Embarrassing

[McCammon egg n chips]

Hate how fickle some of our fans are. E.g donny lad McGrath has a few poor games at a new higher level and suddenly last year's world beater is apparently dog shite. "Wish we'd sold him in the summer" blah blah blah.

You don't suddenly forget how to play footy overnight.

[GazLaz]

Not sure you can run a club this way. Use a decent budget, 3 months in decide loads not good enough so try again in January. Very very lucky it's not 3-4 years ago.

3 months in and we’re 10th in a higher league

You maybe need to address your expectations slightly

I agree with you. Grant set the expectations though. He himself said he knows what he needs to challenge for the top 6 and the club gave it him. He set his own budget for that.

He did, but that’s what he does he’s a positive manager. Last season he said we’d win the title before a ball was kicked and all season people were knocking that, saying we’ve no chance.
Even in April folk were saying we’ve no chance.

If he says we are aiming for the top 6 then let’s see where we are in May, not where we are in October. And not poo poo that prediction when we’re only 4 points off it with 30 odd games to go

Genuinely why come on a forum if it's a case of don't have any opinions until May?

Grant will be a positive manager all his career but won’t always have success will he. Think it’s fine people commenting on the recent form. We were great for the first 6 games and not so much for the last 6.

Grant has pretty much complete autonomy at the club. That means that he gets all the praise when we do well but also all the criticism when we don’t do so well. I think he’s prepared to shoulder that blame after listening to his interview.

For what it’s worth, putting that kind of pressure (or allowing a manager to shoulder that kind of pressure) isn’t a sustainable way to run a football club. We are lucky that Grant can handle it better than most. It will be his undoing though as your strength generally becomes your weakness. 

[Bills view]

You will always make mistakes but the quantity of the crazy ones starting with the keeper, then defenders, misses up top (strikers get let off lightly like when Billy missed that easy one against Burton) and midfield flaws have cost us big time in the last month or so.

Halve those mistakes and it’s probably a different picture and confidence would still be strong.

Plus opinions and league position would be different.

We have to cut them out the best we can or we will be up against it in games like we have found.

[dickos1]

Not sure you can run a club this way. Use a decent budget, 3 months in decide loads not good enough so try again in January. Very very lucky it's not 3-4 years ago.

3 months in and we’re 10th in a higher league

You maybe need to address your expectations slightly

I agree with you. Grant set the expectations though. He himself said he knows what he needs to challenge for the top 6 and the club gave it him. He set his own budget for that.

He did, but that’s what he does he’s a positive manager. Last season he said we’d win the title before a ball was kicked and all season people were knocking that, saying we’ve no chance.
Even in April folk were saying we’ve no chance.

If he says we are aiming for the top 6 then let’s see where we are in May, not where we are in October. And not poo poo that prediction when we’re only 4 points off it with 30 odd games to go

Genuinely why come on a forum if it's a case of don't have any opinions until May?

Nothing wrong with opinions, but you can’t have a got at the manager because he said we’re aiming for promotion when we’re sat only 4 points off that target and there are over 30 games to go

[NickDRFC]

Dickos, I think most fans are happy that we’re in 10th and would be happy with a 10th place finish at the end of the season (most, not all!) But it’s not unreasonable to be concerned about the drop off in form (both performances and results) of late. It’s not as though we’ve been really unfortunate in this run, either.

If we had started the season with, say, 7 straight defeats and then won 5 in a row we’d be in a worse league position than we are now. But if we had seen that scenario and anyone had mentioned concerns about the first 7 games, you’d have called them crackers or dismissed it as nonsense as we’d just won 5 in a row.

The opposite has happened - we started really well but we’re faltering now with very obvious weaknesses throughout the squad and team. Well hopefully start picking up points again but you’re going to keep pointing to results and performances a month ago you can’t expect people not to talk about what’s happened more recently.

[scawsby steve]

Finishing 10th would be an excellent result for us this season.

No it wouldn't. It would be completely failing the remit of the management team.

[DonnyOsmond]

Finishing 10th would be an excellent result for us this season.

No it wouldn't. It would be completely failing the remit of the management team.

We have a mid table budget according to the interview from Gavin earlier this season, so 10th will be over performing.

[scawsby steve]

Finishing 10th would be an excellent result for us this season.

No it wouldn't. It would be completely failing the remit of the management team.

We have a mid table budget according to the interview from Gavin earlier this season, so 10th will be over performing.

That would be overperforming the budget. GM has said umpteen times that the aim is play-off places at least.

In fact, he's recently questioned the ambitions of some of the players.

[DonnyOsmond]

Finishing 10th would be an excellent result for us this season.

No it wouldn't. It would be completely failing the remit of the management team.

We have a mid table budget according to the interview from Gavin earlier this season, so 10th will be over performing.

That would be overperforming the budget. GM has said umpteen times that the aim is play-off places at least.

In fact, he's recently questioned the ambitions of some of the players.

I think there's a difference between the managers ambition of play offs and what the board expect.

[dickos1]

Finishing 10th would be an excellent result for us this season.

No it wouldn't. It would be completely failing the remit of the management team.

If you really think that then I don’t know what to say

[scawsby steve]

Finishing 10th would be an excellent result for us this season.

No it wouldn't. It would be completely failing the remit of the management team.

We have a mid table budget according to the interview from Gavin earlier this season, so 10th will be over performing.

That would be overperforming the budget. GM has said umpteen times that the aim is play-off places at least.

In fact, he's recently questioned the ambitions of some of the players.

I think there's a difference between the managers ambition of play offs and what the board expect.

I think Terry would disagree with you there, which will be made evident in January.

[scawsby steve]

Finishing 10th would be an excellent result for us this season.

No it wouldn't. It would be completely failing the remit of the management team.

If you really think that then I don’t know what to say

If you really think that Terry and GM would be happy with finishing 10th, then I don't know what to say.

[Alan Southstand]

Hang on a minute - if the ambition was play-off’s, why did we sign Hanlan and Olosanya ( and Ajeyi for that matter)?

GM may well be talking it up and wanting much more from the squad, but the squad seemingly has been over estimated. There’s quite a few in there, still, that are patently not up to this level (on a consistent basis).

[scawsby steve]

Hang on a minute - if the ambition was play-off’s, why did we sign Hanlan and Olosanya ( and Ajeyi for that matter)?

GM may well be talking it up and wanting much more from the squad, but the squad seemingly has been over estimated. There’s quite a few in there, still, that are patently not up to this level (on a consistent basis).

That's right, Alan, which is why I think Terry will dig deep in January. He always has done in the past, and he's made it clear that he wants Rovers back in the Championship.

He must be knocking on to 83 now, and he clearly wants to leave Rovers with a good legacy.

[les@donr]

To be fair to Grant he took full responsibility for both the defeat and the performance for yesterday’s debacle.I think we would have been in a better place if we had gone to Lincoln and placed 1M on the table and got Rob Street. He is the type of striker we need. I know it’s not my money but Terry’s.

[GazLaz]

To be fair to Grant he took full responsibility for both the defeat and the performance for yesterday’s debacle.I think we would have been in a better place if we had gone to Lincoln and placed 1M on the table and got Rob Street. He is the type of striker we need. I know it’s not my money but Terry’s.

Rob Street who had not scored a league goal for Lincoln? He’s not worth a million quid in a million years.

[i_ateallthepies]

Finishing 10th would be an excellent result for us this season.

No it wouldn't. It would be completely failing the remit of the management team.

We have a mid table budget according to the interview from Gavin earlier this season, so 10th will be over performing.

We're top half but in my world 10th IS mid table.  What do you consider to be mid table, only 12th and 13th?

[eastender]

To be fair to Grant he took full responsibility for both the defeat and the performance for yesterday’s debacle.I think we would have been in a better place if we had gone to Lincoln and placed 1M on the table and got Rob Street. He is the type of striker we need. I know it’s not my money but Terry’s.

Rob Street who had not scored a league goal for Lincoln? He’s not worth a million quid in a million years.

Isn't he playing primarily as a winger for Lincoln and not a CF.

[ncRover]

To be fair to Grant he took full responsibility for both the defeat and the performance for yesterday’s debacle.I think we would have been in a better place if we had gone to Lincoln and placed 1M on the table and got Rob Street. He is the type of striker we need. I know it’s not my money but Terry’s.

Rob Street who had not scored a league goal for Lincoln? He’s not worth a million quid in a million years.

Isn't he playing primarily as a winger for Lincoln and not a CF.

Yes he’s playing as a right winger in a 4-4-2.

Scored v Chelsea playing CF.

[GazLaz]

To be fair to Grant he took full responsibility for both the defeat and the performance for yesterday’s debacle.I think we would have been in a better place if we had gone to Lincoln and placed 1M on the table and got Rob Street. He is the type of striker we need. I know it’s not my money but Terry’s.

Rob Street who had not scored a league goal for Lincoln? He’s not worth a million quid in a million years.

Isn't he playing primarily as a winger for Lincoln and not a CF.

A million pound centre forward with his physical attributes would be contributing goals playing on the wing in L1.

[dickos1]

I think this is part of the problem,
Fans being unhappy at finishing 10th in a league above after promotion.
Gavin said all this in the summer, they’re aiming to be around midtable and with an outside glance at the playoffs
Which is exactly where we are!

McCann is backing himself to do better than that,

Absolute bonkers to suggest we shouldn’t be happy finishing 10th after promotion as is definitely the problem with football fans these days

[Frankie Rennie]

Unfortunately days like Saturday happen, we had just as bad a day at Burton where we were utter gash so on that basis would you like TSL back please, please, please because Teddys the gashest of the lot? ☹️

[Monkcaster_Rover]

Unfortunately days like Saturday happen, we had just as bad a day at Burton where we were utter gash so on that basis would you like TSL back please, please, please because Teddys the gashest of the lot? ☹️

He’s not half copping for some flack from your supporters on Twitter! Poor lad. Hasn’t had the best of starts looking at clips and snippets.

[scawsby steve]

Unfortunately days like Saturday happen, we had just as bad a day at Burton where we were utter gash so on that basis would you like TSL back please, please, please because Teddys the gashest of the lot? ☹️

It's not just Saturday though, Frankie. Our performance at Wigan was just as bad, and we're on a run of 4 defeats and a draw in the last 5 league games.

Unless GM can do something about it, the wheels seem to have definitely come off.

[jmt23]

I wouldn’t say the wheels have come off yet, but they are wobbling, and 2 tyres are deflated.

Apart from Wigan and LOrient losses,  we have been in every game and overall I feel it could be said we could all argue” we should have more points from those games”

There has been a noticeable drop off in performance though, and I saw players looking out on their feet, cramping up mid game a few games back, so I do wonder if the pace of the game at this level is a bigger difference than expected. Obviously teams are better with the ball too which means you’re chasing a bit.

Goals for will kill us, and we need to quickly find a way to get Billy and Hanlan firing.

[Alan Southstand]

Good luck with getting anything out of Hanlan or Olosanya!