A message from a Rovers fan

Hi all, everyone at Bristol Rovers is keenly watching you this season to see how you will perform under Darrell Clarke. So far, not so good. But to provide optimism, I want to assure you that Clarke isn’t renowned for successful starts to the season. For example, you’re 6 games into the season and have 5 points. Clarke’s record in his promotion seasons in the first 6 games were as follows.

2014-15: 7 points (finished with 91)

2015-16: 9 points (finished with 85).
Not only is Clarke renowned for poor starts, he’s also renowned for improving in the 2nd half of the season.
2014-15: first 23: 41 points. second 23: 50 points

2015-16: first 23: 37 second 23: 48
2016-17: first 23: 33 second 23: 33 (despite losing the top goalscorer in league 1 and having to replace him with a striker who ended up scoring 0 in 24
2017-18: first 23: 27 second 23: 32

So please keep your faith in him!! Give him more time!!

Also regarding Rory Gaffney, no. He’s not the most prolific or a goalscoring forward, but he does all the dirty stuff, great target man who is great on his day. The kind of striker who will score 6 or 7 no matter what league you’re in and he was a big part in our promotion campaign.

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Good positive post!

I believe we have the best man we could possibly attract for this rebuild. I’m 100% keeping the faith and backing him to get it right.

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Me too

Me too.

I believe…

Ok so DC is known for always starting poorly which kind of suggests he makes the same mistakes every time. At what point will he do things differently and start a season well? I like him but im not kidding myself that things will automatically improve ‘because he always starts poorly’. I dont think we are too far off but we need to stop the rot…sharpish.

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Or that DC inherited squads that needed total rebuilding. FFS.

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Not necessarily. He is a manager which looks at every game or ‘project’ as he says in great detail, the more detail he has available then the better he knows how to set up.
I get the impression he will base his formation and line up on the opposition strengths and weaknesses, I’d say by match day 10 you start to get a better understanding of that, that’s all I’d say it is down to.

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Ok lets hope thats the case. I do think hes a good manager and I like his style. Cant deny im worried at the moment though!

Not every time.

I get that people are worried, I’m more concerned after Grimsby than any other game cos I think we looked better going forward yet still managed to lose 3-1. I’m reserving judgement until 10-12 games in though, I honestly think it will click.

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I’m with you guys, rovers fans did tell us of his slow starts, that’s his starting line ups will change from game to game, and that he doesn’t give a lot away regarding player injuries etc, I believe he was the best manager we could have appointed ( well actually I spouted at the time that Paul Hurst was my preferred choice ) and look how he’s started!! But I was more than happy to have DC, he has passion and I truly believe he will come good, yes I’m as disappointed as anyone regarding our slow start but it’s where we finish that’s more important, let’s keep our faith and trust🙏

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18/19 First 21 : 17

Has to be said there’s another clear trend in those figures. How significant it is , only time will tell.

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Me too

I’m not happy with the slow start stuff though. Surely he himself should find that unacceptable, work out why it is, and not allow it to continue?

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He appears to experiment early on which might explain it. It completely killed us yesterday it was a mess

He needs a better calibre of player though there is no denying that.

I only hope this time slow start won’t turn to slow October-November period, later slow New Year games period, slow Winter Transfer Window period and on and on. Sooner or later it should be improved. In this business, when you don’t go forward, you’re backtracking. Fast.

Going to try and keep this thread as high up the forum as possible - to remind the doom mongers to support the team

By grilling em every week and causing direst and usual Walsall fan mentality - it will have the total opposite effect and make the problem worse IMO

What do we expect will happen from slating the team and the manager?

If we end up in the conference - i’ll be the first one to say fans have made a huge contribution towards that

Keep the faith UTS

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The problem you’ve got is that those stats can be used to suggest the opposite to what you want people to be reminded of .There’s a steady decline over the seasons to an average of about 0.8 points per game from August 18.They can be used to say DC has been a good manager. They’re ambiguous as to whether he still is. Nothing conclusive either way. Only time will tell.

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:roll_eyes::roll_eyes::joy::joy::joy: