmatist who knows the Division and who is doing his best.

True, re - JDT's first season, but It's likely we would've been relegated had he stayed to the end of his second, (he has a relegation on his CV). He was let down by the owners, but two wrongs don't make a right, and his stubbornness and lack of pragmatism exposed his weaknesses.

Partly true, but JDT was also stubborn and one dimensional in his approach. Blimey, at times it’s like a religious fervour how his legend is exaggerated.

Maybe edit the post then, because it reads exactly the opposite way around? We won’t finish sixth but, blimey, we probably still have the best home record in the Division and we can keep clean sheets these days, too.

Are you sure? I’ve just checked, and on 31st October, 2023, we had 19 points from 14 games.

You make your own luck, and this sequence of home wins is more down to good management and coaching than luck. I don't think we'll finish in the top six, but who would've thought we'd be in it any stage this season? A solid midtable season would constitute significant progress following last season.

The last two games have been a sobering reality check, and my sympathies to anyone who is now making the long trek home. Stripping all the emotion out of today, it's still a half decent start, overall. It was always likely we would fall back a little and, when you look at our net spend, that's hardly surprising. Two weeks to sit and stew in the misery of a 97th minute losing goal, then the important job of ensuring the rot does not set in.

I think we should start a crowd funder to keep you away 😉 It's the archetypal banana skin, for sure, and as you say our record there is poor.

A good “devil’s advocate “ post. Here’s how I see it. What we are witnessing is the exact opposite of the type of fortune when a club is struggling at the wrong end of the table, (eg the sending off today). There are, however, common denominators. 1/ You make your own luck. 2/ It’s a result and a table on a piece of paper (or I guess in a database these days). All the rest is immaterial. 3/ The better managers / head coaches get that extra few % out of players, and vice versa. I still think we will fall back a little, but this is a start we can only have dreamed of.

Fat lot of good it's done him 😄

Wonder what Broughton's up to these days? Director of Sauces for Bob Servant, or full time explorer of European markets, maybe?

What we absolutely must avoid is the type of catastrophic run of defeats in the second half of the season that have become a hallmark. We will no doubt have a sticky spell, every team generally does. If we are still in touch with the top six at the business end of the season, that will constitute a decent effort in my book, and will be a testimony to Eustace, his coaching team and the recruitment team, (and obviously the players).

Agree re - our general lack of pace. Overall I think we are over achieving so far this season, and will probably fall back a little in the coming weeks. Considering we only escaped relegation on the final day of last season, we are doing very well. That leads to a rise in expectation.

If an off - day is a draw away, Eustace can’t be doing too bad. If someone had offered us three wins and three draws from the first six, we’d have all gleefully accepted that.

If the stock is available that would obviously be sensible.

Blimey, that might persuade a few to put down their burning torches 😉

Without getting into the politics on this thread, there aren't enough staff to work the normally timetabled trains on Sundays, let alone any additional services.