Lack of mesters

[DonnyOsmond]

The decision not to play Sadlier in the recent games is just bizarre, and I think
DM needs to explain it.

He’d been in arguably his best form of the season and is our biggest goal threat by some distance. The tinkering with the team is crazy. DM shouldn’t be above criticism, this has been poor management.

How's it crazy? He's being pragmatic and picking the team based on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. Should he just pick the 11 technically best players over the team he thinks will exploit their weaknesses?

[DonnyOsmond]

Barnsley's strategy is a smart way to go, Brentford too. It's all about reinvesting. Brentford are now established in the Championship and pushing for the next league up without getting into millions of debt but by buying young assets, developing and selling them on. They also use analytics to find the hidden gems and players that'd star in how they like to play.

[drfchound]

Genuine question, do Brentford and Barnsley have many loan players.

[Metalmicky]

People talk about mental steel, but at the same time concede that we are out of the running for a play-off place with 36 points to play for and Rovers being (potentially) only 4 points of a play-off's spot.....

It ain’t over yet of course mathematically. But we need 8 wins and 2 draws minimum imo from 12 games of which 8 of those 12 are away from home.
Now even i think that’s a tall order.  So we keep going of course but it will take a monumental effort now to achieve the play offs.

Course it will be hard; however, we reached the play-off's last year with 73 points and played two games more to boot... Definitely not time to give up just yet - granted we need to go on a run to be in the mix, but it is far from impossible.  A win against Wycombe could be the start.

[adamtherover]

A game and a half ago, we were sitting 6th in the live table, if things can change that much in such a short space of time, they can change back in the same time frame...

[scawsby steve]

The decision not to play Sadlier in the recent games is just bizarre, and I think
DM needs to explain it.

He’d been in arguably his best form of the season and is our biggest goal threat by some distance. The tinkering with the team is crazy. DM shouldn’t be above criticism, this has been poor management.

How's it crazy? He's being pragmatic and picking the team based on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. Should he just pick the 11 technically best players over the team he thinks will exploit their weaknesses?

There's one huge weakness in your argument; the pragmatism isn't working. Leaving out your top scorer and best player from the previous 2 games, and then losing the next 2 games with poor performances tells you everything about how successful this tinkering is.

[pib]

The decision not to play Sadlier in the recent games is just bizarre, and I think
DM needs to explain it.

He’d been in arguably his best form of the season and is our biggest goal threat by some distance. The tinkering with the team is crazy. DM shouldn’t be above criticism, this has been poor management.

How's it crazy? He's being pragmatic and picking the team based on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. Should he just pick the 11 technically best players over the team he thinks will exploit their weaknesses?

I'd say whilst we should be taking into account the strengths/weaknesses of the opposition, we should also have in mind what suits OUR players best and gives them the best chance to focus on their own game. I'm not sure DM is getting the balance right at the moment if his recent team selections are based on nullifying/exploiting the opposition.

I agree that different players/tactics work for different games, but if players are playing well and are high in confidence, surely them being on the pitch gives us the best chance of getting results?

[tyke1962]

Genuine question, do Brentford and Barnsley have many loan players.

Not sure about Brentford but we don't do loans in the same way Rovers do .

We have one loan player at the club at the moment a young 19 year old German right back with an option to sign in the summer .

[steve@dcfd]

Genuine question, do Brentford and Barnsley have many loan players.

Not sure about Brentford but we don't do loans in the same way Rovers do .

We have one loan player at the club at the moment a young 19 year old German right back with an option to sign in the summer .

That’s the way I believe we should do with loans but we couldn’t do financially so they come in and they go home.

[drfchound]

Genuine question, do Brentford and Barnsley have many loan players.

Not sure about Brentford but we don't do loans in the same way Rovers do .

We have one loan player at the club at the moment a young 19 year old German right back with an option to sign in the summer .

That’s the way I believe we should do with loans but we couldn’t do financially so they come in and they go home.

.......and invariably they don’t come back next season so we start again with half a dozen new ones.
Not ideal is it.

[the vicar]

The decision not to play Sadlier in the recent games is just bizarre, and I think
DM needs to explain it.

He’d been in arguably his best form of the season and is our biggest goal threat by some distance. The tinkering with the team is crazy. DM shouldn’t be above criticism, this has been poor management.

I might be wrong, but my theory is it could be something to do with him not signing a contract yet

that's fine but, 1, he is our top scoere, 2, at the moment he is our player, and 3,surely with all this should be in before loans that are more likely to not be here next season, so we should play our own first, unless there is something written that they MUST play if fit.  Just my opinion

[tyke1962]

Genuine question, do Brentford and Barnsley have many loan players.

Not sure about Brentford but we don't do loans in the same way Rovers do .

We have one loan player at the club at the moment a young 19 year old German right back with an option to sign in the summer .

That’s the way I believe we should do with loans but we couldn’t do financially so they come in and they go home.

The average age of the squad this season was 22 years old , it's probably gone up a little with the arrival of Sollbauer who is 29 and Ritzmaier who is 27 last month .

This was the starting point in 2015 for my club , only sign young players under the age of 24 so they could be developed and sold on at a decent profit .

For three years up until last month we've not signed one player over 24 years of age .

In my opinion you can get be very successful in League One with a young team but at championship level you need at least three in the team who are experienced because the demands are so much higher , something we've failed to acknowledge up until last month and the last time we were in the championship .

The club are on the record that they will not develop players for other clubs , absolutely not .

It's one thing for Rovers to follow a similar approach but the recruitment has to be very good , especially when you begin for the model to grow .

Which isn't to say it can't be achieved but as the model grows then the one's who don't make it don't hurt you so much .

We've had failures , Ryan Hedges , George Moncur Lloyd Isgrove , Matty Pearson , Elliot Lee but because of the early gems with Alfie Mawson , Marc Roberts , Connor Hourihane , Sam Winnall and James Bree we were well in profit .

Alfie Mawson - Free Transfer - Sold for £6.5m

Marc Roberts - £25k - Sold for £3.5m

Connor Hourihane - £250k - Sold for £3m

James Bree - Academy - Sold for £3.5m


The money those brought in cleared our debts to the former owner and allowed the club to bring in ...

Ethan Pinnock - £650k - Sold for £3m

Liam Lindsay - £350k - Sold for £2m

Kieffer Moore - £850k - Sold for £4m

Brad Potts - £500k - Sold for£1.9m

Cauley Woodrow £1.1m Sold For Nothing less than £10m this summer .

The club last summer brought in 4 players for over a million quid each in ..

Luke Thomas

Malik Wilks

Patrick Schmidt

Connor Chaplin

So from a starting point of £12m owed to the owner the club through this model have been able to repay it's debt , become self sustainable and then arrive  at a position where they can bring in players at league one and championship level for over a million quid and still remain self sustainable .

The elephant in the room of course is that sustaining championship football hasn't arrived yet .

So to say the model is totally successful would be wide of the mark because that's where the bar is set at my club .

Whether it will deliver that I don't know in all honesty but the drop in to League One isn't the end of the world because the budget is highly competitive and should deliver success .

Which is right where Rovers want to be but as I stated earlier the recruitment at the start has to deliver or the thing never grows any legs .

[scawsby steve]

There's one thing you're forgetting in all of this Tyke. Despite being a much smaller town, Barnsley are a much bigger club than Donny. Bigger stadium, bigger attendances, bigger budget, richer owners.

As a club, we can't compete with the likes of Barnsley, and I doubt that we ever will.

[tyke1962]

There's one thing you're forgetting in all of this Tyke. Despite being a much smaller town, Barnsley are a much bigger club than Donny. Bigger stadium, bigger attendances, bigger budget, richer owners.

As a club, we can't compete with the likes of Barnsley, and I doubt that we ever will.

Well Steve the owners don't and haven't spent a penny of their own money in the 26 months they've owned us and I do mean not one penny .

The attendances are higher but that's not the reason we have a bigger budget these days because to be honest fan income is fairly negligible these days .

The whole idea of the model is to try and compete with clubs who enjoy a bigger budget by creating decent revenue without having owners ploughing millions in to the club .

[Campsall rover]

Genuine question, do Brentford and Barnsley have many loan players.

Not sure about Brentford but we don't do loans in the same way Rovers do .

We have one loan player at the club at the moment a young 19 year old German right back with an option to sign in the summer .

That’s the way I believe we should do with loans but we couldn’t do financially so they come in and they go home.

The average age of the squad this season was 22 years old , it's probably gone up a little with the arrival of Sollbauer who is 29 and Ritzmaier who is 27 last month .

This was the starting point in 2015 for my club , only sign young players under the age of 24 so they could be developed and sold on at a decent profit .

For three years up until last month we've not signed one player over 24 years of age .

In my opinion you can get be very successful in League One with a young team but at championship level you need at least three in the team who are experienced because the demands are so much higher , something we've failed to acknowledge up until last month and the last time we were in the championship .

The club are on the record that they will not develop players for other clubs , absolutely not .

It's one thing for Rovers to follow a similar approach but the recruitment has to be very good , especially when you begin for the model to grow .

Which isn't to say it can't be achieved but as the model grows then the one's who don't make it don't hurt you so much .

We've had failures , Ryan Hedges , George Moncur Lloyd Isgrove , Matty Pearson , Elliot Lee but because of the early gems with Alfie Mawson , Marc Roberts , Connor Hourihane , Sam Winnall and James Bree we were well in profit .

Alfie Mawson - Free Transfer - Sold for £6.5m

Marc Roberts - £25k - Sold for £3.5m

Connor Hourihane - £250k - Sold for £3m

James Bree - Academy - Sold for £3.5m


The money those brought in cleared our debts to the former owner and allowed the club to bring in ...

Ethan Pinnock - £650k - Sold for £3m

Liam Lindsay - £350k - Sold for £2m

Kieffer Moore - £850k - Sold for £4m

Brad Potts - £500k - Sold for£1.9m

Cauley Woodrow £1.1m Sold For Nothing less than £10m this summer .

The club last summer brought in 4 players for over a million quid each in ..

Luke Thomas

Malik Wilks

Patrick Schmidt

Connor Chaplin

So from a starting point of £12m owed to the owner the club through this model have been able to repay it's debt , become self sustainable and then arrive  at a position where they can bring in players at league one and championship level for over a million quid and still remain self sustainable .

The elephant in the room of course is that sustaining championship football hasn't arrived yet .

So to say the model is totally successful would be wide of the mark because that's where the bar is set at my club .

Whether it will deliver that I don't know in all honesty but the drop in to League One isn't the end of the world because the budget is highly competitive and should deliver success .

Which is right where Rovers want to be but as I stated earlier the recruitment at the start has to deliver or the thing never grows any legs .

Looking at those purchases and sales Tyke it is quite remarkable what Barnsley have achieved in that area.
Someone in your recruitment dept is doing a fantastic job.
The model is one we at Rovers should be looking to follow. Easier said than done of course.
Recruitment is key. Getting it right 80% of the time is rare. Barnsley seem to have achieved it in recent years.

If you had signed those experienced players in August then you may not have been in a relegation battle this season as your recent form is outstanding now that you have those players.
I do think whatever league you are in any successful team needs 2/3 older heads in it.

[DonnyOsmond]

There's one thing you're forgetting in all of this Tyke. Despite being a much smaller town, Barnsley are a much bigger club than Donny. Bigger stadium, bigger attendances, bigger budget, richer owners.

As a club, we can't compete with the likes of Barnsley, and I doubt that we ever will.

What he's saying isn't about size of the club though. It's about the recruitment. Any size club can adopt a similar model and use it to help themselves grow.

[Lesonthewest]

Scunthorpes head of recruitment & ex Rover Lee Turnbull hasn't been too shabby there either with the likes of Billy Sharp, Gary Hooper, Martin Paterson etc. Still lives in Donny.

[steve@dcfd]

With in our budgetary requirements  could we buy 4/5 players with a fee and wages to replace the loans?

[Bristol Red Rover]

How about this lot, mesters in name at least.

Ken Hardwick
Harold Bratt   Ian Gore   Warren Hackett    John Breckin
Billy Law    Paul Birch    Wayne Bullimore    Alfie Beestin
James Shinner    Alan Warboys

Subs: David Carver, Tommy Spurr, Jason Shackell, Josh Payne

[tyke1962]

There's one thing you're forgetting in all of this Tyke. Despite being a much smaller town, Barnsley are a much bigger club than Donny. Bigger stadium, bigger attendances, bigger budget, richer owners.

As a club, we can't compete with the likes of Barnsley, and I doubt that we ever will.

What he's saying isn't about size of the club though. It's about the recruitment. Any size club can adopt a similar model and use it to help themselves grow.

That's exactly right , it's nothing new though if you can remember Crewe Alexandra in the 90's producing players on a conveyor belt and reached the championship under Dario Gradi .

Different times but none the less for the size of club Crewe are it was a magnificent achievement .

They stuck around too for a few seasons too I seem to remember .

[tyke1962]

Genuine question, do Brentford and Barnsley have many loan players.

Not sure about Brentford but we don't do loans in the same way Rovers do .

We have one loan player at the club at the moment a young 19 year old German right back with an option to sign in the summer .

That’s the way I believe we should do with loans but we couldn’t do financially so they come in and they go home.

The average age of the squad this season was 22 years old , it's probably gone up a little with the arrival of Sollbauer who is 29 and Ritzmaier who is 27 last month .

This was the starting point in 2015 for my club , only sign young players under the age of 24 so they could be developed and sold on at a decent profit .

For three years up until last month we've not signed one player over 24 years of age .

In my opinion you can get be very successful in League One with a young team but at championship level you need at least three in the team who are experienced because the demands are so much higher , something we've failed to acknowledge up until last month and the last time we were in the championship .

The club are on the record that they will not develop players for other clubs , absolutely not .

It's one thing for Rovers to follow a similar approach but the recruitment has to be very good , especially when you begin for the model to grow .

Which isn't to say it can't be achieved but as the model grows then the one's who don't make it don't hurt you so much .

We've had failures , Ryan Hedges , George Moncur Lloyd Isgrove , Matty Pearson , Elliot Lee but because of the early gems with Alfie Mawson , Marc Roberts , Connor Hourihane , Sam Winnall and James Bree we were well in profit .

Alfie Mawson - Free Transfer - Sold for £6.5m

Marc Roberts - £25k - Sold for £3.5m

Connor Hourihane - £250k - Sold for £3m

James Bree - Academy - Sold for £3.5m


The money those brought in cleared our debts to the former owner and allowed the club to bring in ...

Ethan Pinnock - £650k - Sold for £3m

Liam Lindsay - £350k - Sold for £2m

Kieffer Moore - £850k - Sold for £4m

Brad Potts - £500k - Sold for£1.9m

Cauley Woodrow £1.1m Sold For Nothing less than £10m this summer .

The club last summer brought in 4 players for over a million quid each in ..

Luke Thomas

Malik Wilks

Patrick Schmidt

Connor Chaplin

So from a starting point of £12m owed to the owner the club through this model have been able to repay it's debt , become self sustainable and then arrive  at a position where they can bring in players at league one and championship level for over a million quid and still remain self sustainable .

The elephant in the room of course is that sustaining championship football hasn't arrived yet .

So to say the model is totally successful would be wide of the mark because that's where the bar is set at my club .

Whether it will deliver that I don't know in all honesty but the drop in to League One isn't the end of the world because the budget is highly competitive and should deliver success .

Which is right where Rovers want to be but as I stated earlier the recruitment at the start has to deliver or the thing never grows any legs .

Looking at those purchases and sales Tyke it is quite remarkable what Barnsley have achieved in that area.
Someone in your recruitment dept is doing a fantastic job.
The model is one we at Rovers should be looking to follow. Easier said than done of course.
Recruitment is key. Getting it right 80% of the time is rare. Barnsley seem to have achieved it in recent years.

If you had signed those experienced players in August then you may not have been in a relegation battle this season as your recent form is outstanding now that you have those players.
I do think whatever league you are in any successful team needs 2/3 older heads in it.

The success rate has slowed down of late Campsall , Diaby , Andersen , Wilks haven't set the championship on fire although they are one year in to four year contracts so there is time for them to improve .

Connor Chaplin for £1.2m from Coventry City is an absolutely phenomenal signing for that outlay at this level , 22 years old and 12 Championship goals in a struggling team and hopefully more to come .

The other lad is Clarke Oduor who came from Leeds United , still a teenager but this kid is real quality , potential PL player here if he carries on developing , the big clubs are already sniffing .

Alpo Halme too has done very well too for £800k from Leeds United .

The two lads up top Woodrow and Chaplin shouldn't leave Oakwell for less than a combined £15m in my opinion given their age and Championship pedigree .

It would be nice to keep them but when the players can earn 20 to £30k a week further up the chain then that's never going to happen .

All we can do is reinvest the fees we receive and crack on the best we can but with a decent budget to work with .

If the players leave who I expect to this summer it wouldn't surprise me to see us go over £2m for a player or two with plenty of cash remaining to sustain the club .

[dickos1]

The decision not to play Sadlier in the recent games is just bizarre, and I think
DM needs to explain it.

He’d been in arguably his best form of the season and is our biggest goal threat by some distance. The tinkering with the team is crazy. DM shouldn’t be above criticism, this has been poor management.

How's it crazy? He's being pragmatic and picking the team based on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. Should he just pick the 11 technically best players over the team he thinks will exploit their weaknesses?

Whatever way you look at it, sadlier was in the best form he’s ever been in at the club over 3/4 games and Moore has dropped him for two matches, we’ve lost them both.

The decision to drop him when he was playing so well was absolute madness.

Dowie watched the Bolton game and said he was as good a right sided player outside the prem yet Moore dropped him the next game..

Crazy and makes zero sense

[Colin C No.3]

How about this lot, mesters in name at least.

Ken Hardwick
Harold Bratt   Ian Gore   Warren Hackett    John Breckin
Billy Law    Paul Birch    Wayne Bullimore    Alfie Beestin
James Shinner    Alan Warboys

Subs: David Carver, Tommy Spurr, Jason Shackell, Josh Payne

Yes but could we sign any of them in the close season?

[Graham Hirst]

We all pretty much know our strongest team but for some reason DM still not sure, it needs to be picked and stuck with, and if they can all stay fit we can still make play offs, All this swapping and changing for sake of it is ridiculous, top teams do it because they have a strong 25, We dont

[BobG]

This is what the West Brom fans told us about him when he signed for us. It's hardly a surprise is it?

BobG

[Graham Hirst]

Exactly right Bobg, mate of mine baggies season ticket holder said same thing, I criticised club for sacking him two points off play offs with plenty of games to go,, he said football was Dire, he was constantly changing a winning team, and insisted on playing out from back having bought players that couldn't do that,, All Rings A Bell

[NewDonny]

The decision not to play Sadlier in the recent games is just bizarre, and I think
DM needs to explain it.

He’d been in arguably his best form of the season and is our biggest goal threat by some distance. The tinkering with the team is crazy. DM shouldn’t be above criticism, this has been poor management.

How's it crazy? He's being pragmatic and picking the team based on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. Should he just pick the 11 technically best players over the team he thinks will exploit their weaknesses?

Whatever way you look at it, sadlier was in the best form he’s ever been in at the club over 3/4 games and Moore has dropped him for two matches, we’ve lost them both.

The decision to drop him when he was playing so well was absolute madness.

Dowie watched the Bolton game and said he was as good a right sided player outside the prem yet Moore dropped him the next game..

Crazy and makes zero sense

Dowies exact comments as a summariser on Sky Sports for that game was "if you want to win the game just give the ball to Sadlier".

Being able to freshen your squad up is fine, dropping players who are showing signs of tiredness, lack of form is also understandable, but not players that are flying and playing consistently well over a number of games and above all don't lose the games when making those changes.

[Rovers91]

Sometimes you need to change personnel or tactics depending on the opposition but not every game like DM is doing. Players can't get any momentum and consistency if the team is getting changed every game. It's like at minute hes picking names out of a hat for who starts in that front 4.

[pib]

Sometimes you need to change personnel or tactics depending on the opposition but not every game like DM is doing. Players can't get any momentum and consistency if the team is getting changed every game. It's like at minute hes picking names out of a hat for who starts in that front 4.

And think about what it must do to morale as well. If you're playing well and still in and out of the team, it must create a bit of resentment I would've thought.

[idler]

Imagine telling Ian Snodin or Dave Penney that they were being rotated?
I don't think that John Marquis would have taken kindly to it either.
Where does it end of the manager deems a player too important to the side to drop even if out of form. That surely leaves an in form player left out feeling seriously annoyed.