I think you have hit the nail on the head or heads, same as, same as. Other clubs already announced signings.

none of us are shocked,
the club not the team since SOD left is an embarrasment.

Can't wait for his excuses to start. Best laugh I've had in ages was reading in the Free Press of all the so called top strikers DickOff was going after. The one he looks like getting from France ( 3rd div team ) who's scored, correct me if I'm wrong, 8 goals in 55 appearances. Sounds like a real DickOff striker.

After the last 2 seasons of using no pre-season as an excuse for our shlt performance, what's going to be the reason this time.

Personally, I think it's all a big bluff. He's got 10 players lined up to turn us into that team who's going to get us back into the championship.

We have signed a keeper, Stuckman from Preston. Johnstone's understudy!!!!

Highly rated by PNE fans NY could be a decent coup.

However unable to pursuade someone of Popes calibre is pathetic I wonder if dwindling progress of talks and negotiations left the door open for Bury who may I add are signing a good bunch of players, one of the sides to watch I feel especially with a good manager in Flitcroft.

Dickface (sorry Dickov) is a twonker. But can't blame him for this one. It's the full of shjt useless board!

Well as I predicted a couple of weeks back we are not a seeded team for next weeks capital one cup draw.

Building from the back?

I see we've lost out to Rotherham on the ex Leeds, ex Oldham (!!!) full back White as well. Why would any ambitious player want to place his future in the hands of Dickov?

We have no faith in him; nothing he says ever amounts to much; he thinks Curtis Main is a great player.

He has never signed anyone permanently whose career has progressed under his leadership.

He still looks to those who contributed to the mediocrity that was his career at Oldham.

Those who want to progress leave.

We can't win at home.

Apart from The Corporal all his management team appear to add no value whatsoever.

We obviously have a player budget inferior to the mighty Bury.

Unless he can find a talented player who is of unsound mind I see no hope of getting anyone new here that is any good.

Donaldo,

Your last sentence could be very funny, but unfortunately it seems to be true.

If we do sign that "fantastic striker" from France, it may show how great a player Main really is!

The Portland Timbers currently have ex-Villa Liam Ridgewell, and he is doing OK in the MLS. I want to meet him and remind him about a certain League Cup game at Belle Vue...

I know beating the Weeds to get into the Championship is a great highlight of recent years, but that run in the League Cup was fantastic. Without that excessive 4 minutes of extra time against the Gunners, who knows what would have been the end result with the Rovers progressing.

RTID

Micky: Your comments generate mixed emotions. We can now see that the League Cup run was an uplifting precursor to what was to come. The Millennium Stadium, Wembley , the football under SOD, truly delightful at times and the exhilarating rise up the Championship when the promise of even greater things seemed within our grasp; pleasing to look back on, but so much in contrast to the ugly truth of where we have sunk to with Dickov; verbose, self-justifying, self-satisfied, self-important, given licence to rationalise everything at the club into his own pedestrian objective of being tougher to beat.

SOD had a vision and was well on his way to achieving it until investment dried up. Saunders was left with an almost empty shell and somehow created not just something out of nothing, but the most successful team in League 1, an end product, albeit simply functional, which even eclipsed SOD’s efforts in the same league. Dickov may have had close-season set-backs, but he might have planned, insisted on planning, for the no-takeover option. That he did nothing sums him up; it provided him with the excuse, not once, but twice.

And all we have now is the rather tardy realisation that if he cannot create a footballing team he will inflict a team of unattractive sluggers on us. Just the thing to boost home attendances. Thus far it seems that he has found “sluggers” or whatever term he chooses to dress them up as, as difficult to attract as prolific strikers. It could be that any good players are difficult for DRFC to acquire with him in charge.

I know there a few of us that can remember the original demise from Division One.
I am getting the same vibrations now, no money, lots of moaning about the lack of support and a general apathetic malaise creeping over the whole thing.
I sincerely hope I am wrong, and feel that this is a crucial season for all of us. Another descent to the depths of last time is more likely than not to see a dead Doncaster Rovers.
I hope the people who matter, at least do something to make us think that they care!!!

This is a very pessimistic viewpoint but with a bit of luck, hope will become optimism!

Should that be Second Division?

I'm not that pessimistic Doc. Dickov will surely not survive if he cannot lift us into play-off contention by the half way point this season. The Board have obviously been over-generous to him thus far, but they will surely be more hard-headed if he fails again. The sad thing is that we are probably destined to waste another mediocre season before we can have the change at the top.

I'm sure they won't let us slip into League 2.

Wendies have sacked their manager.

You are right Don, it is not realistically pessimistic. (oxymoron?)

My intention was to exaggerate in the hope that somebody may become alarmed enough to actually give us a reason to be optimistic, other than blind loyalty!

A bit of egg on a couple faces after reading some of these comments lads now you have signed Williams.
It looks like you boys are going to have a decent team to play us in the cup.

Yeah let's go and swing from the lights we've signed 1 player. Championship here we come

You have signed two players, a keeper and a striker, the same as us as it happens.
I have to laugh every time i come on here for a look, you boys are the most negative i have ever seen.
I thought our fans were bad but boys, you outdo us by miles.

I hear that we have been linked to Dean Furman.
How poor is he then?

Mick

I think you will find that most will feel Furman is a good squad player. He is a good defensive midfielder who got a run when Keegan was injured. If Keegan had stayed fit, Furman would have been on the bench.

He is a very intelligent player and could be an asset to Leeds but not, in my opinion as a regular starter.

Cheers Newyankee.
I understand from my sources that he is in talks with LUFC.
He can't be so bad though because he is captain of his country.
I see that our cup game is on Sky tv.
Will that impact on the attendance do you think?

Rovers supporters on another forum are calling for ten pound seats to help build the crowd. Probably will happen.

Furman is captain of South Africa, but their team would have difficulty in League One from what I have seen.