A few questions about Trollope

In the red corner we have the Trollope fans.

In the blue corner we have the Lawrence fans.

Ding Ding, lights out, round 1...

Q: Paul Trollope was relatively young when you appointed him, at the age of just thirty three, how did you react initally to this decision being made, was he playing for regularly when this decision was made?

Seemed like a good idea at the time. I dont recall people being dead set against it.


Q: Trollope lost more games than he won as Bristol Rovers manager, do you regard his time at you club, a success, a failure or in between?

FA Cup quarter finals and Promotion. Success.


Q: Over the span of five years, did Trollope remain with the same tactics or did he change things as time passed? How would you describe his style of football?

We played pretty expansive 4 4 2 with wide men. Decent attacking football. It sort of went down hill towards the end.

Q:The most well known transfer that Paul Trollope made was the signing of Rickie Lambert, signing for £200,000. Scoring 51 goals in 128 appearances before a move to Southampton for £1m. Was Trollope astute in the transfer market, did he make more signings that benefitted the club financially? Or signings that proved their worth on the pitch?

With LL they made good signings. I'd say the ones he made on his own were somewhat less so.

Q: How influential was Lennie Lawrence to Trollope? Could fans notice this or were things behind closed doors?

You don't know what you've got until it's gone. It all went tits up when LL left. That said Nick Higgs proved to be frankly awful so there is know knowing how much of our demise was down to him and how much was trolls.

Q:What would you say Trollope's relationship was with the fans, did he make the effort? Did he say things that pleased you?

I liked him. Decent bloke.

Q: What was his stance on bringing in youth players, local talent to be precise. Did he go for experience over youth or did he have a mixture?

Seemed to recall he mixed it up. We had a handful of local / youth lads make the step up. Haldane Lines for example.

Surely the Lawrence thing is a red herring as he has been named assistant coach at Cardiff?

So you have the double act which did well at Rovers plus Trolls has had a lot of good coaching experience since. I'd be feeling pretty positive if I was a Cardiff fan.

That is my feeling, some were disappointed we didn't look further afield and believed it was just a change of manager or head coach as it is now for us. As we also had Russell Slade as 'head of football' but he's gone now. The role for Trollope is Head Coach. Working under a transfer committee due to Malky and Solskjaer using up large sums of money on transfers and wages. Trollope is also the assistant manager of Wales. My biggest fear is that from the teams coming down and plenty of teams with an endless cash pit to try and chase the Premier League dream, we will be left behind, despite a respectable finish of eighth last season.

So by the sounds of it, Lawrence was in charge of the transfers whereas Trollope was in charge of the tactics? Is that correct? Did Trollope develop his own philosophy or was he influenced?

umm this sounds familiar 

He will relegate you or be sacked by Christmas, nowhere near good enough to be in charge of a championship team.