Andy

I'd agree with this - after 11 games, they will still be playing to Frank's style and method. He'd been there long enough that his methods would have been woven into the club's DNA. Once Andrews' own style is imposed, then it'll be fair to judge him. However, on results only, he's certainly made a good start to the season.

I do remember reading (from somewhere) that Waggott was planning on retiring either last summer, or next summer. Sitting on his substantial arse, on full pay, for the final 12 months of his working life sounds infinitely more appealing than working with this current set of charlatans overseeing our club.

Agreed on both. A GK at this level is always going to have the odd bad game. The difference now being that it is the odd bad game, as opposed to the odd good game (what we became accustomed to with his predecessor).

Agreed - violence at football is something I'll never get my head around. "We have a different opinion / you support a different team to me, so I'm going to punch you in the head". Very caveman-esque.

Does him a disservice; it was a well taken goal, due to being in a good striker’s position. You could see the confidence in him after it, fully looked the part after the goal.

A much, much needed win. But let’s be honest, Soton were somehow even worse than Sheffield. Had it not been for Toth, we’d have lost comfortably. On the plus side, I think McLoughlin and Osasha had good games - and pleasing to see Gudjohnson get his first goal. Pleased with the win, but we need to be much better against better sides.

Comparisons to King Rat are ridiculous. We're talking about a 'man' who was not only grossly incompetent, but played an active and intentional role in the downfall of our club, purely to line his own pockets. He's an alcoholic who, when caught drink-driving, legitimately tried to blame the Rovers supporters. VI is clearly not up to the job and is creaking under the pressure. But nothing he does will take him anywhere near the level of the scumbag who I won't even give the dignity of using his name. Short memories to suggest otherwise, imo.

Yeah, exactly this - I grew up a couple of stones throws from the stadium and, even though we were in our 90's boom period, I'd have followed Rovers wherever we were in the league pyramid, as they were my local team. It was just never a consideration to support any other team. Whatever happens and however disillusioned we get with everything, it'll still be our club. You could never feel that same connection with another club.

Hang on, did this really happen, or are you taking the piss? I've had a long day, I genuinely can't tell.

I always say that momentum is massive in football. And we're on a gigantic negative run of momentum at the moment. Very, very difficult to see anything other than a defeat, however shite Soton may be (also see Sheffield, U).

Always willing to give a manager a fair shot - but it's clear that it's not working and we desperately need a change, quickly. You can blame luck in certain games, but to be where we are after 10 games (notwithstanding the collapse last season), I just can't see things improving. We need results and rapidly.

They need a Warnock or an Allardyce. Experience, know-how, motivational and tactically astute.

Absolutely dreadful. The worst team we’ve played this season - by a margin - has just rolled us over at our own ground. You can’t blame luck or misfortune after 10 games. We are heading down.

We haven’t been great - and have missed a few good chances, but Sheffield have been dreadful. I expected that they would be in a false position, but based on that half, they are where they deserve to be. Set the tone for them when their GK was wasting time in literally the first minute. Glad we got the goal we deserved, but need a couple more - all it takes is one mistake and even the poorest side can get a goal.

More possession, more shot, more clear cut chances - far better than I expected at HT. We look much more suited to this formation in every department. Very unlucky not to be a couple of goals up. I think everyone has been very good so far. Lets see if we maintain it into the second half.

We're being dry-bummed today, aren't we? No Cantwell just takes away that faint glimmer of hope that we might sneak a goal out of nowhere.

Yeah, I remember seeing something like this (all off-white, with a transparent Maltese Cross) before the season started - and I'm sure it was a fan-made design.

He's a northern lad, isn't he? Surely he can't live that far from the training ground. Maybe the type of car he's driving? His diet / lifestyle? Hard to read any specifics from VI's comments, there.

Agree completely with this. JDT had extremely high standards. Those who met those standards and could learn from them excelled (Szmodics, Wharton, etc). Those that weren't up to it struggled and/or were shipped out. His naivety as a younger coach showed in his defensive organisation and kamikaze approach, but we were part of his learning curve (as shit as that is to take as a Rovers supporter). Having ambition, cup runs to the later stages, narrowly missing out on the play offs are all infinitely preferable to the shite we've grown to be accustomed to before and after his tenure.

I think this was particularly evident in his first season with us, where we failed a draw a single game in months. It was boom/bust, win/lose - but we were certainly at the right end of the table, as a result. All of that said, it led to many games that we completely dominated, but were caught on the counter and lost games that we had no right to lose. Sunderland at home is a prominent one; we absolutely peppered them and should have won by several. But they were good on the counter and grabbed a couple of breakaway goals on the rare instances they touched the ball.

You might have a point, but watching on telly today, he'd done the hard bit of getting into good space at the back post - and the cross was floated well enough. He just didn't adjust his body in time to get a shot away. That said, I think there's a player in there and it's mental to be writing him off after a couple of games.

At the risk of repeating what's already been said, Cantwell was fantastic and we'd be in a real mess without him this season. De Neve was very good when he came on, hopefully plays himself into the team on that performance. Toth and the CBs kept us in it when Stoke had their spell on top - Ryan A also doing his bit. But once the momentum changed and certainly towards the end of the game, Rovers were the only team winning today. However, a poor quality game with 2 poor sides; we need a different approach - whether tactics, manager or whatever else. If we're not beating teams like Stoke at home, it's going to be a long old season.

Half of very little quality - if we didn't have Cantwell, I genuinely struggle to see much quality at all on our side. That said, we were the team that created several good scoring chances. Players need to be brave, get their foot on the ball and control the game. TC aside, they can't wait to get rid of the ball as soon as they receive it.

The attendance reminds me of Reserve games at Ewood, back in the late '90's. Dire. At least the weather has held off, seems to be brightening up a bit now in the Ewood area.

Not old enough to know who 'Iley' is, but I'm pretty confident that Ince takes this title. He was generally a bit dim, but clearly tactically inept and living on the back of a highly successful on-field career. It's no coincidence that he's faded into managerial obscurity.