POST-MATCH THREAD: Bristol Rovers vs Charlton Athletic: Good Friday 7th April 2023: KO 3.00 PM

Clem_Snide said:

Why does Holden take so long to make changes? We kept doing the same thing (badly) over and over no hint of a tactical change until we went a goal down.

Barton seemed to work out pretty quickly that Shrewsbury was an exception rather than the rule and made an early change as it was clear we were no threat.

75% of this squad needs to be gone.

I agree with this, except when we have these pockets of wins and results like last week, complacency sets into our fan base imo.  If you look back through the post match comments against Shrewsbury, all of a sudden Inniss is worth keeping on because he’s like a different player under Holden.  Morgan could offer something if he carry’s on playing like he did today, Terrell Thomas has looked capable at right back etc etc.  I find it really hard to keep reading this sort of thing after a couple of good results.  It’s becoming a pattern.  Jackson’s run as caretaker, followed by a dip when he got made permanent manager, then a win against someone like Rotherham and it’s all positive again.  The same this season.  Garner’s 3 wins in October, then Holden wins 3 from New Year’s Day, then another 3 out of 4 up until today.  It’s not good enough.  Yet we get comments like ‘on our day’.  You don’t win things with a team/squad of players that can do something ‘on their day’.  You get what we have now, which is like being fed a largely bland diet with the occasional bit of sugar to give you a high (if you can call it that)

I really like Dean Holden, but it seems like the majority have made their mind up and he’s a ‘top bloke’.  The truth is, we don’t know if he’s got what it takes.  Fair play to him for going down the Oak and mixing it with fans etc, buying them pints and giving us soundbites about no dickheads next season, but we’re an easy mark and in some ways we’re like baying seals that just need to be thrown a fish and we think everything will be okay.  Holden was going nowhere before he got the job with us.  He would’ve seen the state we’re in and in many ways he’s got nothing to lose.  No one expects anything, we’re so starved of any sort of direction and positivity that it’s quite easy to come in and buy us all a few drinks and we’re going home with him.  I’m not questioning his actions, just an observation I think we’re too soft and easily pleased.  Remember when David Brent was down the Oak last season.  The fawning was pathetic.  Now look at us under him.


We need to zoom out.  All this ‘a win is a win’ and ‘we got 3 points today, so I’m happy’.  We’re literally eeking our way into a similar finish to last season, a fourth on the spin in this league, we’ve got far too many poor players, literally one or two consistently good players, a potential incoming owner who according to a few in the know on here is going to try and build a team based on frees, youngsters and loans and we’re miles off anything that looks like a team capable of promotion for the second season running (third imo).  What do you actually expect is going to happen to change this, based on all of the above?

We all have our opinions, mine is very bleak and I hold my hands up if it comes across as too negative, but for me, this is a consistent pattern of mediocrity now and it’s not changing.  Unfortunately, I genuinely feel that come October next year, or whenever Aneke is fit to give us his first 10 minutes off the bench or whatever, we’ll still have comments like ‘cheat code’ and so on, and we might have spell where we get 3 wins on the bounce against Burton, Portsmouth and Northampton for example, and we’ll all (myself included), be going round in circles, typing the same old bollocks we have been for the last 2 years