ROVERS v Walsall

Azza, just out of interest i followed up a couple of the points you raised in your response to my post.
You said that most of us would have expected us to lose at Southend and Burton and yet when i looked on your DPL listings, funnily enough there were only two loss predictions (both for the Burton game) from all of those made.
You also indicated that the majority wouldnt expect us to get anything from the Walsall and Gillingham games, but guess what, on the DPL threads for those two games, no one predicted a loss.
That kind of blows your argument away on that point.

Also, i just want to ask you why you suggest that i am "still bulling Dickov up" because i read my post again and can't see where i did that.

Having been on the other side of the world since I saw us win at Southend and only just returned, the results since then have been very difficult to swallow. And with a 13 hour time difference and erratic internet connections actually following the matches live has been impossible.

So why am I commenting you might ask? Well, I was going to put something together on the lines of Pirate's post and my case for doing so would be that I have not seen them play as well as they did against Southend since SOD was in charge, even though the "they" is a completely different team apart from Copps. On Copps, before the game, I was tending to the view, based on his season up to then, that he had perhaps outlived his usefulness to us, but his performance on January 2 was as good as any under SOD.

So what else can I say which might be credible? I very much agree with Pirate and also with the view that we set a great deal of store, probably too much, on results. Against Walsall for example one of their local press reporters took the view that they were fortunate to not be behind at half time and considered that it was grit and determination which saw them through. Also, a point which may not have been made is the fact that teams are built around key players and if you lose them, the consequence is greater than losing the same number of others.

Hound is very concerned that statements about Dickov are unfair, but it cannot be hidden that those of his signings that seem unable to provide what is required of them are a burden right now, and it is hardly Ferguson’s fault. And yes of course we found fault with Dickov because when he came many of us recognised that his CV suggested that he would not succeed. However we support Doncaster Rovers and we did not stop wanting the team to do well and thereby prove us wrong about Dickov.

Dickov inherited a League-winning side containing some decent players and got us relegated playing negative football and lost more good players than he ever signed. His record will not be erased from history, nor should we be chastised for referring to it.

Lastly, it does not take much in the way of analytical power to conclude that most of our predictions in the DPL are based more on hope that a balanced assessment of likely results. There is rarely a majority predicting a loss.

One thing for sure DF dont like curtis

.......BUT.....we all (most) like Tyson, Williams, McCullough, Stuckman, Evina, Butler and they were all Dickov signings.
Without a doubt there are also players who Dickov signed who haven't cut the mustard but that always happens.
It will happen with some of the players that DF brings in.
Gooch is already getting some stick and Stewart was being heavily questioned until we found out that he can take a mean free kick.

About my concerns about Dickov comments being unfair, well that is a bit of a twist on what i was actually saying.
That is that DF appears to be bomb proof to some people and when we win it is him being great at getting the best out of certain players but when we have a bad day it is all down to someone else (in this case our pal Dickov).
Not quite the same donaldo.
Lastly, if DPL prdeictions are based on assessments of recent results then surely someone would have predicted a loss against Walsall when we clearly were going to be up against it with so many key players missing, our poor home form and the position of Walsall in the league......and yet no one at all predicted a defeat.
If they were based on hope then why would anyone at all predict a loss?

Hound the predictions have sweet fa to do with what people may actually think and just being optimistic could come into it!

Also I didn't realise we only had fans who post on this board there predictions? There could thousands of others who have totally the opposite so that blows your theory out the water.

No it doesn't because there is no evidence either way is there.
Also, if predictions on your DPL were just by them being optimistic then why in h ell would anyone predict a loss which is the question that i asked in my last post.

Evidence is information that tends to establish a fact and the DPL certainly establishes that we are all optimistic about our team (often without justification).

I would suggest as well that the majority of those who watch a football team (who do not participate in the DPL)regularly hope to see their team win even though they accept that this will often not happen. That is also evidence based on long experience of talking to football fans and it would not be unreasonable to classify it as “expert testimony”.

So what you, Hound, dispute, is a positon that most reasonable people would accept.

On Dickov I am afraid that I, possibly in common with others, do not understand exactly where you stand, except that you appear to disagree with most of the remarks made about him which are even faintly critical. I notice too that are not reticent in making us aware of what you see as DF’s shortcomings.

My position on Dickov is that he is long gone and therefore should not be blamed for poor performances under DF.
DF is very much his own man and I would imagine that he would want to stand or fall by his own decisions.
As has been said by myself and Pirate, he has had plenty of time now to have made this group of players his own.
Also it is unreasonable to give him all the credit for victories but none of the blame when we lose.
As is my want, I support DF fully but I am also a realist in that I can see some deficiencies in his make up.
Every Rovers fan I know plus those who choose to post on here and the VSC site would recognise that we need to reinforce defensively but DF has wasted a window in which he could have addressed this problem.
Indeed he has said he is happy with what he has got.
Good teams are always hard to beat and do not concede many goals.
At 0-0 they are always likely to nick a goal.
However we all know that the hardest thing to do in football is to score a goal.
Currently our penchant for letting in two goals regularly means that we have to score two to avoid defeat and three to win.
Not an easy task as we continually see.
I agree that the games since Dickov and Jones were relieved if their posts have been more exciting to watch in general but in reality our points gathering hasn't been so great.
There have also been some shocking performances, Fleetwood, Scunthorpe and Port Vale for example.
Fergie should be expected to shoulder the blame for those.
If you read my previous post properly you will see that in no way have I defended Dickov but that I have criticised posters for being unrealistic in their attempts to deflect blame for recent bad performances away from Fergie and onto Dickov who left over 20 matches ago.

I do think though Hound, that although we have lost we have lost playing better football but by being naive at the back. We have tended to give goals away rather than have good ones scored against us.

I agree totally about the defensive lapses, but we have attacked much better than under Dickov, but for some reason, we are unable to turn the Keepmoat into a fortress under either manager.

Playing at home seems to be our downfall for some reason, even with the different players DF has brought in.

As I have said before, most goals are seen as bad by the sides that concede them .
When Williams turned the Gillingham CB before going on to score our equaliser we all said what a great take, turn and finish it was but it was viewed by Gillingham fans as poor defending by the CB for allowing Andy to get away from him and then not getting a tackle in.
See what I am getting at?
In the home games against Scunny and Port Vale I can assure you that we lost but DID NOT play good football.
The people who went to Fleetwood said we were bad there too, in fact DF said as much himself afterwards.
Yes, I agree that we attack much better under Darren but you have to be fair and say we were better defensively under PD ( whoops , I guess I did defend him there. )
We played very well against Walsall and if the ref had given the pen early on when the defender clearly handled the ball as AW tried to go past him it could have had a different outcome but (as a Rovers fan) poor defending gave them 2 goals.
Although (as a Walsall fan might say) poor defending allowed us to pull one back it is always going to be hard to come back from two goals behind.
I was as excited as anyone when we got the unlikely win against Crewe and the comeback draw against Gillingham but to me it was papering over the cracks when I thought about it afterwards.
Azza said that all teams will have bad days but conversely all teams will have good days too.
That is exactly where we are right now, once again inconsistent and unless we win around two thirds of our remaining games any hope of a top six spot is gone.
That leads on to fewer fans through the turnstiles and therefore less money that will be made available to Darren in the summer.
From a business point of view our failure to strengthen the team has been a disaster.