Games weekend Friday 24th to Monday 27th

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Originally Posted by sbgawa

Bradley started with a very average budget and developed a team capable of challenging Dundalk who had a far bigger budget.
Budget is just another excuse for the Long Apologists. He is in sixth , is his budget less than Shels and Drogs who are within a couple of points of him

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Average budget is pretty funny when it was probably still top two or three in the league at the time. Long is under performing this season, no body is saying otherwise but he's still playing in another world compared to Bradley and Higgins now. If they don't finish the season strongly with the new signings he should be under big pressure, but it looks like they're going to give him the chance to go properly full time next season at least by the sounds of it.

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Originally Posted by oriel

The fayre at Tolka wasn't much better, really poor standard and worse tempo by both sides, thought it was a terrible match to watch, 0-0 summed it up.

But........if you had asked me at 7.44pm last Fri if I would have taken 4 points by this time tonight, damn sure I would, still in second and looking fairly good for an auto euro spot.

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Poor enough game alright(the standard was fine).Would have put a million squid on Benson to score when he was through on the 1 v 1 but ....... Total chaos in mf and not a lot created in the final third because of it.Hoban was well missed which brings up an a number of questions including who we should try to sign in July transfer window because McMillan dosnt seem to have the legs for playing on his own up front these days.

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Originally Posted by TonyD

Plenty were saying the same in Stephen O’Donnells first year in charge.

Not sure I’d blame the substitutions for throwing the win away. The one defensive sub he made was enforced, the others were taking the flair players off for what could be viewed as more solid players to see out the win. The type of change managers have been making forever. Bad defending caused both goals, and the players should have done better.

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2-0 away from home in a league match is far from home and dry . What other manager would make 4 changes at once in a situation like that ? You might take off one flair player and stick on a defensive midfielder

Regardless of the fact they were forward players it still disrupted the rhythm of the team at a time when we were in control .

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Originally Posted by ontheotherhand

Who from the current bohs team is playing for the love of bohs ger?

As for "hoover up"....we signed one player this season. Bohs fans said he was no loss. Same with the last one who crossed the divide. I'm sure we are paying them more but they are also doing better and winning things. Players generally want that. We also had more than a few years where players were unfortunately playing purely for the love of the hoops and not winning anything or being paid.....

I think Longs doing well enough but he gets too much credit for the job he's done in my book. Every podcast, every week someone says "Keith Long doesn't get enough credit". If you mention it every week....He loses players every year just like most LoI teams. That's football.

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Most teams lose a player or two... maybe 3. This year Bohs lost six. Buckley, Cornwall, lyons, Breslin, Tierney and Ward. Five of whom were regular starters and big influencers. Most managers can pick up one or of equal quality, but to find six is near impossible. Bohs are sitting where I expected them to be in the league and I would say the board expected this too. So I think Keith Longs job is quite safe.

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Originally Posted by Shinkicker

Most teams lose a player or two... maybe 3. This year Bohs lost six. Buckley, Cornwall, lyons, Breslin, Tierney and Ward. Five of whom were regular starters and big influencers. Most managers can pick up one or of equal quality, but to find six is near impossible. Bohs are sitting where I expected them to be in the league and I would say the board expected this too. So I think Keith Longs job is quite safe.

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Ward was allowed leave as unwanted, Lyons was leaving for years and 008 signed no cover, Breslin didn't leave for mega bucks at Pats i would put him and possibly some of the others down to poor man management.
Mandroiu went from not playing at bohs to being top scorer and a fantastic player at Rovers, Lyons has lifted his levels too.
To be fair to the Bohs board i suppose its easy enough to give him a pass based on last year and as a Rovers supporter that is a positive.

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Originally Posted by Shinkicker

Most teams lose a player or two... maybe 3. This year Bohs lost six

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Finn Harps lost 14 players from last years squad.

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

Finn Harps lost 14 players from last years squad.

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With the exception of Rovers (Maybe Derry) id say Bohs had the least turnover of players in the division but its another "Long doesnt get the credit he deserves" lazy media narrative
Pats huge change, Drogs decimated, Shels were duffered , Sligo lost best two players Harps 14 (as per Nigel) plus others

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Originally Posted by sbgawa

With the exception of Rovers (Maybe Derry) id say Bohs had the least turnover of players in the division but its another "Long doesnt get the credit he deserves" lazy media narrative
Pats huge change, Drogs decimated, Shels were duffered , Sligo lost best two players Harps 14 (as per Nigel) plus others

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Bohs were very inconsistent last season. I'm not sure how losing the top scorer in the league, your senior centre half and your captain would help that stop. I'm sure even Rovers would struggle if they lost Finn, Pico and Mandriou.

Tim Clancy and Eoin Doyle doing their best to make this a very forgetful season for Pats.

Another game tonight...oh wonderful...

Pats fans are the most impatient fans in the league, even more than Rovers fans!
You had a good manager last year, who got you a trophy and 2nd in the table.
Surely you need to give Clancy a full season before throwing your toys outta the pram.

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Originally Posted by placid casual

Pats fans are the most impatient fans in the league, even more than Rovers fans!
You had a good manager last year, who got you a trophy and 2nd in the table.
Surely you need to give Clancy a full season before throwing your toys outta the pram.

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Impatient how , there has been no banners or Clancy out chants at matches. If you can’t talk about not being happy about performances on a talking shop then what’s the point of the place. I’d say the vast majority of fans realise that he will be given the time to improve things and will undoubtedly be in charge at the start of next season. He has made several mistakes in the job so far , fans are entitled to have a bit of a moan online about them.

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Originally Posted by placid casual

Pats fans are the most impatient fans in the league, even more than Rovers fans!
You had a good manager last year, who got you a trophy and 2nd in the table.
Surely you need to give Clancy a full season before throwing your toys outta the pram.

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All for being patient with managers like we were with O'Donnell but Clancy hasn't shown any signs of improvement since week 1, if anything we get worse week on week. I couldn't tell you what our style of football is or what he is trying to make it.

3 wins against the teams in the top 7 so far this season and 2 of those came in the first 4 games.

I struggle to blame Clancy much for the other night tbh. Appreciate what folk are saying about the subs all in one go, which was a poor call, but between the misses from Doyle and Burns the game should have been out of sight anyway, and even then the goals that were conceded were sloppy lapses from set-pieces. The first goal in particular was in large part due to Joe Redmond still trying to marshal the rest of the defence whilst the ball was floating over his head for the man he was meant to be marking to subsequently take down and assist, and he's arguably been our best player this season.

Bad time to be playing Rovers off the back of that result, the three games around it against UCD/Harps/Drogs felt like ones we needed wins in by any means necessary and we've already made a balls of one and almost made one of the other that have been played so far. Had we saw it out on Friday we'd have had a nice cushion over 5th and been a few points off 3rd which wouldn't have been the end of the world given how inconsistent we've been. Terribly frustrating as it's been a very so near yet so far season in terms of results and performances.

Looking forward to tonight, important to back up Fridays 3 points with a win we need a cushion with Europe starting next week.
Finn will be back from suspension and i assume Burke not coming on on Friday was to make sure he was fit for tonight.
Another tight Dublin derby where a goal will probabaly be all that is in it

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Originally Posted by PartySaint

All for being patient with managers like we were with O'Donnell but Clancy hasn't shown any signs of improvement since week 1, if anything we get worse week on week. I couldn't tell you what our style of football is or what he is trying to make it.

3 wins against the teams in the top 7 so far this season and 2 of those came in the first 4 games.

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Hardly a surprise when you look at our big name strikers record against those teams

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Originally Posted by Glen Of Aherlow

Hardly a surprise when you look at our big name strikers record against those teams

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21 of our 28 goals have come against the bottom 4. 7 goals in 11 games against the rest.

Basically any half decent side will stop us from scoring without much bother.

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Originally Posted by PartySaint

17 of our 28 goals have come against Drogs, UCD and Harps. 11 goals in 13 against the rest with 4 of those against Shels

Basically any half decent side will stop us from scoring without much bother

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Jayz that's bad ok

There was a lot of fanfare (in LOI terms) when Doyle arrived to Pat's but to me he looks like he's in retirement mode.
Pat's have some good young players but they all appear to be in the process of maybe leaving do its still a rebuilding job for Clancy it would seem. With Derry and dundalk likely to start throwing cash around in the next 6 months or so it could leave Pat's fighting with sligo and boez for the 4th spot.
Im not expecting 3 points tonight for Rovers as we always always struggle in Richmond,1 point and we move on I'd say.

We need 3 points tonight as i fully expect our team against Harps on Friday to be something like

Pohls
Cotter Carey Hoare Grace Gannon
McCann, Watts , Greene
Emakhu, Noonan

The first round in Europe with the first leg on the following Tuesday is the most important match the club will have for the rest of the season.
IF we make it through the first round there will be 3 more rounds where the squad could be split a bit more evenly between Europe and the league but i would favour no chances being taken with the first round.

To be fair Doyle has actually been quite good in terms of general play and has hit moments where he creates chances for others that the best midfielders in the league would be proud of (such as the ball through for Burns on Friday that he fluffed), but for the reputation he comes with and contract he's on that's nowhere near enough considering some of the chances he's missed. At first you could argue he wasn't getting the service but he's been having some shockers of late.