Promotion and/or bust?

http://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/sport/football/rovers/doncaster-rovers-increased-losses-from-survival-bid-failure-1-5492910

Makes you think

Without getting into an endless argument donaldo, to use you analagy, our business will be open on 9th April when the Carlisle game is rescheduled, when our competitors wont be.
It all balances up doesnt it.
There was probably no one more dissapointed than me when the game was cancelled but i accept the refs reason.
It is too easy to be critical when something goes wrong.

ionly: LOSSES: This is a whole new debate. The way it was presented to us was that the McKay shop window players were here at negligible cost. If this was not so and this is the implication, the Board only have themselves to blame for such a reckless venture. Not only did they pay generous wages to uncommitted loanees, they exiled well paid competent already-contracted players (the "SOD squad" ) to the bench, continued to pay the former manager and employed DS whose 2011/12 results were probably a lot worse than if they had kept SOD in place and steered clear of McKay and the crazy experiment. They should be apologising profusely and they have only themselves to blame. As JR said "We had to do something"; it was a pity that it was not something sensible. But here I am moaning and criticising again!
Hound: PITCH INVESTMENT
My analogy is more subtle than the interpretation you choose. However you know the essential point that I am making; that investment in the pitch should have been more of a priority and with suitable pressure on the landlords it could have been improved 3 or 4 years ago. If the Board did not have this tendency to be self congratulatory about their achievements it would be less irritating when they choose to ignore fundamentals. Do you really think that they will make a priority of the pitch? I hope they do, but their past record suggests otherwise.

The pitch / landlord debate is interesting. From my experience of leases it will be for Rovers to seek permission to relay the pitch and they will have to pay for it too! I recently read the history of Belle Vue on Wikipedia and apparantly the reason it was always so good was that it was based on a bed of coal waste! I have no idea of the cost to relay it but I'd guess £250k at least. However it has to be a high priority I think

Crazyrover, a couple of weeks ago after the poor showing against MKDons, you said to me that Tranmere and Bournmouth couldnt possibly be as inconsistent as the Rovers had been recently.
Well..........on the BBC Sport website today the Tranmere manager Ronnie Moore is apologising to the fans for their poor performance in the defeat at Walsall last night.
You see, it isnt just us mate.

Hound, yes I did say that I couldn't believe that Tranmere or Bournemouth could be as inconsistent as us in terms of their quality of play. I accept that Tranmere must have given a poor performance yesterday but (I hesitate to write this) compare the stats. Against MK Dons, whilst we had 44% of the possession, we managed 2 shots on goal compared to MK Dons' 18 - a difference of minus 16. Against Walsall, Tranmere only had 39% possession, granted, but they managed 5 shots on goal compared to Walsall's 11, a difference of minus 6.

Pressed "Send" too quickly - meant to say that on that basis, Tranmere appeared to be more competitive than we were despite having less possession.

But the point is that Ronie Moore apologised for a poor performance, to reiterate - it isnt just us who are inconsistent.
Dont hit me with silly stats - i could argue percentages back to you based on the lack of possesion that Tranmere had - something that people on here put great store on.
The only stat that really matters is that we have got more points on the board than anyone else.

Hound, your response "Don't hit me with silly stats" is precisely why I said "I hesitate to write this." However, let me explain. Much store earlier in the season was placed by many (I think by you included) on the fact that although we didn't have the majority of possession and our passing was for the most part poor, we defended really well and we were able to smash and grab goals - I remember a debate on winning ugly versus losing prettily - you "hounded" a number of people to make your point that most of us would always prefer to win ugly than lose prettily because first and foremost we want to win. I agreed with you on that but the point is that in certain games we lose really ugly and the MK Dons game is the latest example. We played ugly but we defended poorly and we posed no attacking threat at all. My question was solely focused on Rovers - why are we really good in one game and then absolutely awful in the next - a simple why? I don't really care about other teams - if we get our own game more consistently right then we will win more games and collect more points than we currently do regardless of the opposition. Yes, the team have done really well this season, especially given our starting point and the fact that we are top of the table IS the most important thing but we can always be better - if we don't consistently try to improve we will fail eventually - that's a life truism that also applies also to football.
You decided to bring other teams into this as a means of deflecting the focus of question but there was no need - I wasn't attacking the team or the Manager.
As you brought Tranmere and Ronnie Moore into the equation though I simply showed that even though their performances have dipped they were still far more effective in the game that Moore apologised for than we were in the MK Dons game - more shots taken in attack and fewer shots conceded in defence - and if attacking threat and defensive strength rather than possession were the measure that we were using earlier in the season to define a good (rather than pretty) performance, then why not now?

We are all totally focused on the Rovers rather than other teams.
But, in football as in other aspects of life, no-one can operate at their optimum level all of the time.
Like i said, ALL teams experience highs and lows and we have to expect it and accept that at league one level the lows will be lower than say at PL level.