Just put my 7 year old to bed.

[BillyStubbsTears]

He's tired and a bit disappointed at the defeat today, so he's had a little tantrum at bedtime.

But f**k me, he is less fraught and emotional than some of you so-called adults.

I've read over and over again that Dickov is shit, the Board is shit and we have been shit all season. I'm sick of hearing this mantra so I'm going to chuck some facts in, in the (probably vain) hope that one or two of you might read them and f**king well engage whatever you have for brains.

1) The Board is shit and not backing Dickov. FACTS: We won L1 last season. We kept all bar 1 of the key players from that squad and added Forrester, Duffy, Khumalo, Wellens, Robinson, Macheda, Wabara, Stevens and Turnbull. What more did people expect the Board to do in terms of backing the manager?

2) We've been shit all season, not making chances and crap at the back. FACTS: In the first 10 games this season, we played 8 sides who are currently 14th or higher. We picked up 12 points, scored 10 and conceded 12. Was that shit? Was our defence shit? We're we punch less going forward? If you answer "yes" to any of those, please explain what you consider to be an acceptable run of form.

3) FACT: As of today, SIX of the first 11 for most of that run are injured (seven if you include Brown who is nowhere near match fit) two have been recalled from loan and a tenth is hawking himself to the highest bidder.

Our entire first choice defence from earlier in the season is unavailable, as is our first choice central midfield partnership and our three first choice strikers.

Tell me exactly how we are supposed to cope with that, given that we have been unable to sign new players whilst this loss of players has been going on? We're we supposed to have another 8-9 Championship-standard players sat in reserve waiting to fill in as necessary? Eh?

We've lost today. We've played very, very poorly. It happens. But f**k me, the reaction if some of you lot! I'm embarrassed to be associated with some of the infantile tantrums going on here.

[pib]

You seem to be as irate as anyone.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Pib

I'm always irate when I deal with bell ends.

[Slimneil]

Here here at last a bit off common sence

[pib]

If you were that f**king 'zen' you wouldn't give a toss about getting all worked up about what folk on here were saying.

[colincramb]

I think a lot of people do understand the point you have raised, BST. However, I will not make any excuses for a sheer lack of passion, work rate or desire to win a game, which was clearly evident today

[newyankee]

 Maybe we should change our club mascot to a sheep, as some on here expect everyone to act like sheep.  After all the hard work of last season, and the high everyone was on after the Brentford game, it is not unusual to expect more from the team.

 By the team, I mean the new Management team, the new players and especially the Board.

 As it is we have a manager who will not accept he is wrong, we have players who have proved that when they want to, they can compete, but we have a shambles of set of owners and past Directors who have torn the heart out of Doncaster Rovers.

John Ryan for trying to bring in Sequentia behind the backs of Watson and Bramall, Bramall the going behind JR's back to try and get a better deal  for himself, leading to the untimely demise of JR.

We still have Sequentia in the background wanting to buy the team, but the man with a clear vision for the future seems to be totally disinterested in talking to them.  If, as looks likely at the moment we do go down, and lose the 6 million from the FL, the two owners will, I think, look to get rid to anyone who will have the team.

 What we need now is for Dickov and HIS team of coaches to go and for Flynn and Jones to be asked on bended knees to take over. The present owners need to look at the possibility of a sale and make a decision which will be for the benefit of the club as well as for them.

 We also need, and I am sorry to say this, we need a CEO who has the balls to point these things out to the owners. He is their representative, and as such he should be guiding them as to the  running of  the club.

 I know many on here will disagree, but to that I say  Baa, Baa.

[newyankee]

Sorry, should read Bramall fFOR going not the going,.

[hamiltonrover]

BST, my thoughts entirely. I am sick and tired of reading posts on here and on fb made by people who are clearly not overly intellectual. Everything is Dickov's fault, if it isn't it is Bramalls for not spending £10m in the last 4 days. Get a grip of reality, we are a team who at the start of the season would be fighting for survival in the Championship, guess what, that appears to be the case. Today's result may have not been what we wanted, but it is amazing the difference of opinion of some posters since the QPR game where we went so close earning positive comments. If it was that easy to pick a winning team with limited resources and win games then we would be doing it. Football is about winning and losing, take it on the chin and move on.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Pib

Thanks. Not sure why you feel the need to raise that, but thanks anyway.

Colin C

Actually, I think a lot of people DON'T understand the points I raised. That is the reason I raised them. I've heard numerous complaints about the supposed "facts" that the Board hasn't supported the manager, the manager is out of his depth and that injuries "may have been a factor but..."

I appreciate that today was poor. I've just seen it. It was awful. Clubs do have awful performances, even when they have every player available. I saw one at the McCain in R1 of the cup in 2003 when we were in the middle of the best spell of league form in our entire history. It happens. It's the response I cannot fathom. The way in which ACTUAL facts are jettisoned and supposed "facts" dredged up to replace them.

It's a failing of mine that I get really pissed off when sentient beings park their critical faculties and give in to babbying. Which is what has been going on amongst a couple of dozen folk all season, and which now appears to have spread to ones who should know better.

So, here's my take. Given the size of our club and the crippling effect of injuries, I'd say that there have been perhaps 2-3 really, really substandard league performances. Against that, there have been several performances that were FAR better than we had a right to expect. Today's was a further very, very poor showing. But for peoe to conclude from the season to date that Dickov is incompetent and has to go is ludicrous.

Also, there is unequivocal evidence that the Board HAS supported Dickov every step of the way. And that with that support, he built a team that was looking like comfortable lower-mid table contenders. We've since had a devastating run of bad luck AT A TIME WHEN THE BOARD COULD DO NOTHING ABOUT IT! To complain about the Board in such circumstances is ludicrous.

Yet we have had weeks of complaints about the Board and now a melt-down over Dickov.

[Tokyos Boot]

Wasn't anybody else concerned when we started the season with a Macaulay Culkin thin side?

Didn't anyone else think 'what happens if we get a CB injured?' or 'Who do we have at the club that can play LB again?'.

For me, we had it coming. Sure we bolstered - we've got midfielders coming out of our ears, but to think we could take a step up into a far more physically intense league with 4 defenders TOTAL on our books was frankly dim of PD.

Granted we've been unlucky with injuries but you make your own luck, some of the training or fitness techniques need looking at and the depth of our side needed looking at months ago - to think we could plug the gaps with Premiership kids has proven a fruitless endeavour.

At some point, either pre-season, or once the cracks started showing some investment (or some of the investment given) should have been assigned to bringing in experienced defensive cover!

You build from the back, sure we haven't been scoring goals of late, but thats because we've forced all of our midfield line back to help these inexperienced kids out, we've been shipping goals for fun - and this given our keepers been probably our best player - it could have been 6-0s without him!!!

A positive is that we got up... and we can allow the nature of our promotion to distract us from the fact we sighed our way over the finish line - but we absolutely haven't prepared for this season properly.

Who is to blame? Well, Paul Dickov of course.

Should we get rid of him? Absolutely not - its time for him to step up, get his reading glasses on and try to bolster properly this month and hopefully help us to 'manage' our way out of this defensive nightmare!

[ian1980]

Excellent post BST

I would also add:

1) The Board is shit and not backing Dickov.
TB / DW will still be making up the 3-4m shortfall for the year. If they 'f**k off' as people are suggesting, who will cover that shortfall?

Also, SC's £10m. That will add what 2-3 decent championship players to the squad (taking both transfer fees and wages into account) does anyone seriously think that we are 2-3 players away from promotion to the premier league?

[pib]

Pib

Thanks. Not sure why you feel the need to raise that, but thanks anyway.

You're welcome.

I raised it because you entered the thread criticising folk for being emotional, before going on a rant full of swear words and caps lock sentences.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Tokyo

Against my better judgement, I'm going to answer you.

Regarding our defence. Presumably you think we should have had an extra, what? 2-3 Championship standard defenders signed on at the start of the season? On what? 2 year contracts? At what? £4k per week? So that's an extra million quid committed. For reserve players. Agreed?

Or, alternatively, you can look to bring in loanees when injuries strike. Which is far more cost-effective. And which is precisely what we did.

What no club of our size can reasonably do is to plan for the loss of EVERY ONE of our first choice defence.

Or can we? Tell us how.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Pib

Thanks. Much appreciated.

[pib]

Pib

Thanks. Much appreciated.

Pleasure.

[Tokyos Boot]

Tokyo

Against my better judgement, I'm going to answer you.

Regarding our defence. Presumably you think we should have had an extra, what? 2-3 Championship standard defenders signed on at the start of the season? On what? 2 year contracts? At what? £4k per week? So that's an extra million quid committed. For reserve players. Agreed?

Or, alternatively, you can look to bring in loanees when injuries strike. Which is far more cost-effective. And which is precisely what we did.

What no club of our size can reasonably do is to plan for the loss of EVERY ONE of our first choice defence.

Or can we? Tell us how.

I am honoured you answered BST.

Thats exactly what i'd have asked, yes. Loanees are for the crisis situation - which we have hit, but you surely have to have a team-worthy back-up for every position at all times, and we didn't. We've been incredibly fortunate to have found a decent team-worthy youth in McCullough, we'd have been even more stumped without that stroke of luck.

Is it worth that extra million to keep us in the Championship? Well, i don't know the financial gains, but i'd presume so.

Football is all a game of financial risks, and we haven't even rolled the dice! Wether thats because PD didn't ask for that sort of investment or it just wasn't available is a different debate.

As i've said in another post, we've blagged ourselves onto the poker table with some very rich and experienced players with much bigger piles of chips than ours and we haven't even played a hand - we're just happy to enjoy sitting at the big boys table for once.

At least when we went down under 'The Experiment' we had a go and played a bluff!!! (turned out we we're holding a joker!)

[wilts rover]

Tokyo

He did try to bring in an experienced CB, Mvoto. Wabarra was touted as being able to cover left & right back.

It is reported that he spent the whole of the available budget, (infact it was extended to £7m to bring in extra loans, Yun & Stevens). Of the permanent transfers he brought in, Furman, Turnbull, Duffy, Forrester, Robinson, Wellens (brought in when De Val got injured so thats two wages), which two would you not have taken to recruit a CB & LB cover?

[Alickismyhero]

BST,

I go along with everything you said but what I find hard to accept is the poor communication from the board. We are going through a period where we need to know what they intend to do, it is a crisis and the knockers will highlight everything that is negative to bring the regime down. That is their intention.

[Tokyos Boot]

I actually credit PD for his recruiting - he's brought in the clubs current best players... but he just didn't focus on the area that matters the most when you're facing a relegation battle - the defence!!

The Mvoto failing (for better or worse) - thats a PD criticism point then yeah?

We needed Turnbull.

We needed Robinson, and Wellens has changed everything.

Did we need Forrester, Duffy and De Val? They were certainly exciting signings and haven't proven too shoddy so far but would i lose Forrester and De Vals contributions this season for a few more clean sheets? Absolutely!!

[Donnybax]

How about these stats then? 2nd least amount of shots a game, 2nd least amount of goals, 2nd most amount of goals conceded in the league. Good enough? No however you look at it

[wilts rover]

Tokyo

Sorry, you dont get to loose De Val without loosing Wellens. If we didnt need De Val, then we didnt need Wellens who was brought in as cover when he got injured. We only had three central midfielders (Furman, Keegan, Wellens/De Val) so you are saying we should have gone with two?

[Tokyos Boot]

And he spent the budget so easily... but still has names on the books that aren't ever going to be Rovers players again.

You sell Harper, Bennett and Paynter and you've got yourself the budget for a solid defender there!!

Nobody is perfect, and while our team was completely fit and ready PD got the plaudits for building a more than capable side, but unfortunately he didn't consider the longevity and depth of that side - and he deserves the criticism for it!!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Tokyo

At the start of the season, we had Quinn, Jones, McCombe (expected to be fit by October), Husband, McCullogh (convenient that you put his stepping up the mark to "luck"...) signed on. We added to them two premiership long-term loan signings.

So, the extra million quid that you would have spent would have gone on two defenders who would have been 8th and 9th choice defenders. Correct?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Were YOU going to buy Harper and Bennett? If not, maybe you could suggest who was?

[wilts rover]

Donnybax, have you read Billy's OP? Points 2 and 3? Do you dispute them or just ignore them?

[Dagenham Rover]

Not even seen Harpers big bugger off car near the KMS  recently at all, even if he wasn't playing it used to be there before the game (not always after the kick off though) 

[wilts rover]

Sell Paynter and buy a defender, I can see that going down well!

[Donnybax]

I read them and got the opinion it was saying it wasn't as bad as it looks I'm saying it is ever since those first few games we've been awful
Regarding Bennett who gave him a new contract?

[Tokyos Boot]

Your suggesting that with 500k each i couldn't find a better RB than Paul Quinn, and a better LB than James Husband?

Quinn wasn't good enough at League 1 level, never mind Championship, and Husband was relatively untested!

How can you argue that to have 1 registered RB and 1 LB wasn't ludicrous?


So no - i'd have spent it on 1st and 2nd choice full-backs.