Rotherham look completely different without Paul warne,so I am going for a fairly comfortable afternoon.
1-3 win
Rogerham 1 Rovers 2
Wow,never expected that ..What the phooks going on lads?.
To put another slant on this. We have £0 to spend.
The manager said all we can look at are very low fee's, and shift some players on to free up some money.
George Hirst was on £17k a week if you actually get your head around that. So while we are skint, we do still waste money on nothing.
If anyone said, back in Aug, after 26 games we would be 5th we ALL to a man would have taken their hand off.
We are way above alot of sides who are way below us in the table, all of which have spent more money.
We should not be anywhere near the top 6. But we are here.
It was awful that performance. To add to another load of poor performances. But to add balance, we have also had a better way of finding a way to win. More so, and far more effectively than over three quarters of this division.
The sides above us are, 2 of the 3 that got relegated from the Pre, with £147m more than us. Hardly a bad thing. One of them are only a point above us. The other 2 sides, Boro & WBA are a far bigger clubs, bigger fan base and spend more than us. They are only a point ahead. And have both had great runs. Both where down And Sheff Utd, a huge, big city club beaten in the play offs by Forest and spent a small fortune in the summer. So while its very easy an queue up and take a pot shot at us, in a way we are far higher than anyone thought we would be. I never see anyone commend us for that.
But if we lose, we are all very quick to say how awful we are.
We can't strengthen in this window a great deal, as the manager said we are skint. Its loans and cheap players like Hedges. Who are crap. Its a damn miracle we have managed to out-do almost all the division and win a shed load more games than them actually.
But Sat was crap. No doubt. But if we just take a step back, it was a poor day. But we just can't forget some good things we have done aswell. The fact we are 5th does get quickly swept under the carpet. Almost all (but 5 teams) would swap places with us in a heartbeat. Some very very big clubs saying that too. Who throw in way more abysmal woeful performances than us, and have not figured out a way of winning half the matches we have.
It's a very fair and valid point.
I just wish when we lose,its with alot more passion on show.
Saturday was a blatant waving of the white flag.
Gutless and weak.
Every team loses but the very least we expect as a fan is a fight and that was very much not the case against Rotherham.
Most of the 13 odd games lost this season has followed a similar pattern.
Possibly boro was the only one that we showed fight.
Of course some of our more fickle of our fan base want JDT gone which is just ridiculous,especially when we have put up with second half of the season collapses under mowbray,for the best part of 5 years.
He has been in the job 6 months and as you put it,absolutely no budget to work with.
Maybe some reality is required.
We are in desperate need of strengthening. Alot of teams in this league will be spending money. All our rivals will. We will be lucky if we spend £400k on a centre half form Hibs (Porteous). It will be a miracle if we manage to finish the season above alot of sides who will spend alot of money in this window, like they did in the summer. Yet I bet we manage to finish above quite alot of those sides. As we are above most of them now, which in itself is a miracle.
I was annoyed on Sat. Of course. It was a gutless display, where you could tell after 30 seconds it was not going to be our day. While it does look like they threw the towel in, that will not have been the case. No more than Liverpool threw the towel in vrs Brighton. They did however have a bad day. And when we lose, we lose badly. And we lose alot.
But the bit that alot keep side stepping, we have also figured out how to win games. Which in football, especially at this level, is the key thing.
Had anyone told us back in summer, before a few loan and cheap signings came in that we would be sat in the play off spots we would all be very very happy. So we all do need to take a brief step back. Its far from brilliant. But it is a million miles away from the disaster that some claim it is.
Its going to be neigh on impossible to keep up with some sides now, but that said, the likes of Boro and WBA are on great runs. We are not. They are only a point ahead. They will not carry on winning every week, that I can guarantee. We will however have better days.