Relegation

[Campsall rover]

How frustrating it is that just one more win this season and of course if we win next Saturday ( big if although Oxford now have nothing to play for ) May have kept us up.
That Morecambe defeat and only drawing with Fleetwood away were massively costly.
It was in our hands to win both those games. Morecambe we totally messed up and Fleetwood we looked happy with a draw. Criminal really.
We can’t get much worse than this season.

Brighter times ahead I am sure of that. Come on Copps get the Club back on a positive track and roll on next season.
Promotion has to be the target anything less will be a massive disappointment.

[BillyStubbsTears]

This bottom 6 is the worst, relative to the rest of the division, in the history of Tier 3.

We have played 10 games against the other 5

P10 W2 D3 L5 F10 A12 Pts 9

We have had relegation form against the absolute dross of this division.

Yes a couple of those results going the other way would have saved us. But we didn't earn that. I m've said before, it would have been a travesty if a side as w**k as us had stopped up.

[drfchound]

How frustrating it is that just one more win this season and of course if we win next Saturday ( big if although Oxford now have nothing to play for ) May have kept us up.
That Morecambe defeat and only drawing with Fleetwood away were massively costly.
It was in our hands to win both those games. Morecambe we totally messed up and Fleetwood we looked happy with a draw. Criminal really.
We can’t get much worse than this season.

Brighter times ahead I am sure of that. Come on Copps get the Club back on a positive track and roll on next season.
Promotion has to be the target anything less will be a massive disappointment.

Just one more point would have taken it to the Oxford game.

[Campsall rover]

This bottom 6 is the worst, relative to the rest if the division, in the history of Tier 3.

We have played 10 games against the other 5

P10 W2 D3 L5 F10 A12 Pts 9

We have had relegation form against the absolute dross of this division.

Yes a couple of those results going the other way would have saved us. But we didn't earn that. I m've said before, it would have been a travesty if a side as w**k as us had stopped up.

Your not wrong BST
It is now possible 6 teams could end up with 42 points or less.
I don’t remember that ever happening before.
Not even 45 points or less for that matter.

[tyke1962]

At the end of the day we all moan about this coach that coach , the owner , the ceo etc etc etc .

Boils down to one very simple factor , recruitment .

Get the recruitment right and everyone is a hero .

The players are out there to make Rovers successful next season and within budget .

Forest Green and Exeter City have modest budgets and found success this season .

I simply won't have my club hiding behind the budget and using it as an excuse .

The players are always out there irrespective .

[jmt23]

Tyke, you have had a poor season- in a very good league, and managed to put together a few results. There is levels of poor, and for the majority of this season we have been several levels below poor.

It is a massive shock to the system to see our team reduced to this, and some of us have not seen football of this “quality” since 96/97. We have players who look like they have only just been introduced to the sport, they cannot pass, shoot, some even struggle with running.

There are green shoots, but I am not positive we will return to league 1 without some huge overhaul (again)

[Padge_DRFC]

Best thing is it will go down as being relegated on the last game of the season.

[ravenrover]

And yet we have won more games than those around us in the bottom 5! But having lost more games the difference is the number of draws the others have managed

[tyke1962]

Tyke, you have had a poor season- in a very good league, and managed to put together a few results. There is levels of poor, and for the majority of this season we have been several levels below poor.

It is a massive shock to the system to see our team reduced to this, and some of us have not seen football of this “quality” since 96/97. We have players who look like they have only just been introduced to the sport, they cannot pass, shoot, some even struggle with running.

There are green shoots, but I am not positive we will return to league 1 without some huge overhaul (again)

I've seen most things in my time following my club  and I'll probably see a few more too .

I'm going to re-visit my club's last relegation just to point out one thing .

When we dropped out of the championship in 2018 the squad contained , Alex Mowatt , Kieffer Moore , Liam Lindsay , Ethan Pinnock , Adam Davies , Brad Potts , Cameron McGeehan , Tom Bradshaw  and we had Harvey Barnes on loan .

The drop in to league one helped them find their feet and we came straight back .

Ethan Pinnock and Harvey Barnes are PL players , Cameron McGeehan plays in the Belgium top flight and the rest are solid championship performers at good clubs .

Recruit well this summer with what you have and who knows is my point .

[RoversAlias]

At the end of the day we all moan about this coach that coach , the owner , the ceo etc etc etc .

Boils down to one very simple factor , recruitment .

Get the recruitment right and everyone is a hero .

The players are out there to make Rovers successful next season and within budget .

Forest Green and Exeter City have modest budgets and found success this season .

I simply won't have my club hiding behind the budget and using it as an excuse .

The players are always out there irrespective .

Forest Green do not have a modest budget, they have a rich owner who has dragged them out of non-league obscurity. They have a top 5-10 budget in League Two and have been aiming for promotion for a while.

I do think it is a fine balance between budget and actual recruitment though. If you have one without the other then you'll struggle to be ultimately successful.

[Dutch Uncle]

This bottom 6 is the worst, relative to the rest if the division, in the history of Tier 3.

We have played 10 games against the other 5

P10 W2 D3 L5 F10 A12 Pts 9

We have had relegation form against the absolute dross of this division.

Yes a couple of those results going the other way would have saved us. But we didn't earn that. I m've said before, it would have been a travesty if a side as w**k as us had stopped up.

Your not wrong BST
It is now possible 6 teams could end up with 42 points or less.
I don’t remember that ever happening before.
Not even 45 points or less for that matter.

Posted elsewhere a while ago - since 3 points per win was introduced in 1981-82 the lowest number ever to survive in the Division is 45 in 1999-00 and the lowest number of points in 21st place is 43 in 2011-12 so 44 could have survived that season.

[BillyStubbsTears]

And yet we have won more games than those around us in the bottom 5! But having lost more games the difference is the number of draws the others have managed

And that is the problem. We've been utterly unable to resist periods of pressure from decent sides. We've lost games that a moderate side should have got a point from. And we've been absolutely hammered in games a moderate side would have lost 1-2.

[BillyStubbsTears]

This bottom 6 is the worst, relative to the rest if the division, in the history of Tier 3.

We have played 10 games against the other 5

P10 W2 D3 L5 F10 A12 Pts 9

We have had relegation form against the absolute dross of this division.

Yes a couple of those results going the other way would have saved us. But we didn't earn that. I m've said before, it would have been a travesty if a side as w**k as us had stopped up.

Your not wrong BST
It is now possible 6 teams could end up with 42 points or less.
I don’t remember that ever happening before.
Not even 45 points or less for that matter.

Posted elsewhere a while ago - since 3 points per win was introduced in 1981-82 the lowest number ever to survive in the Division is 45 in 1999-00 and the lowest number of points in 21st place is 43 in 2011-12 so 44 could have survived that season.

Dutch.

That 43 points record for 21st place will at best be matched this year. It will be broken unless Gillingham beat Rotherham AND Fleetwood beat Sheff Weds or Bolton. EDIT: AND Morecambe get a point off Sunderland. 

A simply shocking bottom 6. And excluding fairy tale endings, we were mathematically relegated with two weeks to go.

[Chris Black come back]

At the end of the day we all moan about this coach that coach , the owner , the ceo etc etc etc .

Boils down to one very simple factor , recruitment .

Get the recruitment right and everyone is a hero .

The players are out there to make Rovers successful next season and within budget .

Forest Green and Exeter City have modest budgets and found success this season .

I simply won't have my club hiding behind the budget and using it as an excuse .

The players are always out there irrespective .

Forest Green do not have a modest budget, they have a rich owner who has dragged them out of non-league obscurity. They have a top 5-10 budget in League Two and have been aiming for promotion for a while.

I do think it is a fine balance between budget and actual recruitment though. If you have one without the other then you'll struggle to be ultimately successful.

Correct. Last season Forest Green had a wage bill of £3.6m which I would imagine is comfortably in excess of ours.

[normal rules]

If u look back over the season there are many weekends where rovers have failed to capitalise on an advantage given by other teams failings. Overall it just compounds the fact we have been very very poor.

[acacia94]

Your posts Tyke have always been like a foreign correspondent having an outside view on our bit of the world. You're the Kate Adie or John Simpson from Barnsley and thanks. Something has seriously happened to Doncaster Rovers this season that is off the scale. Its gone so seriously shite its not down to managers leaving or poor recruitment. I cant explain how disconnected I'm with the club but its like a chasm. I dont hate them but i think they're so deluded and a mess they have no idea how far we're in the shit.

[Prez]

Best thing is it will go down as being relegated on the last game of the season.

Not necessarily, it might be over before then.

[GazLaz]

This bottom 6 is the worst, relative to the rest of the division, in the history of Tier 3.

We have played 10 games against the other 5

P10 W2 D3 L5 F10 A12 Pts 9

We have had relegation form against the absolute dross of this division.

Yes a couple of those results going the other way would have saved us. But we didn't earn that. I m've said before, it would have been a travesty if a side as w**k as us had stopped up.

The top of the division is also better than usual.

[mrfrostsdad]

This bottom 6 is the worst, relative to the rest of the division, in the history of Tier 3.

We have played 10 games against the other 5

P10 W2 D3 L5 F10 A12 Pts 9

We have had relegation form against the absolute dross of this division.

Yes a couple of those results going the other way would have saved us. But we didn't earn that. I m've said before, it would have been a travesty if a side as w**k as us had stopped up.

You're spot on BST.
I couldn't believe how bad Crewe and Burton were. Crewe we beat very comfortably and in the second half yesterday Burton were just as bad.
Our goal aside, which was a good move, that first half was as bad as anything I've seen at this level. Even their penalty was crap.
We've truly got what we deserved this season

[Padge_DRFC]

This bottom 6 is the worst, relative to the rest if the division, in the history of Tier 3.

We have played 10 games against the other 5

P10 W2 D3 L5 F10 A12 Pts 9

We have had relegation form against the absolute dross of this division.

Yes a couple of those results going the other way would have saved us. But we didn't earn that. I m've said before, it would have been a travesty if a side as w**k as us had stopped up.

Your not wrong BST
It is now possible 6 teams could end up with 42 points or less.
I don’t remember that ever happening before.
Not even 45 points or less for that matter.

Posted elsewhere a while ago - since 3 points per win was introduced in 1981-82 the lowest number ever to survive in the Division is 45 in 1999-00 and the lowest number of points in 21st place is 43 in 2011-12 so 44 could have survived that season.

Dutch.

That 43 points record for 21st place will at best be matched this year. It will be broken unless Gillingham beat Rotherham AND Fleetwood beat Sheff Weds or Bolton.

A simply shocking bottom 6. And excluding fairy tale endings, we were mathematically relegated with two weeks to go.

Looking likely to be one of the highest points needed for the playoffs this year too. Not sure if anyone has this info. I suppose when the bottom 6 are so low those points need to go elsewhere.

[BigH]

In a way I'm glad we're going down. If we'd somehow managed to stay up this season it would only have led to further delusion and, in all probability, delayed the inevitable next season.

Football-wise, we're not in a good place at the moment and haven't been for a while. The hope has to be that, by dropping down a level, we get the time and space to figure things out. I think we're starting from a lower base than a lot of people realise.

A win at Oxford next week would be a boost to morale and make me think that we might have the basis of a management/backroom staff to take us forward.

[Campsall rover]

Your posts Tyke have always been like a foreign correspondent having an outside view on our bit of the world. You're the Kate Adie or John Simpson from Barnsley and thanks. Something has seriously happened to Doncaster Rovers this season that is off the scale. Its gone so seriously shite its not down to managers leaving or poor recruitment. I cant explain how disconnected I'm with the club but its like a chasm. I dont hate them but i think they're so deluded and a mess they have no idea how far we're in the shit.

Come on it’s not that bad. Why do you feel so disconnected. That’s one thing this club is good at imo.
We have supporter liaison officers, we have meet the owner meetings. We have supporter clubs meetings with the CEO and sometimes manager also.
Sorry where is the disconnect?

Yes the board have made mistakes no doubt but it’s all down to managerial and player recruitment.

Recruitment is the key, if you get it badly wrong you will get relegated and that is what’s has happened at DRFC.

[Dutch Uncle]

This bottom 6 is the worst, relative to the rest if the division, in the history of Tier 3.

We have played 10 games against the other 5

P10 W2 D3 L5 F10 A12 Pts 9

We have had relegation form against the absolute dross of this division.

Yes a couple of those results going the other way would have saved us. But we didn't earn that. I m've said before, it would have been a travesty if a side as w**k as us had stopped up.

Your not wrong BST
It is now possible 6 teams could end up with 42 points or less.
I don’t remember that ever happening before.
Not even 45 points or less for that matter.

Posted elsewhere a while ago - since 3 points per win was introduced in 1981-82 the lowest number ever to survive in the Division is 45 in 1999-00 and the lowest number of points in 21st place is 43 in 2011-12 so 44 could have survived that season.

Dutch.

That 43 points record for 21st place will at best be matched this year. It will be broken unless Gillingham beat Rotherham AND Fleetwood beat Sheff Weds or Bolton.

A simply shocking bottom 6. And excluding fairy tale endings, we were mathematically relegated with two weeks to go.

Looking likely to be one of the highest points needed for the playoffs this year too. Not sure if anyone has this info. I suppose when the bottom 6 are so low those points need to go elsewhere.

In the same period in tier 3 the highest number of points for 6th place is 82 and for 7th place is 80, both in 1999-00, thus backing up your comments as to where the low points at the bottom tend to go to.

So 80 is the highest to fail, though 81 would also have failed that season

[tyke1962]

Your posts Tyke have always been like a foreign correspondent having an outside view on our bit of the world. You're the Kate Adie or John Simpson from Barnsley and thanks. Something has seriously happened to Doncaster Rovers this season that is off the scale. Its gone so seriously shite its not down to managers leaving or poor recruitment. I cant explain how disconnected I'm with the club but its like a chasm. I dont hate them but i think they're so deluded and a mess they have no idea how far we're in the shit.

You've made a positive appointment in JC who I'm pretty certain will make a huge success of the role so that's the first step .

The second one is to get rid of the negative energy that surrounds the club .

The recruitment needs to be as much about characters as it's about ability in my opinion .

Some big positive characters and two or three vastly experienced lads that's had good careers , not the one last pay day merchants but the solid pro .

We aren't talking superstars here by any means but the players that you can rely on and the younger lads can look up to .

Plenty of plaudits for the job Nathan Jones has done at Luton on probably the smallest budget in the championship but the truth is its Mick Harford whose found the players .

I see a similar comparison with JC , if JC is half as successful as Mick Harford you'll be totally fine .

[Upton Rover]

Mr positive as usual, hope that we can bounce back straight away, however I think there’s more turbulent times ahead

[tyke1962]

I'm not entirely sure what the Millers have in mind for Richard Wood other than I believe his contract is up at Rotherham this season I believe .

It wouldn't be the worst shout to pick up the phone though especially if the Millers are promoted back to the championship .

There's another good season at least in Richard Wood especially at league two level as old as he is .

But none the less it's his type I'm alluring to when I say you need some big characters in that dressing room next season to help these young lads .

[roversdude]

I think we’ve already started with Clayton

[Bessie Red]

Last 11 games we've amassed 12 points. Projected over the season that form would have kept us up comfortably. I think GMc seems to be turning the ship around slowly and his Jan signings have made a difference.

[tyke1962]

I suspect Rovers will once again be utilising the loan market , possibly four or five lads coming in .

The loan market is a very different animal at league two level in my opinion as oppose to the lads who find themselves in the championship and top half league one .

Most of these young lads will be going out on loan for the first time from their parent clubs .

That's opens up opportunity in my opinion even though these lads will probably be 18 , 19 possibly 20 years of age .

This is a fresh crop and amongst these lads will be talent , real talent and wanting to cut their teeth in first team football .

If they perform really well then you aren't going to be able to sign them and the outstanding ones will probably be loaned out next season to championship clubs and see how they go at the higher level .

My point is there is opportunity out there if you get this right and the experience around them .

As I've previously stated with my reference to my own club and 2018 the drop to the lower level can be a huge positive as bad as we are all feeling right now .

[DonnyOsmond]

Your posts Tyke have always been like a foreign correspondent having an outside view on our bit of the world. You're the Kate Adie or John Simpson from Barnsley and thanks. Something has seriously happened to Doncaster Rovers this season that is off the scale. Its gone so seriously shite its not down to managers leaving or poor recruitment. I cant explain how disconnected I'm with the club but its like a chasm. I dont hate them but i think they're so deluded and a mess they have no idea how far we're in the shit.

You've made a positive appointment in JC who I'm pretty certain will make a huge success of the role so that's the first step .

The second one is to get rid of the negative energy that surrounds the club .

The recruitment needs to be as much about characters as it's about ability in my opinion .

Some big positive characters and two or three vastly experienced lads that's had good careers , not the one last pay day merchants but the solid pro .

We aren't talking superstars here by any means but the players that you can rely on and the younger lads can look up to .

Plenty of plaudits for the job Nathan Jones has done at Luton on probably the smallest budget in the championship but the truth is its Mick Harford whose found the players .

I see a similar comparison with JC , if JC is half as successful as Mick Harford you'll be totally fine .

Jay Socik probably helped Luton too.