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Post by wiaww on Jan 7, 2017 20:42:27 GMT
He is the most naturally gifted finisher at the club. Where's Taylor gone?
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Post by wiaww on Jan 7, 2017 20:39:57 GMT
I like Harrison but to say anything has been "proven" is daft. Hopefully today is a turning point for Ellis with regards to his woefully inconsistent form. Thing is comments like this and the "one game in three seasons" one are basically the theme of this entire thread. He scored vital goals to get us out of the conference, he performed well and scored vital goals to get us out of league two, he's kept the number 9 shirt, is getting well deserved starts and his team contribution in the last (at least) five games has been outstanding - then people say "Aaahhhh but he's not scoring goals" and then he scores goals and people say "Aaahhhh but he's only had one good game" and the whole thing continues. Literally what more can he do? Saying he hasn't proved anything and has had one good game in three seasons is not just a difference of opinion it is at best ignoring the evidence in front of you and at worst just bullsh*ting because you don't like the guy. I've seen EH have good games and bad games, great games and awful ones. What I've not seen is any sort of consistent form, barring that spell at the tail end of the conference season. I'm delighted he bagged four very good goals today but I'm certainly not about to break out the bubbles because previous experience tells me that there's just as much chance of him having a stinker next week as there is another top notch performance. Having said that, I sincerely hope he kicks on with today's performance giving him the confidence to put the Fleetwood defence to the sword. It's crazy to think he's still only 22 and with the wealth of experience he has already he could have a remarkable future ahead of him.
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Post by wiaww on Jan 7, 2017 20:10:47 GMT
I like Harrison but to say anything has been "proven" is daft. Hopefully today is a turning point for Ellis with regards to his woefully inconsistent form.
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Post by wiaww on Jan 6, 2017 17:52:59 GMT
Pointless thread.
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Post by wiaww on Jan 5, 2017 17:11:59 GMT
I wonder if Alfie Kilgour will come into the frame. I'm pretty sure he's just done his ACL. Will be out for months if so.
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Post by wiaww on Jan 4, 2017 15:56:55 GMT
One tweet... There's far more "all over the net" (i.e on Twitter) about him going to Fulham or Wigan. Belter thread, definitely not Rovers related.
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Post by wiaww on Jan 2, 2017 15:05:52 GMT
Spaghetti.
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Post by wiaww on Dec 31, 2016 23:28:21 GMT
And what a year it has been... Lots of love to all of you faithful and true blues! Here's to a prosperous and exciting 2017. Up The Flipping Gas!
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Post by wiaww on Dec 31, 2016 17:50:02 GMT
Can anyone elaborate on this? Don't know about the celebrations but it was a mighty big hug with Ellis before he got subbed. God I hope you stays but would be surprised if someone doesn't take a chance on him. 18 goals before January is remarkable.
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Post by wiaww on Dec 31, 2016 17:23:01 GMT
Can anyone elaborate on this?
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Post by wiaww on Dec 30, 2016 19:31:37 GMT
An experienced keeper. A new left back who can tackle. A nasty c*nt in the middle. A big striker that can hold the ball up and score with his head (Lambert-style). That's what we need to be a squad in with a shout of the play-offs.
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Post by wiaww on Dec 26, 2016 22:17:00 GMT
An inch taller and a stone heavier and it was a 4XL this year, normally a 2XL Bother. Have gone 2XL but am thinking I should have gone 3XL after reading this. Thanks anyway! 2XL fits nicely by the way.
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Post by wiaww on Dec 26, 2016 16:40:34 GMT
Back with a bang! It's Billy. Bob. Bodinnnnnn!
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Post by wiaww on Dec 23, 2016 10:29:55 GMT
Sinclair has proved adequate at this level. Danny IMO has been poor. However, neither are expensive and both are fit and can be effective. So many ahead of them to be shipped on. We don't know what we are buying in though. We could have some great players joining, it might look sensible if we buy 3 or 4 good players. Agree that I pay to watch these players. Danny's pace can be electric, sinclairs effort is great to watch, epitomises Rovers. Funny old game isn't it. I feel like Sinclair has been OK but Danny has been, in the games I've seen him play, stand out. His pace is electric but his work rate has been even better. For me Leads has been the reason Brown has looked so poor, as the vast majority of opposition attacking play comes down our left side. All about opinions as they say...
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Post by wiaww on Dec 22, 2016 13:10:52 GMT
2 people failing expectations - really?!?! What the f**k do you want?! lols
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Post by wiaww on Dec 22, 2016 10:45:00 GMT
It's all great and good to say 'remember where we were two years ago' So what? It counts for nothing now. If we go down this season, the last two years won't be flitting before my eyes. To create a great football club is all about evolution, just as Al Qadi said, and reiterated by Steve Hamer. If you are happy with where we are, bully for you. I'm not. I've seen all this before. We have spent most of our history at this level. Is that what makes you happy? Well not me. This club has to keep on progressing or it will stagnate and die. I've seen enough crap thank you very much to last a lifetime. I hear some of you say ' I just want us to beat the sh** in the championship'. Yeah, that would make me happy for a few days, but that's it. Also, ' I want us to finish above the sh** in the championship'. That would make me happy for a few months. What the f**k. I want to be happy for years on end. I want the Premier League. If Swansea, Bournemouth, Wigan etc can do it, I'm bloody sure we can. That's why DC said not so long ago that he wanted the championship in three years. He turned down the chance to manage Leeds. Alright we all know that club is a basket case. But it was still a high profile well paid job. That told me that our owners had the ambition here to make him turn that job down, and it would be great if MT also had the same ambition. If he doesn't so what. There are other strikers out there. The point is that the Premier League has to be the target. Anything less is a total lack of ambition. It will take time, and we are all getting older, but it has to be the target. It looks like the training ground is settled. Now the UWE has to be assured or it's all for nowt. Of course it counts for something now because two seasons ago we were there and now we’re here. That is the definition of progress. If we go down this season, if we go up this season, if we finish midtable if, if, if. The facts are we are 11th in League One with five points between us and the play-offs, so yes, I am happy with where we are, and yes, bully for me. But does that mean I don’t want us to progress? Of course not. I want to see Bristol Rovers at the highest level possible but I’m trying to be realistic about how that can be achieved. Like you say, we have been at this level for most of our history, so is it fair to expect Darrell Clarke, the current squad, Wael Al-Qadi, Steve Hamer - or anyone else for that matter - to be able to change that over half a season? Of course it isn’t. We are still on an upward trajectory and yes we’ve hit a (decent sized) bump in the road but that doesn’t mean the wheels have fallen off. As said by someone previously, trends need to be measured over years and there will be ups and downs but that’s part of evolution. Sometimes things don’t work and so you roll back to a previous incarnation and try something slightly different and if that works you carry it forward and adapt from there. Everyone bought in to this “evolution not revolution” idea but now that we’ve hit a snag people it sounds to me like actually a lot of people would like some revolution. Perhaps Premier League has to be the target, perhaps it doesn’t, it all depends on the individual but as far as I’m aware each and every one of us would like to see Rovers in the Championship and the vast majority of us are happy that DC has a three year plan to get us there. As far as I’m concerned, if you step back and look at the bigger picture, I don’t see how we’re not still on target for that, do you? 'I was lucky to make it to 100' - Bristol Rovers manager Darrell Clarke on 1000 days in charge
Clarke succeeded John Ward on March 28, 2014 as the former board attempted one last throw of the dice to try and keep Rovers in the Football League. After failing to keep Rovers in the Football League over the final eight games of the 2013/14 season, Clarke rebuilt the squad and has secured back-to-back promotions in the two seasons that have followed since. Rovers are currently placed 13th in League One, but Clarke joked: "I was lucky to make it to 100!" He added: "To get to 1000 days is certainly a long time in terms of football management these days, and I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I have a great backroom team and have had the pleasure of working with a very good squad of players over the last two-and-a-half-years. "I said when I took over that this club should be competing in the top half of League One. If someone had said we'd be where we are now in less than three years considering where we've come from I'd have asked for them to be carted off by the men in white coats. " We've had some disappointment in the last five or six weeks where the performances haven't quite matched our usual standards and we are working hard to recover that over the Christmas period. But we've had some great success that will live long in my memory. "It has been an unbelievable 1000 days when you think about what we have achieved. I've learned a massive amount and I am still learning every day. You are always learning in this job because there is always a different situation to manage every day."There have been big challenges to overcome, especially after hitting rock-bottom following that defeat against Mansfield and the relegation that followed. We were at our lowest point and that we managed to bounce back at the first attempt makes me feel as though I can handle anything that football management can throw at me."
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Post by wiaww on Dec 21, 2016 12:30:18 GMT
It's all great and good to say 'remember where we were two years ago' So what? It counts for nothing now. If we go down this season, the last two years won't be flitting before my eyes. To create a great football club is all about evolution, just as Al Qadi said, and reiterated by Steve Hamer. If you are happy with where we are, bully for you. I'm not. I've seen all this before. We have spent most of our history at this level. Is that what makes you happy? Well not me. This club has to keep on progressing or it will stagnate and die. I've seen enough crap thank you very much to last a lifetime. I hear some of you say ' I just want us to beat the sh** in the championship'. Yeah, that would make me happy for a few days, but that's it. Also, ' I want us to finish above the sh** in the championship'. That would make me happy for a few months. What the f**k. I want to be happy for years on end. I want the Premier League. If Swansea, Bournemouth, Wigan etc can do it, I'm bloody sure we can. That's why DC said not so long ago that he wanted the championship in three years. He turned down the chance to manage Leeds. Alright we all know that club is a basket case. But it was still a high profile well paid job. That told me that our owners had the ambition here to make him turn that job down, and it would be great if MT also had the same ambition. If he doesn't so what. There are other strikers out there. The point is that the Premier League has to be the target. Anything less is a total lack of ambition. It will take time, and we are all getting older, but it has to be the target. It looks like the training ground is settled. Now the UWE has to be assured or it's all for nowt. Of course it counts for something now because two seasons ago we were there and now we’re here. That is the definition of progress. If we go down this season, if we go up this season, if we finish midtable if, if, if. The facts are we are 11th in League One with five points between us and the play-offs, so yes, I am happy with where we are, and yes, bully for me. But does that mean I don’t want us to progress? Of course not. I want to see Bristol Rovers at the highest level possible but I’m trying to be realistic about how that can be achieved. Like you say, we have been at this level for most of our history, so is it fair to expect Darrell Clarke, the current squad, Wael Al-Qadi, Steve Hamer - or anyone else for that matter - to be able to change that over half a season? Of course it isn’t. We are still on an upward trajectory and yes we’ve hit a (decent sized) bump in the road but that doesn’t mean the wheels have fallen off. As said by someone previously, trends need to be measured over years and there will be ups and downs but that’s part of evolution. Sometimes things don’t work and so you roll back to a previous incarnation and try something slightly different and if that works you carry it forward and adapt from there. Everyone bought in to this “evolution not revolution” idea but now that we’ve hit a snag people it sounds to me like actually a lot of people would like some revolution. Perhaps Premier League has to be the target, perhaps it doesn’t, it all depends on the individual but as far as I’m aware each and every one of us would like to see Rovers in the Championship and the vast majority of us are happy that DC has a three year plan to get us there. As far as I’m concerned, if you step back and look at the bigger picture, I don’t see how we’re not still on target for that, do you?
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Post by wiaww on Dec 20, 2016 17:26:30 GMT
- Thinking, ouch. - Relegation, bad. Very bad. - DC, good. - Promotion, good. Second promotion, very good. - Lately, bad, but not very bad. - Future, bright. DC, learning. Gasheads, be patient.
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Post by wiaww on Dec 20, 2016 17:06:32 GMT
I’ve been going over and over things in my head lately. By nature I’m quite a reactive person and sometimes I let that get the better of me especially when Rovers are involved, but I want to take a minute to put some thoughts down about Rovers, DC and past few seasons.
Things are pretty gloomy on here at the minute but is it all really that bad? I mean, yes, we’ve been crap for the last six or seven weeks, at times the football has been like watching paint dry and our defence has been leakier than a broken colander but really sit there for a moment and consider how bad things are. Not terrible.
When we were relegated to the Conference it was bad. It was really bad. For the first time ever I was embarrassed to be a Rovers fan because of the humiliating way we’d engineered our own downfall and the way things at the Club were broken from top to bottom. The tail end of the relegation season were an emotional rollercoaster as the elation of the result against Wycombe gave way to the overwhelming frustration of the Mansfield defeat on the 3rd of May 2014. That date will forever haunt our club - with it’s long history and proud footballing past - and I spent the week after the Mansfield game drowning my sorrows and trying to make sense of how it had happened. How it had happened to a club like Bristol Rovers. Few periods of my life have left me feeling so hopeless and so desperate for some way to reverse the irreversible. It took a long time for the reality of the situation to sink in; that in just a few short months we would be playing Halifax; and Dover; and Braintree; and Dartmouth; and Alfreton; and Telford and, and, and. A league fixture with plucky little Forest Green Rovers - a village side I’d always had a soft spot because of the Rovers connection and now a rival in our forthcoming Conference league campaign - was only weeks away and nothing could be done to change that. Oh, the humanity! It’s easy to look back and forget how dark those days were. How bleak things looked for Bristol Rovers on the pitch and off it. I didn’t venture on to the pitch on that May afternoon but I did voice my… concerns with the shortcomings of the Board from the steps of the Blackthorn End. In the heat of the moment I wanted nothing more than for Higgs & co to cash in their shares and slip away in the night. But in reality, what would have happened should the directors conceded to the fan’s chants of “Board out!”? Who was going to step in to the breach? We were between a rock and a hard place. Things were definitely bad back then.
I remember attending the open day that summer and finding myself stood on the terrace in pretty much the exact spot I had watched Clarkson rattle the woodwork, O’Toole’s header go narrowly past the post, and McChrystal hammer the crossbar. As I stood looking at the pitch, replaying the countless chances we had to equalise, Darrell Clarke arrived from the side door of the Supporters bar and I had an opportunity to talk to him one on one before he was mobbed by autograph hunters. There was probably a six or seven minute period where myself and Darrell stood on the steps and talked and in that time I went from feeling something akin to a resigned apathy for the coming season to a feeling of cautious optimism that this man would be able to drag us back to the Football League at the first time of asking. What struck me most from our conversation was how frank Darrell was in his assessment of our chances. None of the usual bluster and nonsense and football-speak. Nor did he make any excuses. It would have been easy to blame his predecessor and it would have been easy to blame his players. But DC was adamant that it was his responsibility and that he would be the one to put things right.
And that he has done. It hadn’t just been the two seasons previous to the relegation season that had been bad. Arguable as a club we’d been in decline since Lambert left at the beginning of the 2009-10 season and while relegation to the Conference could be considered our ‘rock bottom’ it had something of an inevitability about it given the way we’d been sliding progressively further down the league pyramid. Clarke instilled a fantastic team spirit and togetherness in the core of the squad that not only dragged us kicking and screaming from the Conference but who went on to gain a further promotion a season later. At present we sit in 11th in League One with the majority of that core intact. We are five points off the play-offs. Those are facts and no amount of worrying or catastrophising about the rest of the season will change where we are at present. If we finish this season in 11th it will equal our highest league finishes for the past 16 campaigns. If we finish above 22nd it will be our best league finish since 2009-10. I feel that the current squad and, in particular, Darrell Clarke deserve more time from us. Almost to a man they are playing at the highest level any of them have played at and while it’s been pretty grim since the end of October we have to remember that it could be so, so much worse. We have put up with untold tosh on and off the field for so long but I think that the previous two seasons have spoiled us. Now is time to dig in and grit our teeth, to remember that many of that these players are the same ones that gave us Alfreton at home, Forest Green home and away in the Play Off Semis, Grimsby at Wembley, (Dorchester in the FA Cup anyone?) Crawley, Yeovil and Exeter at home, York away, and the unforgettable Dagenham and Redbridge and all that last day drama and elation, along with countless other fantastic moments and memories. And don’t forget that this season hasn’t been all bad. The late, late drama earlier in the season. A spell of 10 games where we were picking up draws and wins from losing positions. Things are far from perfect right now and I was as frustrated as anyone last Saturday. The performance at Shrewsbury was the worst I’ve seen in a very, very long time, but that in itself is telling of how far we’ve come and how much we have to be grateful for.
Please let’s give Darrell Clarke and the squad the time and support that they need to turn things around because Lord knows that they will want to. It’s a cliché but the modern day football fan is much less patient than he/she used to be and with forums (fora?) and 24-hour news and social media and the constant need for updates and information and “progress” it’s so easy to get swept up in the furore when things aren’t going to plan. DC has just turned 39 and anyone with half a brain can see that he’s got a fantastic future in football management ahead of him however I’m sure that he would be the first to admit that he’s far from the complete package and has lots to learn, but then who doesn’t in any line of work? I firmly believe that if Clarke is our manager in five years time we will be a Championship side but as fans we have to be patient. We have to let him make his mistakes and learn from them and we have to take the rough with the smooth. Do not underestimate the influence you have on the things that happen at our football club and perhaps the next time you think about a moan take a step back and try and put things in to perspective, because where we are isn’t too bad when you look at where we’ve come from.
TL;DR - It could be worse.
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Post by wiaww on Dec 20, 2016 10:08:54 GMT
I see the club are offering a discount on shirts online now so I wanted to know how the Macron home shirt compares to Errea kits in terms of sizing? Last shirt I bought was the 07/08 offering and I think I ended up with an XXL despite being considerable smaller than I am now. I'm about 6'2 and a smidge over 17 stone so if anyone with this season's kit is of a comparable size/stature and can let me know what size they've got I'd be most grateful. An inch taller and a stone heavier and it was a 4XL this year, normally a 2XL Bother. Have gone 2XL but am thinking I should have gone 3XL after reading this. Thanks anyway!
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