Rovers v Dagenham and Redbridge

[frenchrover]

"Incidentally, when I saw the half time entertainment today, I thought for a second we had made four more loan signings. "
Love it RLC. at least we can still keep smiling. In fact I think each one of them was more mobile than Dugdale, though they nearly fell over as much as Odejayi.
Seriously though, it's hard to call...I understand what you mean about refecting badly on the Palios' if they sack him but at least it will demonstrate a determination to sort it out before it's finally too late whereas if they just let the remaining games disappear one by one, as looks likely at the moment, they'll be accused of not acting decisively. To date they have done all in their power to save our club, by appointing what looked initially like a good manager, providing him with all the necessary funds to strenthen the squad and build his own team, and by building bridges with the supporters. I can't believe he will allow all of this good work to be undone by being non-proactive. Getting someone in, if that is the call, will have to happen early this week or not at all. But who? Ray Mathais, possible....Jimmy Harvey (been seen at the club recently), possible...but getting anyone else higher up the managerial ladder would seem unlikely. Read elsewhere that the Palios' weren't at the game today, can't vouch for this but if true it makes you wonder if moves for a managerial change may already be in the pipeline.

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

In over 50 years as a Rovers fan, I cannot remember ever being so depressed as I was at 5pm today - and we've still got 11 games to go. The problem is that I can't see when we will get even the next point. March and April will be long months. Credit to Micky that he is taking the blame for the position we are in, but his post-match interviews are like a broken record. We are making the same mistakes and not showing the right spirit. But how can we start to play as a team when he makes so many changes from match to match? And what does it do to morale when he keeps bringing in players on loan (who will not be with the club next season whether we stay up or not) and leaves out contracted players like Holmes and Laird who have something to fight for?

Just to lighten the mood a bit, a friend told me a story about Mark Palios today. He commiserated with me about Rovers' plight and as a Leeds fan, he knows what it's like. He was at Manchester University with Mark in the same hall of residence. At the time Mark was a part-time pro and as such was banned from playing football for anyone but Rovers in case he got injured. But he loved the game so much he used to organise kickabouts even though he knew it could get him into trouble. As you would imagine, he was very difficult to shake off the ball!

Apart from all the fans, the people I feel most sorry for are the Palioses. They are a genuine couple, who deserve better for their financial and emotional commitment to the club. I just hope they make the right decisions over the next few weeks and if we do go down, they continue to back us till we rise again.

 

[drwhoman]

Sadly I can only agree with you BBTC. Even the Aldridge era seems a long time ago never mind Dave Russell. I thought Micky was a good choice when he came in but recently he seems to have lost the plot. He appears to have gone the way of Edwards. Keep making changes and hope something will gel. He says he does not like loanees and yet we now have a bagful. As you say, must be pretty dispiriting for the contracted players. Those that left in January are probably glad to be out of it!
Mark Palios is very experienced when it comes to business so I am sure he is not sitting at home brooding into his tea! Certainly something has to happen or it will be back to derbies with our local rivals. Whether it is too late for a new Manager now is a moot point. All will be revealed no doubt!
I keep telling myself that it is only a game of football but.....

 

[Sparky]

Yes the half time entertainment was the high point of the afternoon.

Palios is in a difficult position. Not many owners sack 2 managers in the same season. He sacked RE because he wanted experience. If he sacks micky then we've sacked someone with experience -where do we go from there?

Somewhere in the middle and my pick would be dave challinor who has a connection and has a few yrs experience under his belt currently doing well at Fylde.

But if Palios doesn't sack him and we go down, he'll be accused of not doing enough to save us.

Whilst its still close I would give him 2 more games. If we're still in the bottom 2 bring someone in - what else would we have to lose?

 

[bigmart]

Sparky, why give him 2 more games when hes clearly not upto the job all the chopping and changing bringing in more and more loan players is not working.

We may still be close to 3 other teams but unless we change the manager we wont be close for long, hes had more than enough time to change things around hes failed and has to go

 

[Ian]

The problem is we dont have the luxury of cherry picking who takes over as has been our problem for years.

Even more so now in the desperate situation we are in who is going to step in and save us or who is desperate enough to step in and try and save us.

Think we're stuck with what we've got.

 

[Gray]

Apart from all the fans, the people I feel most sorry for are the Palioses. They are a genuine couple, who deserve better for their financial and emotional commitment to the club. I just hope they make the right decisions over the next few weeks and if we do go down, they continue to back us till we rise again.

Very well said.

We're in a dire situation. Funny old game - never a truer word spoken. Just when things were starting to look up we've been dragged into this mess off the back of a crazy 20 minutes at Portsmouth. How can a team's confidence be shattered in such a short period?

For what it's worth I think we need to stick with Micky Adams, taking a punt at this stage, with so much at stake is too big a gamble in my opinion. But lessons need to be learned, the inability to rally the players after the disppointment at Portsmouth, too many loan signings and an unsettled team. This all needs to be looked at.

If it was me, I'd get one of our 'legends' in to give them a pep talk. Remind them of who and what they're playing for.

Our remaining games may be against the better teams in the division, but as we've shown time and again we generally do better against 'better' opposition.

 

[bigmart]

Gray, as it is we are going down the bigger gamble is keep Micky as manager

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

The Portsmouth game was not the beginning of our slump in form, it is more serious than that. With a couple of exceptions we have been poor since the Hartlepool game, and the failure to blend the players signed in January is as significant as the number of loan signings.

 

[Higgy]

Dire stuff lately. It doesn't seem that long a go that our form was being described a possible play-off level if it had started at the beginning of the season. I thought Micky got the players he inherited and the odd loanee well organised and started building up the points. Then, having given us all including the chairman encouragement, he was given hi wish every time he knocked on the door. Signings and new loanees every other day - the level of business we all like to see during the close season, when we usually lament of how quiet it is. All the signings seemed sensible - even inspired at the time.

It seems that with all the new players Mickey and the new coaches don't know what the best side is. I know we unsuccessfully played three at the back against Wycombe, but it was this system earlier on in his tenure that he thought would do the trick - harder to beat etc. There are enough player there to reintroduce it and stick with it - it could be argued the players available for a back three now are better than those when he arrived and he did bed it in quickly previously. While he is no centre half, even Danny could play there as all three don't have to 7ft 6in.

I don't think they will sack him, as despite a poor run of form, unlike RE - he is their man. Also I think the Palioses have been decisive in some ways by backing their man. Just got to hope the team gels and the management don't over complicate it.

Regroup and stay up!

 

[Ian]

We've been sh*te all season and it's been a hell of a miserable one. Name one thing we can shout about this season? Terrible.
Anyway, the lads have been working hard on the training ground so we'll be OK

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

These are difficult times for all at the club. Not just because of the position we are in but because important decisions have to be made including the future of the manager. The team has underperformed and some of Micky's selections and formations have not been popular. In fairness to Micky, we don't work at the club or know the players concerned, so if we did they may have made more sense. The main criticism of Micky is his lack of communication with the fans. We never hear the reasons for his team sheets.

As to the way forward, it may be that we'd do better without Micky. But he should only go if the owners feel he has lost the confidence of the squad, can't turn it round AND they can find someone else who's affordable and daft enough to take on the job. As a football person and a experienced executive, MP will have been weighing up the options. If necessary, he'll be ruthless and make the change. But he certainly won't panic.

I'm just grateful we are not still under the previous regime, whose decisions on appointing managers since we dropped into League One has been mediocre at best. The only manager who gave us any hope was Ronnie and each time he was unfairly sacked. I'm confident MP will make the right decision.

 

[bigmart]

The Portsmouth game was not the beginning of our slump in form, it is more serious than that. With a couple of exceptions we have been poor since the Hartlepool game, and the failure to blend the players signed in January is as significant as the number of loan signings.

totally agree with this

 

[Gray]

Admittedly we have been poor since Hartlepool, but before then we'd taken 15 points from 30 which is near play-off form. Remember us thumping Accrington 3-0 in the game prior to Hartlepool? I don't think we've been poor all season and we put together a good string of results for this to be dismissed as the occasional good result.

Portsmouth may not have been the start of our slump, but I think the manner in which we lost that game had a real effect on the players. Reminds me of last season when we played Sheff Utd (I think) off the park towards the end of the season and only came away with a draw, seemed to be a turning point in our season. Feels like our form has deserted us at just the wrong time, last season i was confident we'd stay up, I'm not being so naive this time around.

 

[Ian]

I don't think we've been poor all season and we put together a good string of results for this to be dismissed as the occasional good result.

We've not won two games in a row all season have we? And we've been in the bottom half all season. Ironically the only 'purple patch' I can recall was at Xmas when we are usually dismal.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Our form under Adams was decent until January, but we have never properly integrated the players we signed in the transfer window. We did well from November to January, but this is effectively a different team now, and Micky has never found the right balance with this group of players. I think somebody previously described Micky as 'like a kid in a sweet shop', unable to fix on a settled team, which is a pretty good analogy.

Ironically, he did much better when his options were more limited.