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Post by axegas on Aug 29, 2018 21:36:48 GMT
Anyone see any similarities between Paul Trollope and Darrell Clarke’s tenure’s at the club? The pair dramatically turned around our fortunes from the likes of Atkins, Graydon, Ward and McGhee to have two seasons of initial success, in DC’s case our back to back promotions and in PT’s our Playoff win and FA cup run before being followed by a gradual decline in league positions as things get tougher. Both got rid of players we struggled to replace, PT never managed to find alternatives for Disley, Elliot or Williams and DC (so far) has not managed to replace players such as Bodin, Taylor or Brown. I can remember things going sour towards the end of Trollope’s reign when Lawrence left, fans started getting restless at us being a mid table league one club and our defending went out of the window (losing 6-2 to Sheffield Wednesday was a particular highlight). Around about the same time, due to the recession the redevelopment of the Mem no longer was viable and the club found itself with question marks off the field not too dissimilar from the collapse of the stadium at UWE. Isn’t this all startlingly comparable to the present situation we find ourselves in?
Obviously there are differences, DC largely built his own team from scratch whereas PT arguably gained promotion through players that Atkins had signed and DC hasn’t lost a Lennie Lawrence type figure (other than Steve Yates?) from his coaching staff and is more popular with the fans than Trollope ever was. Of course we have foreign owners now too but in PT’s stewardship, Higgs to his credit did give PT a decent budget something the current owners arguably haven’t done.
The message to take from this is that we need to give DC as much time and support as he needs to turn our form back around. We do not need to be rash as Higgs was by sacking PT and replacing him with the disastrous Dave Penney. Rovers have in the last 20 years spent more time playing our football in the division below, a couple of games lost in this division doesn’t seem so bad when you remember the lows we have been through. It is early days and DC is a more than capable manager, In him I trust more than anyone to turn things around.
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pirate
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Post by pirate on Aug 29, 2018 21:46:02 GMT
“We can’t afford to stagnate as a football club,” said the current Rovers boss.
“I don’t want to be another Paul Trollope or Lennie Lawrence where we’re hovering around mid-table in League One all the time.
“Every minute of my day is thinking about how we’re going to move this club forward, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do, on and off the pitch, to achieve our goals.”
“We can’t afford to stagnate as a football club."
"If we want to stand still for the next three or four years that's fine. We can build the infrastructure in the background but fans will get frustrated and I'll get frustrated, because we want that drive. I've been here three years and we've made a lot money from transfers. We've just finished 10th in League One, we've got to kick on."
"We've got to decide as a football club what we want to do. You cannot keep overachieving every year, we've got to sit down and make sure we keep moving forward. You've only got to go back to Paul Trollope's regime, they got themselves mid-table in League One for three or four years - I don't want to be that team."
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Post by axegas on Aug 29, 2018 21:55:29 GMT
“We can’t afford to stagnate as a football club,” said the current Rovers boss. “I don’t want to be another Paul Trollope or Lennie Lawrence where we’re hovering around mid-table in League One all the time. “Every minute of my day is thinking about how we’re going to move this club forward, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do, on and off the pitch, to achieve our goals.” “We can’t afford to stagnate as a football club." "If we want to stand still for the next three or four years that's fine. We can build the infrastructure in the background but fans will get frustrated and I'll get frustrated, because we want that drive. I've been here three years and we've made a lot money from transfers. We've just finished 10th in League One, we've got to kick on." "We've got to decide as a football club what we want to do. You cannot keep overachieving every year, we've got to sit down and make sure we keep moving forward. You've only got to go back to Paul Trollope's regime, they got themselves mid-table in League One for three or four years - I don't want to be that team." Yet arguably he is becoming that team? More than prepared to give DC my full support and patience as that’s the least he deserves but that is my observation at present.
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pirate
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Post by pirate on Aug 29, 2018 22:00:01 GMT
“We can’t afford to stagnate as a football club,” said the current Rovers boss. “I don’t want to be another Paul Trollope or Lennie Lawrence where we’re hovering around mid-table in League One all the time. “Every minute of my day is thinking about how we’re going to move this club forward, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do, on and off the pitch, to achieve our goals.” “We can’t afford to stagnate as a football club." "If we want to stand still for the next three or four years that's fine. We can build the infrastructure in the background but fans will get frustrated and I'll get frustrated, because we want that drive. I've been here three years and we've made a lot money from transfers. We've just finished 10th in League One, we've got to kick on." "We've got to decide as a football club what we want to do. You cannot keep overachieving every year, we've got to sit down and make sure we keep moving forward. You've only got to go back to Paul Trollope's regime, they got themselves mid-table in League One for three or four years - I don't want to be that team." Yet arguably he is becoming that team? More than prepared to give DC my full support and patience as that’s the least he deserves but that is my observation at present. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
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Post by axegas on Aug 29, 2018 22:03:49 GMT
Yet arguably he is becoming that team? More than prepared to give DC my full support and patience as that’s the least he deserves but that is my observation at present. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. In life perhaps but you of all people should know that in Football it’s completely different. Paul Hurst’s last season at Shrewsbury and Kenny Jackett’s astute business this season attest to that.
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Post by socrates on Aug 29, 2018 22:08:56 GMT
“We can’t afford to stagnate as a football club,” said the current Rovers boss. “I don’t want to be another Paul Trollope or Lennie Lawrence where we’re hovering around mid-table in League One all the time. “Every minute of my day is thinking about how we’re going to move this club forward, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do, on and off the pitch, to achieve our goals.” “We can’t afford to stagnate as a football club." "If we want to stand still for the next three or four years that's fine. We can build the infrastructure in the background but fans will get frustrated and I'll get frustrated, because we want that drive. I've been here three years and we've made a lot money from transfers. We've just finished 10th in League One, we've got to kick on." "We've got to decide as a football club what we want to do. You cannot keep overachieving every year, we've got to sit down and make sure we keep moving forward. You've only got to go back to Paul Trollope's regime, they got themselves mid-table in League One for three or four years - I don't want to be that team." Yet arguably he is becoming that team? More than prepared to give DC my full support and patience as that’s the least he deserves but that is my observation at present. I think we will improve at least a little when the players gel more and we stop concentrating on possession based football and go a bit more direct with a quicker tempo and get stuck in more. All the top sides in league 1 since we’ve come back up have been teams with strength Pace and quick tempo and big commanding canter half’s. Unfortunately we’ve got very little of those things and now it seems we haven’t got a match winner either which is the one thing we’ve always had with DC up to now. I actually think James Clarke has done alright and if we’re only bringing in one loan player this week then it should have been a commanding Center half. Also very worried that since our new defensive coach has joined we’re defending worse than at any other time during DCs reign. History might well be repeating itself but that doesn’t make DC a bad manager he’s proven he’s a good one, look at his record but I think it’ll take a top manager and a hell of a lot of luck to get our club in to the championship. Also we shouldn’t muck about if our defensive coach has turned our already Shakey defence in to a complete shambles then maybe we need to look for another.
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pirate
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Post by pirate on Aug 29, 2018 22:23:34 GMT
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. In life perhaps but you of all people should know that in Football it’s completely different. Paul Hurst’s last season at Shrewsbury and Kenny Jackett’s astute business this season attest to that. The exceptions to the rule. In football more often than not your budget dictates where you will finish.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2018 23:08:15 GMT
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. In life perhaps but you of all people should know that in Football it’s completely different. Paul Hurst’s last season at Shrewsbury and Kenny Jackett’s astute business this season attest to that. I would argue that hurst badly damaged shrewsbury. The chairman hinted that he wondered if hurst was negotiating with ipswich even before the play-off final. Now the team has been torn apart including hurst taking a couple of their players. They also failed to get promoted so he actually achieved nothing more than say darrell clarke or derek adams at plymouth.
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Post by gasandelectricity on Aug 29, 2018 23:14:02 GMT
In life perhaps but you of all people should know that in Football it’s completely different. Paul Hurst’s last season at Shrewsbury and Kenny Jackett’s astute business this season attest to that. I would argue that hurst badly damaged shrewsbury. The chairman hinted that he wondered if hurst was negotiating with ipswich even before the play-off final. Now the team has been torn apart including hurst taking a couple of their players. They also failed to get promoted so he actually achieved nothing more than say darrell clarke or derek adams at plymouth. Hurst looked devastated when he lost at Wembley against us vs Grimsby. I remember thinking he did not look perturbed at all when he lost in the summer. Perhaps because it was not via a penalty shootout so he had already absorbed it, but if the above is true then that explains it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2018 23:50:08 GMT
Pass the noose when your finished ffs.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2018 0:36:03 GMT
I think you make an interesting observation OP but I think (imo) you are missing the real enemy that a lot of teams in this division have to fight against: interia.
If you have a look at the history of each club in this division you generally struggle to find a side that has managed to put more than 6 or 7 consecutive seasons together. The major exceptions being Oldham and Walsall. Even then, for only 2 teams out of 24 to have any sort of consistent long term run in this division tells you that sooner or later you are going up or down and seeing as only the teams who are prepared for it go up to the championship the teams who find league one to be their 'natural level' sooner or later get sucked into a relegation battle and with 4 teams relegated they go down.
So what i am trying to say is that, by sheer statistical chance alone we are very likely to get relegated sooner or later so we may as well accept it is going to happen.
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Post by mjhgas on Aug 30, 2018 7:34:02 GMT
The board of directors need to come out with a statement of intent. One way or another - go for it or live within our means and take what comes with either.
Fans will still turn up even if we are bouncing between L1 and 2.
We'll be waiting for a long time though as it won't happen.
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Post by Antonio Fargas on Aug 30, 2018 7:42:46 GMT
In life perhaps but you of all people should know that in Football it’s completely different. Paul Hurst’s last season at Shrewsbury and Kenny Jackett’s astute business this season attest to that. The exceptions to the rule. In football more often than not your budget dictates where you will finish. Not much chance of us getting relegated, then.
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Post by madgas on Aug 30, 2018 7:52:53 GMT
I think history is repeating but I don’t necessarily see the trolls link as particularly special. This clubs level is around where we are.
Very few have broken through this league, and fewer has sustained it.
However- we have a special manager and a special season is coming.
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Post by lastminutewinner on Aug 30, 2018 9:01:51 GMT
The closest comparison I can think of between PTs last season and this, is that I cannot see where the next win is coming from.
The likes of Carl Regan and Mark Wright (amongst others...) had a negative influence on the squad with PT but as I currently have no contacts at this club I'm not sure if anything like that is going on at the moment.
DC certainly did a lot more work getting us here than PT did, so we at least owe DC to try and turn this around, even if we do go down.
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Post by Topper Gas on Aug 30, 2018 9:10:50 GMT
Isn't the OP overlooking one major difference between PT & DC, one was an unproven manager who subsequently failed whenever he tried to manager elsewhere, DC's proven he can manage a football league club.
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Post by oviedista on Aug 30, 2018 9:33:47 GMT
No historical comparison at all. The culture amongst playing staff - whatever results on the pitch - has been transformed by DC. Arguably, the trouble began with Trolls.
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Post by Gas-Ed on Aug 30, 2018 9:33:59 GMT
PT tried a style of play that was not suited to the players he had. He tried to get his players to play out from the back with a slow, patient approach but in reality it meant we were passing from side to side and going nowhere. That season, we were spanked by Oxford, who had just returned from Non-league 6-1 and 6-2 at Wednesday. By the time we played SWFC, I’m pretty sure we were already bottom 4. Clarke is a far better manager than Trolls in my opinion and Clarke deserves our backing. There isn’t anyone else that I would want in charge.
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Post by neilv93 on Aug 30, 2018 11:16:07 GMT
FWIW I agree with DC about not stagnating. However, to counter that, I think sometimes you have to spend a few years stabilising/re-building and take babysteps forward. Fact is we have undoubtedly over-achieved every year back in the FL. We weren't expected to get promoted first time of asking in L2 nor were we expected to finish as high as we have in L1. Couple that with selling your prize asset in three of the last four windows and what choice do we have but to accept at least one season of battling it out at the bottom?
If we have to battle relegation (but stay up) this year in order to go at a play-off run again next season or the one after then so be it in my view. We've been punching above our weight in recent years and this could be the year when we're "back at our level". This isn't criticism btw, I'm fully behind DC. Just need to be realistic and accept that not *every* single we'll be having play-off ambitions.
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Post by baggins on Aug 30, 2018 11:24:20 GMT
Pass the noose when your finished ffs. That's a tough ask.
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