roversfan99

April fools? Even putting aside the numerous factors. 4 wins in 19, a poor and depleted squad, and a manager who has come in and lost 4 on the spin to relegation strugglers. 5 points and numerous teams in between is a lot with 7 games to go for anyone. To make up that and then match these teams results in top in such a short time is really hard. Probably requires winning all 7.

Doesnt mean that our terrible owners would ever have been willing to transfer any across to provide a competitive squad.

Its all well and good saying about being on board from the start. Things change. When recruitment goes wrong, whether that means signing shit players, not signing enough players, not signing players that he would like, not signing players suited to how he wants to play, anyone would become frustrated. Tomasson was on board from the start, he was used to a similar model. But this is Venkys run Rovers. When signings of poor quality were repeatedly foisted upon him, positions he needed were neglected, they slashed the budget mid window etc, its his head on the block and he grew more and more frustrated to the point of leaving. With Ismael, it may take him longer because unlike the previous 2 he wont be walking into another decent job for example at Championship level anytime soon because this will be his third failed Champipnship job in a row and hes sat on a long contract.

He very much is happy to collect his paycheque of course and not rock the boat. But the issue comes back to the owners being unwilling to reinvest. Waggott being replaced by Gestede wont change that. I very much doubt that Waggott has aggressively pushed for more to reinvest, nor will Gestede, but I doubt even more than it would make any difference anyway. If they were willing to reinvest they would do.

Its Venkys who wont allow half of the Wharton money into signings, not Waggott. And its that lack of investment that particularly pisses managers off. Take him out and put in another CEO and we dont suddenly start reinvesting sales proceeds. Its good if he goes because he isnt a good CEO but Venkys are and always have been the problem.

Youve still not realised that this club doesnt have a functional operation of recruitment. Why would you happily and blindly accept it if you had anything about you considering your reputation is on the line? If you willingly accept what is foisted on you, its generally cheap and randomly assembled shite, not specifically suited to any style you might want to play. Theres a reason we all call for the same things every window. A new number 1. Pacy wingers. A goalscorer. They never get sorted. Eustace was right not to trust the recruitment. Ismael probably doesnt but he might just keep his opinions to his self knowing he has a nice long contract and he wont get a good job if he was to leave.

In bold = spot on. "Prepared to chuck a lot of money away" not as much. They have done the bare minimum, which is raise share capital to offset the losses made to pay the bills (basically all clubs make losses at this level) in order to avoid risking administration. Something they only avoided in the last year because of a one off fluke record sale that covered those bills. Theyll have to and presumably will cover the loss this year. Being prepared to chuck money away would surely mean willingly investing/reinvesting proceeds at a reasonable level to improve the squad. Weve not spent more than £2m on a player since 2019.

You have just assumed that is the case. But it sounds about right and its the same as what I said. Albeit I dont see appointing someone who happily accepts whatever players he is given as a positive thing. To me it shows that he realises that he wouldnt get a job at a club of similar standing without rolling over and having his belly tickled. Anyone decent wouldnt put up with that, as we have seen in each of the last two seasons.

A lot of those things are down to Venkys though, not Waggott. He is an incompetent cretin whose departure we all will welcome but most of those things are issues with the owners and common themes beyond Waggott. Tomasson left after "the project changed." Any ambitions of promotion were totally smashed apart when the owners mid summer changed and aggressively slashed the budget. Eustace also seemingly had similar issues. Neither left because of things Waggott did. Also its impossible to pin the failed transfers specifically to him. Broughton got some blame, secretaries did. But this has happened before any of these people were here. It once happened with DJ Campbell I think too. Was the training ground stuff specifically Waggott? His ticket policies if indeed he has had the primary say have been dreadful for sure. But across the board, our problems stem from the owners. We are better off with him gone, but with a novice who has "shadowed" him for a bit as his only experience taking over, and crucially the same owners in situ, is it going to make any difference? Until they go, its shuffling deckchairs on the titanic.

You are probably correct. In other words, a manager with limited self respect and/or one who is desperate for a Championship job he wouldnt get otherwise. Step forward Mr Ismael on a 3 year deal. Couldnt believe his luck. Doesnt have the credentials of previous managers to be able to stand up for himself because unlike them, he wouldnt walk into another job at Championship/reasonable International level. Its not a positive. People will criticise any manager who gets results as bad as Ismael. Old, young or inbetween.

The Markanday propaganda machine returns. Hes crap.

Assuming Waggott does, do you forsee/anticipate a significant improvement in the running of the club?

If there is any truth in Waggott retiring, and it was my first assumption when I saw that the increase wasnt in his wage but his pension which has been slightly misreported. Then it is of course very good news to be rid of that waster. But nothing much I dont think will change overall. He will be replaced by Gestede who is a total novice only with experience of shadowing Waggott. Waggott was preceded by other people in similar positions who did similar if not somehow worse. Gestede will follow and again do as the owners ask. It may make people wrongly feel like the increase in dissent has led to Waggott retiring and that the problem is at least partially fixed. If hes retiring especially seeing as the pension increase in the accounts was prior to June 2024, then it was happening anyway. Merely removing him wont solve our issues, Venkys still remain and until that changes, neither will our woes.

His position wont become untenable because theres absolutely no chance that he gets sacked either way. We arent going to pay up 3 years of his contract. Just like the club wont cease to exist with a year as you again implied the other day.

I dont see why Luton would care if he plays or not to be fair. Just happy someone was desperate enough to contribute to his wages.

Forward planning 😂 Great that Waggott will finally be gone but it wont change anything. The issue is Venkys, replacing Waggott with a novice in Gestede wont make much if any difference.

We will have to win most likely 7 out of 7 to get into the play offs. At least 6 if we are lucky. If you think that is remotely possible then you are going to be sorely disappointed. I suspect you are going to be pretty annoyed if you are going expecting a crowd focused solely on "getting behind the players."

I think we know roughly what the club will do over the summer and it wont be good. Only at this club can you have periods where judgement is totally frozen. Obviously he isnt anything close to the main issue, and I dont doubt that the squad is limited, but its not 0 points against Cardiff, Stoke, Derby and Portsmouth limited.

Fair enough, your prerogative to refuse to answer is fine. I suspect its because you know that if you say a number and its not achieved then you would lose further credibility. Regardless of what happens between now and the end of the season, come the summer it will be have some patience, give him a summer to get the players he needs, too early to judge etc. Exactly. 3 points is better than 1, especially when we hadnt played 4 of the worst teams and he had inherited a side near the bottom rather than a top 6 team. Eustace didnt impress many last season but Ismael has been something else. A total disaster. I love how now hes gone, he can no longer have that Stoke win 😂

My question was specifically how many points does Ismael need to get in these 7 games whereby you will happily back keeping him into next season and not ask for a new manager? 0 points? 5 points? 7 points? 10 points? 14 points? Results under Eustace were poor and I was unconvinced by him. I didnt call for him to be sacked though. He didnt take over a side in the top 6, he didnt have a run of really winnable games to start off with and his results werent as bad.

My point wasnt about the game in general. It was about the poor recruitment that has led to that being a potential starting 11. Ultimately, its hard to have any real investment in the game. The season has gone, and the chance of a very poor manager getting a result with a limited squad is low. The more interesting thing will be the atmosphere and how toxic and volatile it is towards the owners and board. We wont sign 2 new keepers in the summer. Pears will be number 1, Toth will either be number 2 or sent to some obscure team with a cheap back up in to replace him.

I didnt criticise your specific team, in fact I went out of my way to try and be clear on that to avoid you saying that. It was to highlight how poor recruitment has been, somewhat down to Gestede and co but mainly due to the budget. The fact that Pears is an automatic pick because we again found a worse keeper somehow is a great example.

Im not on about what Rovers will do. We will definitely keep him. Im saying would there be a possibility depending on results over the last 7 games whereby you personally would want a managerial change in the summer, and if so what results would lead to you thinking that? Or is it a case of he gets the summer either way, even if he lost pretty much every game? I dont think he should have been appointed and would welcome a change now. I dont have the knowledge to know who would be a good replacment, but it would be hard to be worse.

Thinking of the right player?

Forgetting any disagreements on the team and ultimately in terms of football, the season is over now. That is a perfect showing as to how bad our recruitment has been. 3 signings from the god knows how many we have made this season, 2 are forwards who have 6 league goals each, and ones a veteran centre back. Hedges, Dolan and Pears still there. Its not a criticism of the team you would pick, its a criticism of the squad we have. Still, more than enough available to get more than zero points against 4 relegation strugglers.