So am I. It’s not like I’m calling for his head. I just haven’t been particularly encouraged by what I have seen so far.
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At the moment we are not good enough you are right… I hoped but never expected us to start like a steam train…
We have a completely new club, chairman, manager, coaching staff, players. We supporters really need to keep calm for at least the next five or 6 games and really get behind Clarke and the boys.
Losing 1-0 to Crewe is no disgrace. We will get better I’m sure let’s keep the faith UTS
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I think 10-12 games is perfectly reasonable to be fair, due to all sorts of variables that will need to be ironed out. That’s simply the reality of football. There is a strong desire to get promotion at the first time of asking, and it behooves the club to set out this stall, but there’s also the inescapable reality of having accommodate new players, in a new division with new opposition.
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Well that’s why I said it such a big game tonight. If results and performances pick up in the next few weeks I’ll feel a lot better about this side.
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12 games is a quarter of a season. A promotion chasing team can’t afford to write that off. To me that’s a failure of preparation. As I said, he chose to clear out all of those players and the fans cheered when he did. He also chose which players he brought in. To me, not being ready for the start of a season is poor management. It’s too early to say that he has, but I certainly wouldn’t want to write off 12 games.
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But any club will have to accept some unexpected results as part of the settling in process. I doubt we’ll lose every game, so it’s not really ‘written off’ as much as moving on from whatever start we eventually end up with.
Mistakes will be made, opportunities will be seized and squandered. How many points from the first 12 games would be sufficient for success in your view?
Of course there is but Clarke has had two months, a host of friendlies and 4 competitive games by now. To me this is where we should be improving performances and results, not in 8 games time.
Well points is irrelevant really. I’m much more bothered about position. I’d like us to be in or around the play offs positions at that time. Top half absolute bare minimum. Anything less than that and we have made a poor start.
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Obviously the more points we pick up at any point the better, but just to point out that in his two promotion seasons with Brizzle Clarke’s team had the following early seasons results.
Conference promotion…First 7 games w2 d 2 L 3, then they piocked up and went on a run.
League Two promotion first 9 games w3 d1 L 5. They then won the next four, but it wasn’t until after Christmas that they really put the key run together.
I’m happy so long as we’re ticking along at this stage.
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He’s had around 2-3 months to put a team together, which isn’t a lot of time. You think it is, but all of the players didn’t join at the same time, so they’re going to take time getting used to how each other plays and how DC wants them to.
I’ll give him time - Rovers fans even came on here when we appointed him and said his teams usually start slowly. The amount of change which this club has had in the close season after the last 2-3 seasons can’t be forgotten. I’d love to see us promoted this season and I have faith that we will, but I also won’t lose all sense of realism if we don’t. The mistakes of the last 2 years will take longer than 3 months to rectify.
Also losing away to Crewe isn’t a big deal, I’m sure they have the best home record of any League 2 club during the past year.
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Yes it is. He chose which players to get rid of and sign. I’m not buying that excuse to be honest.
Is there any logical reason we shouldn’t expect that? We are led to believe the budget is competitive for once. That Clarke hasn’t given Pomlett a name we haven’t been able to get. And we are historically a league one side.
Personally I didn’t see anything in that Crewe side that made me think a 1-0 loss was a decent result. Or Crawley. or a draw against Forrest Green.
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You’re right. We should of kept Leahy, Guthrie et al instead 
And regarding promotion, I’ve said I would love to see us get promoted and I think we will. Everyone from the board down wants it and we are all pushing in the right direction to do so, but just because ‘historically’ we are a League 1 team doesn’t give us some divine right to be promoted straight away.
Historically Bournemouth are a lower league team - remind me what league they now play in? History has nothing to do with it, we are where we are on merit due to bad decisions being made over a period of time.
That’s not what I’m saying is it? Actually Leahy and Guthrie are the two I think have been replaced properly. You literally picked out the only two signings I think have been a major upgrade on last season.
Of course we are where we are on merit, I’m talking about the expectations of this club. They are ALWAYS based on history. Not deserving to be, but where we should expect to be. Aston Villa, for example, were in the Championship but their fans expected promotion because historically they are a top team club. You mentioned Bournemouth, Eddie Howe is one of the best managers in the country because he has a team that historically is a lower division club punching well above it’s weight and they deserve to be where they are. That’s the difference between expectation and getting what you earn.
You jump from one thing to another to ‘support’ your argument. You said historically we are a League 1 team - I just said so are Bournemouth. They are above that due to ambition and investment, something we can only hope to get. But their success was built over 3-4 seasons, not 2 months.
Aston Villa were in the Championship for 3 years and that was due to their own negligence. Just because fans ‘expect’ doesn’t mean it will happen. And getting aggy when results don’t pan out how you expect doesn’t do anyone any good.
We are 3 games into a 46 game season. Let’s see where we are after 10 games before we make a judgement on how the team are gelling together (I know you think that is too long). I do believe after that time we will be near to the play offs, but not in them. But 3 league games is nothing in the grand scheme of things. I’d be worried if DC wasn’t highlighting the deficiencies which we are all seeing and doing his best to rectify them.
No I’m not, I’m pointing out the difference between fan expectation and achievement. Fan expectation has no bearing on achievement. And I’m not sure why you are making out it’s an unreasonable thing to expect. Our Chairman himself has stated that exact aim.
I’m asking us to get promoted back up to league one, not get into the prem.
You’re not ‘wrong’ as such as it’s your own opinion, but the 2-3 months seems a bit illogical as he’s had merely 4 competitive games. That’s not enough to make any kind of solid judgement either way.
As for the historical expectations - agree to an extent, but no team has a divine right to be in any particular league and their place in the grand scheme is determined explicitly by player wages. I think most fans are clued up to this and barring some of the more idiotic outliers (Newcastle, Wolves, Leeds etc) fans are generally quite realistic.
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying we have a right to be anywhere but where we are. What I’m saying is that it’s not an unfair expectation to think a side that is so established at a certain level, as we are, should expect to get promoted back to that level if you drop below it. Especially when the club itself has outlined it’s ambitions.
I haven’t said its unrealistic or unreasonable☝️
“making out”
Christ how long did smith have before he got it right
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I know, however it seems that you may ‘expect’ Walsall to have an edge over say Exeter who have been on the cusp of promotion for a while, or Newport, Bradford, Plymouth, Forest Green or a group of other fanciable teams.
We don’t have any kind of default edge. And my main point is that 2-3 months is largely irrelevant as opposed to 4 meaningful games.