An indication of how far we have come

[GazLaz]

Football is about players. A bad manager can get a tune out of good players but a good manager can’t get a tune out of bad players.

[pib]

Who leaves a game after 30 mins?

[belton rover]

I don’t think the ‘Schofield didn’t have the money that McCann had’ argument is relevant. The real investment came in January, not when McCann first came back. There isn’t a chance he would have been given that investment if the board didn’t believe in him. If Schofield had given the board the same belief, then he would have been backed too.
McCann wasn’t just simply given a better hand.

McCann signed 12 new players before the end of August, while keeping all the decent ones (and having to keep some not very decent ones) from the previous season.

You reckon that wasn't a very big mark up on the previous season's wage bill?

I’ve no idea. The contracted players would have been League One players, wouldn’t they? How many other players did we sign?
Little to do with DS, of course, as he didn’t get the gig until October. Which is all the more reason to have given him investment for the January window. They didn’t, thankfully, for a reason.
I don’t know if Schofield was only ever a stop gap, or that they realised quite quickly that it was a huge mistake to give him the job. Either way he was completely out of his depth in every way.

[MachoMadness]

Worth pointing out that the reason McSheffrey was sacked was because he failed to give us an identity or style of play. Schofield was specifically hired because of his reputation as a 'systems' coach to address this. We headhunted the bloke, lumbered him with Conference North level players like Jonny Mitchell and Todd Miller, then sacked him for trying to do what he was hired to do. It really does sum up the very worst of the Blunt chairmanship. That's where the blame lies, for me.

There's no way in hell any manager would set us up to play the way Schofield did except as a last resort, but the sides we were fielding were two levels below the standard required last season.

Obviously we're in a much better place now, and I think McCann is a better manager than Schofield will be head coach. But I think DS was made a fall guy for the absolute shitshow taking place above him. And that shitshow was so bad, it took us 75% of this season to really recover from it, even with McCann in place and a massive boost to investment in players and coaching staff.

[dickos1]

Football is about players. A bad manager can get a tune out of good players but a good manager can’t get a tune out of bad players.

But a good manager can get a tune out of players that a bad manager can’t

[ForsolongaRover]

Football is about players. A bad manager can get a tune out of good players but a good manager can’t get a tune out of bad players.

But a good manager can get a tune out of players that a bad manager can’t

I agree and to extend the proposition you utilise what strengths your good (or bad) players possess. If it is highly technical (to give Schofield the benefit of the doubt) you have to recognise that your players aren’t up to it and play another way. He didn’t.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Football is about players. A bad manager can get a tune out of good players but a good manager can’t get a tune out of bad players.

But a good manager can get a tune out of players that a bad manager can’t

But remember. This season, up till 9 weeks ago, we DIDN'T get a tune out of a squad that was far better than the one Schofield had to choose from.

We got 29 points from 29 matches. 3rd worst in the division and including some of the worst defeats in our history.

I'm not pointing the finger at McCann because you have to look at the bigger picture. And the big picture shows that he's finally, with a lot of financial support, got us playing excellent football.

I am just amazed that so many people are so quick to stick the boot into Schofield, when he achieved better results than that with a far worse squad and little opportunity to improve it. Maybe it's just me, but I try not to make such bold judgements when the facts don't support them.

[dickos1]

I defended Schofield all last season probably more so than you Billy. But McCann is a proven experienced manager, and the styles of play are drastically different. For those 29 games this season our injury list and starting 11 wasn’t much better than last year. But even then we had games where we looked very good and you could see there was hope of it all clicking together, to be honest there wasn’t that indication last season

[Spud]

Comparison of respective wage budgets against league position is largely irrelevant in this discussion.

Schofield was sacked because ST renewals were poor; because fans were bored out of their skulls with his tedious, defensive tactics. Which he employed even before injuries struck.

McCann, even when we were 22nd in the table at the end of January, has not been under pressure to be sacked from the stands. He sets his team out to attack and win matches. That's the underlying difference.

Yes fans want to see Rovers win if possible but at the very least we want to see the team having a go and trying to entertain. We didn't even get that under Schofield.

The way Schofield set the team up to play was ridiculous, naive, and totally unempathetic to the supporters. If he hadn't have gone there is no way the wage budget would be as high this season as ticket sales would have crashed.

Surely one of the easiest sacking decisions in the history of DRFC.

Exactly this, for me.
Well put, great post.

[Campsall rover]

We seem to forget that Schofield "failed" with probably a lesser budget than McCann had in League Two. Despite McCann's better budget, results were poor until he was given a further budget increase in January, which turned the team's fortunes around.

I wonder if the supporter's general backing of McCann contributed to the board's contentment with him, and had he received similar supporter's condemnation as his predecessors he'd have suffered the same fate as them.

BB It took GM longer than expected to turn a losing mentality into a winning one.
When a team is constantly losing football matches for 2 full seasons it’s a not easy to turn that round instantly.
The new players in January have made a massive difference but the ones that were already here before January are showing that they are also very good players.
Ability is a must but it’s not much good without confidence & belief.

[Bentley Bullet]

CS, when a car still breaks down after the same part has been constantly replaced it is time to consider it is the wrong part being replaced. In Rovers' case, it was Lucky for Grant McCann that the board finally decided it was the right time to go down that route and look elsewhere for the cause of the problem.

I wonder if the supporters general backing of McCann contributed to them making that decision.

[GazLaz]

Team improves after money is spent shocker. Obviously you have real extremes (great and useless) and Schofield to McCann may be one of those cases, but managers done impact a clubs success as much as people think. Thats a fact. There are far more important contributing factors.

[ravenrover]

Such as?

[GazLaz]

Such as?

Players…

[BillyStubbsTears]

For those 29 games this season our injury list and starting 11 wasn’t much better than last year.

I know I should let this go, but I can't let absolute nonsense like this go without commenting.

Under Schofield last year, these were some of the appearances


Seaman 17
Barlow 15
Agard 14
Long 13
Lavery 12
Faulkner 11
Todd Miller 11
Ravenhill 8

How many appearances would that lot have made this year?

Faulkner has played literally 10 minutes. None of the others would have made it into ANY side we've put out this season.

The starting XI against Gillingham last year that the OP referred to was:

Mitchell
Seaman Faulkner Long Nelson Rowe
Barlow Close Westbrooke Molyneux
Goodman

Subs
Bottomley
Todd Miller
Degruchy
Agard
Hurst
Brown
Ravenhill.

Find me a side we've put out this season that is remotely as weak as that one in so many positions.


Why are people so determined not to look dispassionately at the facts on this issue?

[Petche]

I defended Schofield all last season probably more so than you Billy. But McCann is a proven experienced manager, and the styles of play are drastically different. For those 29 games this season our injury list and starting 11 wasn’t much better than last year. But even then we had games where we looked very good and you could see there was hope of it all clicking together, to be honest there wasn’t that indication last season

Completely agree with this. Under Schofield we were awful to watch, games were boring but early this season when McCann was struggling to get results there were positive signs and the football was more enjoyable.

[Petche]

Comparison of respective wage budgets against league position is largely irrelevant in this discussion.

Schofield was sacked because ST renewals were poor; because fans were bored out of their skulls with his tedious, defensive tactics. Which he employed even before injuries struck.

McCann, even when we were 22nd in the table at the end of January, has not been under pressure to be sacked from the stands. He sets his team out to attack and win matches. That's the underlying difference.

Yes fans want to see Rovers win if possible but at the very least we want to see the team having a go and trying to entertain. We didn't even get that under Schofield.

The way Schofield set the team up to play was ridiculous, naive, and totally unempathetic to the supporters. If he hadn't have gone there is no way the wage budget would be as high this season as ticket sales would have crashed.

Surely one of the easiest sacking decisions in the history of DRFC.

Perfectly put!

[pib]

I think a large factor is time as well. It was unlikely McCann (or any manager) was going to come in and wave a magic wand, even with better players. We were down there with the worst sides in the EFL last year. Look where Rochdale and Hartlepool are now (11th & 12th in the NL), we were nigh-on as bad as them. That's not an overnight job to turn around.

The same, of course, applies to Schofield, as we were already pretty shit when he came in. He didn't have a magic wand to wave either. We'll never know if he would've performed better with this season's budget given time, but what we do know is that the path we were going down was a disaster, and it's a relief that the club have course-corrected. Unproven HoF, unproven Head Coach, and a bottom-half L2 budget was just a recipe for massive underperformance.

It's taken McCann a while, but I've very much been of the mind all season that things had to pick up eventually, because you look at what he's done in the game and his experience, and the probability was that he'd figure out a way to improve things. With Schofield, the probabilities were far more unsure because you couldn't look at a body of work he had as a manager/HC and say with confidence he would deliver. I think I and others will feel vindicated in that belief in GM if we can carry through the current form into next season and mount a challenge.

[Colin C No.3]

Team improves after money is spent shocker. Obviously you have real extremes (great and useless) and Schofield to McCann may be one of those cases, but managers done impact a clubs success as much as people think. Thats a fact. There are far more important contributing factors.

Tosh.

Man Utd have a greater commercial income than Liverpool, even today.

Swap Eric ten Hag for Jurgen Klopp & Man Utd would have a couple more Premiership titles under their belt & quite possibly a Champions League Title.

Liverpool under Hag would be struggling as Man Utd are (for the size of the club) now.

Managers influence team/club’s performances….fact.

Staying with Premiership managers I give you…

Aston Villa under Emery
Brighton under Potter & De Zerbi
Newcastle & Bournemouth under Howe

All improved (are improving) the clubs who employed them.

A good manager (unless you’re given the poison chalice that are Chelsea & Spurs) makes a significant difference to a teams (players) performances.

[ravenrover]

Such as?

Players…

That's one but you said factorS or are you counting playerS as multiple?

[Jonathan]

While we’re on it with the pointless arguments, I think we’d have finished higher in the league than we did last season if we’d have just stuck with McSheffrey.

We’ve gone with McCann and he’s had good backing from the owners but we need to be careful how we label “lots of money” in the context of our direct competitors. Even with the extra backing, we can’t be expected to compete with what some of the biggest spenders in this division are paying out. It’s taken more than one transfer window to fix us and there’s still work to do in the transfer market. But we are now showing signs of turning the curve and we should forget about arguing over what’s gone before and just focus positively on what we get from watching this team both now and moving forward.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I think a large factor is time as well. It was unlikely McCann (or any manager) was going to come in and wave a magic wand, even with better players. We were down there with the worst sides in the EFL last year. Look where Rochdale and Hartlepool are now (11th & 12th in the NL), we were nigh-on as bad as them. That's not an overnight job to turn around.

The same, of course, applies to Schofield, as we were already pretty shit when he came in. He didn't have a magic wand to wave either. We'll never know if he would've performed better with this season's budget given time, but what we do know is that the path we were going down was a disaster, and it's a relief that the club have course-corrected. Unproven HoF, unproven Head Coach, and a bottom-half L2 budget was just a recipe for massive underperformance.

It's taken McCann a while, but I've very much been of the mind all season that things had to pick up eventually, because you look at what he's done in the game and his experience, and the probability was that he'd figure out a way to improve things. With Schofield, the probabilities were far more unsure because you couldn't look at a body of work he had as a manager/HC and say with confidence he would deliver. I think I and others will feel vindicated in that belief in GM if we can carry through the current form into next season and mount a challenge.

Point here. We WERE playing shite when Schofield took over. We'd picked up 8 points in the previous 9 games

In his first 15 games, we picked up 24 points. Playoff form. There was an immediate improvement in both performances and results. Yet still we have a stream of people in here insisting that he was absolutely out of his depth and never ever got a side performing. I really, really don't understand it.

[GazLaz]

Team improves after money is spent shocker. Obviously you have real extremes (great and useless) and Schofield to McCann may be one of those cases, but managers done impact a clubs success as much as people think. Thats a fact. There are far more important contributing factors.

Tosh.

Man Utd have a greater commercial income than Liverpool, even today.

Swap Eric ten Hag for Jurgen Klopp & Man Utd would have a couple more Premiership titles under their belt & quite possibly a Champions League Title.

Liverpool under Hag would be struggling as Man Utd are (for the size of the club) now.

Managers influence team/club’s performances….fact.

Staying with Premiership managers I give you…

Aston Villa under Emery
Brighton under Potter & De Zerbi
Newcastle & Bournemouth under Howe

All improved (are improving) the clubs who employed them.

A good manager (unless you’re given the poison chalice that are Chelsea & Spurs) makes a significant difference to a teams (players) performances.

It’s not tosh. Whatever you may think.

Liverpool are where they are because they have a good manager but more importantly they have one of the best (data led) recruitment structures in the world. Same for Brighton.

Conversely United aren’t under achieving because of EtH. He’s a great coach. They just consistently spend their money horribly.

Eddie Howe??? Newcastle have spent fortunes, that’s why they have (marginally) improved. They finished 12th under Bruce/Ashley pretty consistently. They currently sit 8th.

However many points you think a good manager is worth over a season it’s less. Ask any top sporting director. It’s just an absolute fact. Of course you can find examples of cases where a certain manager improved situations and other managers made things worse but you have to look at these things as a whole, not just hunt for certain spots that may back up your ultimately wrong opinion.

[BillyStubbsTears]

While we’re on it with the pointless arguments, I think we’d have finished higher in the league than we did last season if we’d have just stuck with McSheffrey.

We’ve gone with McCann and he’s had good backing from the owners but we need to be careful how we label “lots of money” in the context of our direct competitors. Even with the extra backing, we can’t be expected to compete with what some of the biggest spenders in this division are paying out. It’s taken more than one transfer window to fix us and there’s still work to do in the transfer market. But we are now showing signs of turning the curve and we should forget about arguing over what’s gone before and just focus positively on what we get from watching this team both now and moving forward.

Serious question. Do you think any manager, from Klopp downwards, would have got a tune out of the squad that we were reduced to by this time last year?

That squad for the Gillingham game had 8-10 players who, if we're going to be brutally honest wouldn't get in a middling Conference side. Why should we have expected any better than desperately dull attempts to limit the damage on the pitch?

[Colin C No.3]

Team improves after money is spent shocker. Obviously you have real extremes (great and useless) and Schofield to McCann may be one of those cases, but managers done impact a clubs success as much as people think. Thats a fact. There are far more important contributing factors.

Tosh.

Man Utd have a greater commercial income than Liverpool, even today.

Swap Eric ten Hag for Jurgen Klopp & Man Utd would have a couple more Premiership titles under their belt & quite possibly a Champions League Title.

Liverpool under Hag would be struggling as Man Utd are (for the size of the club) now.

Managers influence team/club’s performances….fact.

Staying with Premiership managers I give you…

Aston Villa under Emery
Brighton under Potter & De Zerbi
Newcastle & Bournemouth under Howe

All improved (are improving) the clubs who employed them.

A good manager (unless you’re given the poison chalice that are Chelsea & Spurs) makes a significant difference to a teams (players) performances.

It’s not tosh. Whatever you may think.

Liverpool are where they are because they have a good manager but more importantly they have one of the best (data led) recruitment structures in the world. Same for Brighton.

Conversely United aren’t under achieving because of EtH. He’s a great coach. They just consistently spend their money horribly.

Eddie Howe??? Newcastle have spent fortunes, that’s why they have (marginally) improved. They finished 12th under Bruce/Ashley pretty consistently. They currently sit 8th.

However many points you think a good manager is worth over a season it’s less. Ask any top sporting director. It’s just an absolute fact. Of course you can find examples of cases where a certain manager improved situations and other managers made things worse but you have to look at these things as a whole, not just hunt for certain spots that may back up your ultimately wrong opinion.

In your opinion.

[GazLaz]

It’s not my opinion. It’s proven. Maybe worth you digesting information from more varied sources. May broaden your understanding of football.

[Colin C No.3]

It’s not my opinion. It’s proven. Maybe worth you digesting information from more varied sources. May broaden your understanding of football.

Oh how I laughed.

[dickos1]

For those 29 games this season our injury list and starting 11 wasn’t much better than last year.

I know I should let this go, but I can't let absolute nonsense like this go without commenting.

Under Schofield last year, these were some of the appearances


Seaman 17
Barlow 15
Agard 14
Long 13
Lavery 12
Faulkner 11
Todd Miller 11
Ravenhill 8

How many appearances would that lot have made this year?

Faulkner has played literally 10 minutes. None of the others would have made it into ANY side we've put out this season.

The starting XI against Gillingham last year that the OP referred to was:

Mitchell
Seaman Faulkner Long Nelson Rowe
Barlow Close Westbrooke Molyneux
Goodman

Subs
Bottomley
Todd Miller
Degruchy
Agard
Hurst
Brown
Ravenhill.

Find me a side we've put out this season that is remotely as weak as that one in so many positions.


Why are people so determined not to look dispassionately at the facts on this issue?

Ha ha
Give over
Miller maybe started one game, two tops.
We’ve had plenty of games this season where we’ve played lots of inexperienced players since as Nixon, mcgrath, the two young loan strikers, craig,
These are players that wouldn’t have been any more expensive than some of the players we signed last season.
McCann just spent that money better

[BillyStubbsTears]

Go on then Dickos. Since you've chosen yet another stupid hill to die on. Find me a squad this season remotely as bad as that one at Gillingham last year.

[streathamdave]

It's more than about just one game though. I mentioned Gillingham because the difference in feeling for me from that game to looking forward to the same one coming up crystalised things for me. Football is more than simply stats and wages. It is about how coming away from a game or the lead up to a game make you feel. Plenty of our managers have been potless, but the football they served up (Richardson era aside) never made me feel how football under Schofield did. Looking at the players that were the same under Schofield and Mccann, I would argue that the vast majority of them have played better under Mccann. Schofield seems a nice bloke, but I felt and still feel that he got less from the sum of the players at his disposal than he ought to. That is not about money, that is about a mixture tactics, flexability, ability,experience and nous. Anyway, I wish him well in the future.