Boring Sag

I haven't said any different, and the point is I think it's more embarrassing for a club to have a club with a larger amount of unsold tickets. This doesn't affect my argument and isn't even a point, but if your stadium capacity was 30k, compared to 12k (I know Notts County's is 20k it's just an example, before you say I'm twisting the numbers), wouldn't you prefer your 8k attendance to be in the 12k stadium? Genuine question.

A half season downturn occurs halfway through the season, when 23 games have been played. You want us to start from February, which is 29 games into the season. Hence not the halfway point.

8k is our average. But in a 12k capacity stadium. And if your argument was Rovers crowds are awful, and I asked you to name a bigger fanbase from the least-supported club of a two club city with as big a quality gap as Rovers and City, and you name a club who gets less than us.

A 20,000 capacity stadium and only take 7k a week? As if

The majority of the time a team is odd-on to win, they win, and they're odds-on because of stats. Hence they do work. We're an obsessed fanbase and yet you proceed to mention every single embarrassing thing that's happened to Rovers, on a forum called "one team in Bristol" on a thread that's 3 and a half years long (a lot of the stuff you named was before) about a rival fanbase that's apparently "obsessed with our team." Can't remember the last time I saw a City related thread on Gas Chat, hell, the only thing I've seen City related in weeks was that post about your U23 team, which was shot down by every single Rovers fan who commented. Also, quick question, how is worshipping Dean Windass embarrassing, but making multiple banners about Colin Daniel not? Why would any club, selling or buying, agree a clause that was optional? The buying club would just always choose not to pay it, why would they? It makes 0 sense. I missed share a city, a team with as big a quality gap as Rovers and City have that shares a city with their rivals. Minus London of course because of their 8.1 million population. Okay Ron, take care. Our away crowds have been awful since Sunderland tbh That share a city The difference is your scouting network spots players from all over Europe. That's why you've got Swedish players and I think at some point an Icelandic player or two. You even have a history of buying strikers from France. Rovers don't need that. If fans like pirate on gaschat (he's got a thread on young non-league players Rovers should target, very educated on the subject) can see a player Rovers should sign from non-league, I can't believe a random guy in his spare time could do a better scouting job than what Rovers are doing. Of course it's not that easy, but trials for non-league players could be a very effective way of trying to find young talent. I just don't see an attacking player whose scored 15 goals in the league over 2 seasons as below average. Ellis Harrison is below average for the Championship. Yes you do watch the Championship, but you're not a Preston/Sunderland fan so besides games against them how well could you really know?

To illustrate my point as I could just be an optimistic gashead and since Rovers are 1 point above the relegation zone they'll still go down. Here's two websites that use statistical models to predict as accurately as possible where teams will finish: They give Rovers between 8-15% chance of being relegated. And predict Rovers to finish 15th/16th https://experimental361.com/2019/03/10/e-ratings-update-league-1-10-mar-2019/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/league-one/

The bonus isn't optional, the bonus will be paid for if he scores a certain number of goals whatever league they're in. Hence unless he's sold we'll get the extra £250k They were awful the season they went down, even in League 1 I was surprised they finished so high, we beat them at the Mem. Form does change, but our form is showing no signs of changing. Out of those 10 games there's 3 of which Rovers could've got more points, as in, 3 of those games was probably a poor result. Shrewsbury draw 1-1 at home, Wycombe loss 1-0 at home and a draw away at Accrington 0-0. Considering Accrington is our bogey team by far, I'd say that's only 2 poor results. We got 2 draws against teams that were in the top 6, a 4-0 win against Blackpool and haven't lost an away game since Coughlan's first game. We have games against all 4 of the teams that have the highest odds of going down. And if anything Blackpool should've been more fired up as Oyston was out. The fact is, even a 1.4 point per game form (including many tough games) is more than good enough for us to stay up, especially considering the fact that now we seem to have a prolific goalscorer. The majority of the time I believe. Yep, was good in his first spell after he was appointed. Which he should have been given Cotterill was underperforming. In his second season you were in 11th place in gameweek 19. Albeit a bit earlier than the midway point. You then had a spell of 8 losses in a row, 8! Which put you in 20th in gameweek 27, you then collected 8/27 points from your next 9 games. You then picked your form up a lot, but you did have a humilating loss 5-0 to Preston and you finished 17th. And then you had last season The French are not a race to be fair. No, I don't think a lot of Rovers fans see us as a big club. But the idiots who do are very vocal. You don't even need that good of a scouting network, invite a few players down to trial, hell the Nike Academy and V9 have spit out a lot of good players recently. McGeady still scored 8 goals for Preston, and 7 for an awful Sunderland team, despite being on the bench. Name me one team that has a rival who is as considerably better than us as City is to Rovers where the bottom team's fanbase is big. Where did I take anything out of context? I didn't say it so what's the point, there's plenty of football fans from all clubs who are uneducated on things other than their club.  I know you didn't say it but you used it anyway to try and put over your point and despite my putting you straight, you are still labouring the point. I used it? How? My point was all fanbases have uneducated fans. Unfortunately not Unexpected result Is quite fun debating with the fans who aren't going "yur a gazhead yur stoopid." Thank you. To be honest deserve isn't even a thing anymore since finance now has such a big impact. The majority of clubs deserve to be somewhere else. Whether better or worse Severely misspelling absolute and misspelling Dwane Sports, a Sports company owned by a Jordanian family, are very different. I've never said anything about Lansdown? Your argument is consisting of "a couple Rovers fans said this so you must also think it!" I could only dream of Lansdown as an owner. Am desperately How many times have you been to the Mem? Because if it's only once or twice, do you think that's anywhere near a suitable sample size for 203 games that we've played since the Lincoln game? It still seems quite ironic considering your forum is called "One team in Bristol" and you have 977 pages on your Bristol Rovers thread in the last 3 and a half years. Around 3/4 of a page on this thread every single day for 3 and a half years? 3 months seems an awfully long time for a good patch is all i'm saying, and even a bad form under Coughlan in the previous part of the season would see Rovers considerably higher in the table.

Ipswich are going down and he'll likely play a lot more given he's a League One level striker, so we'll receive the bonuses then? You're using a couple of FA Cup upsets to justify that our club should be much lower than it is, which makes no sense. Every club has FA Cup upsets, when Chelsea lost to Bradford did they deserve to be in League 1? The fact is FA Cup upsets occur because they're still professional footballers and with enough passion they can beat teams that field weakened sides. But consistently they can't, hence why they're so poor. Any team can lose to any team because it's 11 v 11. City lost to Wigan last season ffs

Where did I take anything out of context? I didn't say it so what's the point, there's plenty of football fans from all clubs who are uneducated on things other than their club. No No and I haven't implied anything differently. It's simple business, why would Duane Sports want to keep hold on a slowly deteriorating asset. They were hoping we'd get UWE and go up in value but now that won't happen why wouldn't they sell. I don't mean "forced out by the fans," I mean it won't be long before they want to get rid of Rovers. I've only ever heard two songs about Bristol City at the Mem, "if you all hate Bristol City clap your hands." And "we're coming for you." Which I heard once when we went up. There's plenty of songs, but even if there weren't how would you know? Or do you visit the Mem frequently? Our atmosphere is nowhere near that of most Championship clubs and I haven't denied as such, but going up to grounds like Coventry and Fleetwood, two stadiums with awful atmospheres, makes me think subjectively that Rovers' atmosphere is good. And by good, I mean mid-table League 1. I'm not going "da mem is like camp nou" which is what you're implying I'm saying. I literally haven't said any different, you're a much better run, bigger, better supported and more backed club than us and I haven't said any different. There are a lot of good players in Non-League, i'm not talking about 30 year old Billy Bricknell at Chelmsford, I'm talking about players that were let go maybe a bit too early by top Prem clubs who were signed at non-league level and have made their way up. Look at even us at an example, Taylor was non-league, Bodin was released by Northampton who were mid-table League 2. That's two examples, but there's young players in non-league who more than show that they're worthy of a step up. Sign a couple players and hope we can unearth a gem. That's because Tammy was literally Chelsea's best young player, why wouldn't they? Sweeney and Telford both performed, so did Bola. Hell, not even the Prem is needed to be honest. Lumley and Bonham were both outstanding signings from the Championship on loan. I'm not, I haven't denied my club in the long-term is in a state, but our quality is much better than our league position makes out for imo. If Clarke-Harris keeps performing we'll be fine, and I can't see any reason why not. It is but i'm actually quite surprised at how well Rotherham has done, I know they're in the relegation zone but last season they definitely didn't deserve to go up from the 46 game season. I think most predicted them to finish rock bottom. Have I said once we're a big club? I didn't say we had a divine right, but usually bigger crowds means more revenue which means more money to spend which means more quality. Of course no one has an inherent right to it, but all it shows is our board is ineffective and can't do their job. We can't sell out, but yet only 5 clubs in the league given average attendances could. We have a mid-table League 1 fanbase, average attendances show that. Our crowds really aren't terrible for a city as big as Bristol, I can't think of one team who share a city with as big a quality gap as City and Rovers have and the lower team isn't miles off in terms of popularity. Can you? Have I implied likewise? Genuinely look anywhere, have I implied whatsoever that City aren't miles ahead of Rovers? Also McGeady really isn't shit at Championship level, he was great at Preston and Sunderland Championship-level.

The difference is i've used our form since Coughlan took over. Whereas Johnson has been at City for years and you've picked and chosen. You've also got a history under Johnson of poor spells in the second half of the season. The whole point is I don't think we need a club rebuild we just need a few players here and there, and there will be players of good quality available for limited funds, whether that be free agents, non-league stars of perhaps loanees. The infrastructure is obviously a problem but it's only a matter of time until the Al Qadis are forced out. They seem to have a great squad and with players like Nathan Ake and David Brooks in their team they could reap high profits in the future on some of their players, hell, Chelsea were willing to bid £50m for Wilson apparently before they went for Higuain. I have some mates who are City fans and we talk about performances and what not. To take it back a few years I remember us getting in a lot of loan players in our first season in League 1. Particularly, Chelsea duo Charlie Colkett and Jake Clarke-Salter. Colkett was a great young player, seem to remember in the Chelsea youth team he was the main player that used to assist Tammy, but he struggled for game time so went back in January. Clarke-Salter was injured the majority of the time and when he finally played he was awful, got turned inside out by Lee Gregory. Somehow he's managed the eredivisie. The ground is awful, especially the pitch last season which was atrocious. But in all honesty we always seem to have a good atmosphere, well whenever I go at least. Of course that might be mocked by City fans but I think it's true, although not a testament to our supporters really, more down to the standing conditions. But there's plenty of fans who are following clubs who are performing much better in League 1 who have awful fans. Fleetwood springs to mind. I think in the short term the quality in our squad (you may point to our position but that was down to the lack of quality in one area), might save us for a next couple of seasons. But in the long term I am worried, although I don't think we'll be competing at the bottom of League 2 anytime soon, in my opinion. No problem mate, always happy to help. But hit me up next time you want to have an actual footballing debate rather than going "argh his a gazhed yur shite." That's completely different though, firstly Nottingham Forest have won 2 European Cups, something Notts County won't ever achieve, and secondly I don't think we've got the potential to be the biggest in our city. https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11707/11446570/bristol-rovers-striker-ellis-harrison-to-have-ipswich-medical-ahead-of-1m-move "Ipswich are understood to be paying an initial fee of £750,000, rising to £1m with bonuses." How is losing to a non-league teams more of a justification of where our club should be or deserves to be more than the size of our fanbase? The lack of quality of a team isn't a justification of where a team deserves to be. Doncaster, who although high in the league have lost to Wimbledon and Shrewsbury in recent weeks, and when we play them they'll probably be 7 without a win given they lose to Blackpool tomorrow. Even Bath have a ground we can only dream of at this rate.

My point wasn't we could emulate Bournemouth, my point was Bournemouth have a fanbase who must be in disbelief of where they are now, so I don't think they'd think they deserve better I didn't say it, and there are uneducated members of every fanbase, City included. I have a mate who supports City and I asked him how Jay DaSilva was, because as a player i've kept watch of him for a couple years, and he said "who?" Honestly? Not in a million years. It's exactly what I said when we were sitting around 4thish and on amazing form in League 1 in the 16/17 season, in the short term yes 3 promotions on the bounce great. But in the long term I didn't want us to go up that season, it would have been embarrassing. We still had a Conference squad and needed to take time to build a team. Whilst I get your point, but there really haven't been a lot of teams around Rovers level who are on good form, in fact the majority are on awful form. The only teams near us that have been on good form from what I can remember are Plymouth and Oxford. And that's only 3 of 13 teams (including Wycombe). I was at the game, it was a poor choice of words. Nothing more. Don't think I've seen a City fan on Gas Chat in a long time, but a lot get banned because after a loss they'll be like "mind da gap sags" just as Rovers will go "unlucky da shit, we're coming for you," on otib and probably get banned for it. But I don't run Gas Chat? And if people who genuinely want to debate get banned then that's wrong. For me I've always thought Darrell Clarke was a great manager, on the same level as someone like Paul Hurst. He just needed backing, think about it, had our board not sold Taylor, Bodin and Harrison, he'd have built one hell of a strike force and we'd probably be competiting for promotion right now. I don't think you can expect any manager to sell their 4 top goalscorers in the space of 18 months and expect him to replace all of them effectively and expect him to improve other positions on the pitch simultaneously with very limited funds. I think Clarke would be very successful at say, a Bradford or a Mansfield, someone with a capacity to back their owner. Whilst I disagree with looking at the bigger picture I do see his point. But win percentages have never been a good measure to analyse a manager's success on imo. Because you'll have the same win percentage if you have 50 wins and 50 losses, as you would if you had 50 wins and 50 draws over your managerial tenure. Yet we all know 50 wins and 50 draws is far superior, although not realistic. I never said we were world beaters or compared us to Barcelona. I said we're on great form so I expect us to stay up comfortably.

Do you misunderstand me? By "deserve better," I mean around 8-10th in League 1. Around that. And there's evidence for that, specifically the 9th highest average attendance in the league. And the fact we'd have the 2nd highest would be go down. I'm not dumb enough to think we deserve the Championship, maybe that's what you think I'm implying? Also that's quite ignorant, just the other day a guy on gaschat started a petition and met up with the board and conducted a 2 hour interview with the board. What else can you do? They're not poor enough for us to boycott.

Thought you were wondering where I was coming from so I explained it. Well, you should beat Ipswich, so it's not really a big if, I'd expect you to. Just as I'd be hopeful that we won our game in hand. The whole point is 13th is drastically higher than the 24th we would've finished had Clarke stayed. And whilst I see your point, the whole reason that the gap has closed is because the teams above us have been on awful form, which is the whole reason why I think we'll stay up. It's the same with Oxford, who I think will stay up too. And I expect one of Walsall/Accrington to go down. I didn't say it was a major scalp in L1. I said it was a good win because they were ahead of us in the league. Same with Blackpool. I don't even understand why you're mentioning that, I've never been under any illusion that City aren't the biggest and most supported team in Bristol? Our away following has been impressive in some instances like Chelsea and Sunderland, but usually it's just average, not massive. I've never said any of those things because i'm not deluded and don't think we've got the capabilities to be a massive club, or even Championship unless some serious changes occur. Both in our finances and in our support. I will, but given the awful form of teams around us, it should only take a couple more wins until we're comfortably staying up. I think 3/4 of the relegation spots are already guaranteed and I think Rovers will stay up and i'm confident about it. Just as confident as I'd be if I was an Oxford fan because of the poor form of the teams around us.

Was really unexpected because when Stewart left I had no clue what we were going to do. And when Coughlan joined I thought he'd be even worse than Clarke, I was a massive advocate for Paul Hurst or Michael Flynn for the job. But Coughlan performed very well and I think he'll keep us up.

Point 1: A honeymoon period is when in the first couple of games after a new manager takes over a team performs well, but they very quickly drop off after their first blip. I'd have agreed with you had we lost to Wycombe and then gone back to our form under Clarke, but we've experienced several blips (most to Sunderland :laugh:) and we keep performing, hence not a honeymoon period Point 2: He's dropped to League 1 because teams were afraid to take him because of his injury record. Rovers signed him, gave him time to recover from the injury he received whilst at Portsmouth, and since he's been fantastic. Comfortably better than Lee Brown who's in a promotion-chasing team in Portsmouth Point 3: No, I didn't celebrate at Wycombe, I knew there was every chance we could still go down given that Wycombe was our first win in 6 games, and we could blow it at Mansfield.So did I celebrate the win? Yes. Did I see it as a guarantee that we were staying up? Definitely not. I knew nothing's ever guaranteed with Rovers, I was more confident that we'd beat Dagenham comfortably and yet it took us until the 93rd minute to do so, made for a phenomenal moment though. Point 4: Yes that's right. It's why we have drastically better goal different than all the other sides at the bottom of the table, because we weren't getting smacked every week, we were narrowly losing 1-0, 2-1 by not taking our chances. Our xG scored is better than Fleetwood's and they've scored 10 more goals than us. Point 5: McGeady is 32, and is 33 in a month. But he did play consistent Championship football, and at a high level. I watched him against us the other night and realised he's far too good to be in this league, maybe Prem standard was a bit far given his Everton tenure, but he's too good for League 1. Point 6/7: For me Lee Johnson weirdly mirrors Darrell Clarke in terms of form, we were always awful for the first half of the season and then picked it up around January and performed until the end of the season. Good examples include the late push to the promotion spot in League 2 and in the Conference too, although we bottled it in the Conference, unfortunately. Point 8: I'm not sure I agree, I could give a few examples but the strongest is probably Bournemouth, they're leagues above where they've been for the majority of their history and now they're being able to beat some of the best Premier League teams 4-0, when only a decade beforehand they were scraping away from relegation to the Conference and Chelsea were winning the FA Cup and had only just lost the Champions League final a year previously. Also, i'm not too educated on them, but I don't think Luton have large investment and they don't have much bigger attendances than Rovers (I think it's around 9k average for Luton). And I know Brentford and Rovers aren't comparable, they're just the model I would have love this club to follow. And I do doubt that the owners would have a fire sale, I doubt Widdrington and Coughlan would allow it. I know we did the same with Taylor, Bodin and Harrison. But Taylor wasn't optional, Bodin had 6 months left on his contract and Harrison we got offered £1m for, which we saw as great business since we could get Payne for £200k. However, Payne turned out to be shit and Harrison's been very poor for Ipswich so far. So you never knows what will happen.

Maybe your argument of me being an "absoulete moron" would've been better had you spelt absolute right.

Since Coughlan took over Rovers have 23 points in 14 games. I'll do the maths, that's 1.64 points per game, over a 46 game season that's 75 points. Last season that would have been enough to finish 5th in League 1, which is a place in the Playoffs. We're 36 games into the season so far, so such form would expect 59 points, which would be enough to be 6th at the moment, also in the playoff spot. Hence since Coughlan took over we've experienced playoff form. We're a "1 measly point outside of the relegation zone." Except we have a game in hand and if we win that we go all the way up to 13th, comfortably clear of the relegation zone. Also, if you're mocking the club size of the team we've beat then we beat Blackpool 4-0? So what's your point? And if you're mocking the fact they're a poor team, why wouldn't a team below another team in the league celebrate a win against that team? It's not even a one-off because we've done it multiple times in recent weeks but oh well.

Our position is down to us being awful in the first half of the season but being great in the second half. To use City as an example, even though you finished 11th you were in the promotion race for the majority of the season, and yet the league table didn't show that.

What's delusional is you claiming this is after 1 win when actually this is after we've been on playoff form since Coughlan joined.

Deluded how? There's a lot of great players in non-league who have the capacity to step up. There's a lot of great young talent in the Premier League too. I didn't suggest that the Al Qadis were going to invest heavily, our transfers don't even need to be high fees. Our position is down to the fact we didn't have a goalscorer and now we do. It's not one win. We've been great since Coughlan joined. And he possibly meant Clarke-Harris, and that wasn't down to quality, that's down to they look similar.

Other than Oxford, not many teams at the bottom have had as good a run as Rovers. Rochdale, Walsall, Bradford, Wimbledon, Accrington and Scunthorpe are all on awful form and they're the teams Rovers are competiting with. We looked certain to go down under Clarke but now we look very likely to stay up under Coughlan. I don't think the issue with you is personnel though, I think it's the fact that City always have a massive drop off in the second part of the season.

Point 1: Coughlan has been in charge of Rovers for 14 games, with a record of 6 wins, 5 draws and 3 losses. Based on points per game that was enough to get 5th in League 1 last season. I think it's fair to say that's long enough to judge that a honeymoon period hasn't taken place. Point 2: Holmes-Dennis. A left-back who replaced Lee Brown, he was Championship standard and was a regular for Huddersfield when they went up. But with injuries and new left-backs he was loaned out to Portsmouth, where he played 1 game and got injured for the season. So he got sold to Rovers in the summer, Rovers were quite smart (for once) to make the fee dependent on appearances, so if he got injured they'd have only played pennies. And honestly, since he's come into the team he's been phenomenal. Quality wise, he's too good for Rovers. I don't think he's worth £10m obviously, but the issue with Taylor and Bodin were Taylor had a release clause and Bodin's contract was very short. Holmes-Dennis has a long contract, the same applies with Jonson Clarke-Harris, I think he's a great player. 5 goals in 6 games since we signed him. Very similar style-wise to Jason Roberts. For the record, having kept track of the most promising young players in England for quite a while, I think exactly the same for Jay DaSilva for you. He'll reap a lot of profit in the future if you choose to sign him permanently. Point 3: I disagree. Do I think it's a certainty? No. Of course not, because anything can happen in football. But I think it's very likely that Rovers will stay up. Scunthorpe and Walsall both look to be on awful form, Rochdale and Bradford have new managers. Plus, it's extremely close at the bottom. If Rovers win their game in hand we go up to 13th place. Accrington have been on awful form recently too. Rovers have given me enough good performances against teams a lot better than us to be confident we can beat the much worse ones we still have to play. Rochdale, Wimbledon and Bradford specifically. Point 4: Our lack of quality this season has come from our inability to finish chances and score goals. This was our main problem earlier in the season. Our strike force consisted of Stefan Payne, who is a target man who is frankly useless and had a very poor mentality. Gavin Reilly, who misses a lot of sitters and is very inconsistent. Alex Jakubiak, who isn't a goalscorer but is a good workhorse. And Tom Nichols, who has never scored much but this season has been great in terms of providing assists. So we signed Jonson Clarke-Harris and going forward we look a completely different team. He's bringing out the best in Nichols as he has someone to play off of, and he can dominate centre-backs, like he did yesterday against Scunthorpe, even their manager said it. The point is our league position is down to the lack of quality that we didn't have but now we appear to have. Point 5: Sunderland have George Honeymoon and Aiden McGeady, two players who not only are too good for League 1, but should probably be playing in the Premier League. And they're not an okay League 1 team, if they win their game in hand they're 1 point off of second place. They're one of the best League 1 teams and it should be expected that the team in 3rd place beat the team that's battling relegation. Points 6 and 7: You also lost to Birmingham who are in 11th place, and 3 defeats in 4 games is a huge contrast to the 13 game unbeaten streak you went on. Johnson has a history of poor performances in the second half of the season, I mean after the Manchester United game last season I was shocked because you seemed so poor. And a team that was considered certain promotion candidates finished in 11th place. And the whole point isn't you lost to Leeds, but knowing many City fans Leeds weren't that good and City players seemed not bothered. And that's a lot more worrying than a close 1-0 defeat. Point 8: My point is you don't need high numbers in attendance levels to be a successful team. I see it every week in here pointing to the 8,000 or so attendance of Rovers fans. And although I completely disagree with the fans who think we're a huge club who should be Championship level. I think our attendance levels and our fanbase is far too big for the standard of football we've competed in in recent years. Our club is too big for League 2, as demonstrated by our average attendance would be the 2nd best in League 2, even in League 1 it's 9th. And it's better than clubs like Doncaster, MK Dons, Burton etc. who have all had sustained periods of time in the Championship. I think infrastructure wise we're years behind some other clubs, but I think we deserve better, however much you may disagree. But i'm optimistic, and our recent form tells me we'll stay up and I think we have the capacity to grow next season as we have a very good core of players.

For me, as a Rovers fan, I have to admit that your club and fanbase is much bigger than Rovers. But to claim Rovers are going absolutely nowhere is ridiculous. If you take the league table since Coughlan took over we're in a playoff spot. Clarke-Harris has 5 goals in 6 games. Holmes-Dennis looks to be a player that we could sell in the future for a massive profit. The fact is our problems this season came from Clarke's favourites and a lack of a strikeforce and finishing ability. In terms of expected goals we're much better than the teams around us and are on the same level as a team like Fleetwood in that respect. With a few additions, preferably a RB, a winger or two and a striker to replace Jakubiak (assuming we don't sign Bonham), we could easily be top half of league 1. I just think your fans are laughably optimistic about the lack of quality at Rovers just because we lost to a team which is too big for the Championship, let alone League 1 a couple of times. Plus City are on awful form as Johnson always does in the second half of the season. I'd be shocked if you got a playoff place, and if Johnson leaves then what then? Obviously i'm not denying that in terms of owners and funds and stadiums we're miles behind, but you don't need high attendances to be a successful team. Brentford only get 9k on average.