12 months on
Crest
By Pat Godson
December 28 2023
We are coming to the end of 2023, an eventful year for Rovers, but not necessarily for the right reasons. It would be fair to say that there have been more low points than high points.
This time last year it was possible to assume we were within a chance of the play-offs. After our away win at Barrow on 29th December, we were three points off the play offs but 10 points behind Northampton in third. Dacres-Cogley and Bristow played as wing backs, Mumbongo and Hemmings played up front. The former pair have been much missed, the two up front not so much. And of course we were managed by Micky Mellon.
Between January and Mid March we recorded 5 wins. The gap between the automatic promotion spots grew to 18 pts and after a 1-3 home defeat by Newport County Mellon was dismissed. Many at the time argued that sacking Micky was a mistake, about the same number took the view that he had run out of road.
Following Mellon's departure Ian Dawes took over as caretaker manager. At that point there were 9 games left. Rovers won two and only lost two. However, the additional 10 points gained meant that we were left in 12th place. Before our final game of the season, despite rumours of many illustrious names being linked to the vacancy, Dawes was given the job on a permanent basis. On the final day of the season we watched Northampton celebrate gaining automatic promotion, on a day when many supporters felt it should have been us.
It would be fair to say that Dawes was not a universally popular appointment. Most fans, however, did their best to get behind the new manager and were reassured by the fact that ex Rovers keeper Nigel Adkins would assume a support role.
The season kicked off with a home defeat to Barrow, currently flying high in the League. We achieved one League win in August, against Harrogate Town. By 10 September Dawes was gone. Nigel Adkins replaced him as manager and tried to shape a team from the resources available to him. It took a few months for Adkin's to get to grips with the squad of players he inherited. The style of play changed to a more traditional 4-4-2. It would be fair to say that under Dawes the team experimented with different formations that all seemed to not quite work. Kane Hemmings also departed the club, having his contract terminated by mutual consent, going to Stevenage a division higher, and inevitably scoring against us in our FA Cup exit.
Hindsight is the cheapest of all wisdoms. It's easy to point to mistakes over the last 12 months. Did we sack Mellon too soon? Was Dawes given too little time? However, it seemed fairly obvious that by September the club was in danger of spiralling out of the Football League. It wasn't just the fact we were getting beat, it was the nature of those defeats.
Yet here we are, as the year ends, basking in the reflective glory of our Boxing Day victory over Salford City. It's a long time since we scored 5 on the road, and it seems a long way from the football we endured at the start of the season. Hopefully 2024 will see our progress continue. Maybe in 12 months time we will be reviewing how we successfully pushed for promotion, made the play-offs by the skin of our teeth and miraculously beat Wrexham in the final at Wembley. Now that would be sweet. That might just make the roller coaster ride of 2023 palatable.
Happy New Year!
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:12:28:13:32:05 by hong kong rover.
The most critical issue now, is how recruitment goes under Nigel.
Nigel seems to be light years ahead of preparing a team and administering in play issues. Probably not too important, but many misdiagnose his formats. When he played 4-5-1, his wide men knew exactly that they had to cover back wide when we were out of possession, under Dawes even Jennings seemed unsure of his role. Apart from the rare event of Dennis and Norris playing together we have not used 4-4-2, we have used 4-4-1-1. Jennings is currently playing behind Saunders, trying to release the latter's killer speed.
So far Nigel has got a lot out of a sow's ear, with County and Wrexham around silk will be unavailable but hopefully we can stretch to some improvement in personnel.
Blackpool is a concern, agents believe their promotion charge isn't sustainable and they are trying to get moves for their better players. If they end up downgrading, you know who is likely to be needed.
We are 6 points worse off than after 24 games last season, there are obvious reasons for this but I think under Nige we will see a much healthier points return than in the first half of the season based on recent form and performance. Already, we have started the second half of the season (game 24) with a win, if we can get something tonight that will certainly represent huge gains on the first half of the season pts total when we started with 2 losses, giving hope that we can exceed expectations of just mid table security.
Another reason that I think we improve is that we have scored 36 goals already, last season we only scored 45, the season before 53. We are on our way to smashing these tallies and this mostly without a proper number 9. Stats show on average that teams in the top 7 score 60-70 goals, with only a few exceptions of less/more. So we are moving in the right direction having also tightened up at the back. The back 4 of LOC, Davies, JT, Wood have improved individually and as a unit over the past month, particularly the CBs, they were back to their best and playing how we know they can against Salford, which again gives hope.
I think the recent form and formation has resembled how we were under Mellon, those 2 banks of 4 compact and hard to break down. We are now hard to beat again. The biggest difference is the transition and how we attack, Nige has us more aggressive in the press and better with the ball, evidenced by the number of shots/chances created. This again has me more optimistic.
For me, we have the best manager in the league, one that would normally be well out of our budget. So this should hopefully pay dividends, maybe not this season in terms of a promotion chase but certainly put us in a strong position going into next season. But who knows, another couple of wins over these next 2 games and the outlook changes again. Mickey showed at times he could put a 5-6 game winning run together but couldn’t sustain much more than that, we often went from one one extreme to the other. Can Nigel maintain that momentum and consistency in performance is the question. Time will tell, but it’s consistency that will get us up the table. It will be interesting where we sit at the end of Jan in terms of points accrued and the players in and out. There are 6 games between now and end of Jan, so we will be in a much better position to predict mid table or playoff charge, currently I sit on the mid table fence.
Like Zint, I would love to see Nevitt back. I feel he would be the ideal sub for Jenno and would also do a great job playing alongside the pace of Saunders or Jolley (who he has linked up well with in the past).
Regardless, I don't subscribe to the 'our squad is too big' grumble that occasionally surfaces on twitter. Would be happy with the odd signing to make us stronger, with a mobile target man and pacey winger on the shopping list but overall I think NA is managing the squad he has superbly.
In Nige we trust SWA