This week we
get an insight into Saturday’s opponents, Doncaster Rovers, from Donny supporter
and Vlogger, Daniel Pearson. We spoke with Dan on our midweek podcast, the transcription of that conversation is below.
Expectations For Doncaster This Season
My expectations for the season were to be competitive in every game in League One, but ultimately not have enough within the squad for a real push into the top six, I believed we had more than enough within the squad to stay clear of any relegation battles.
As the seasons gone on, I couldn’t have been much further away from reality. In fairness, for me there's so many contributing factors that have led to things going so wrong at Doncaster without wanting to sound like it's excuses and overplaying things that we've already heard this season.
I do think we have been hit hard with injuries to key players who were already at the club, plus the new additions that were recruited during the summer have also been hit by injuries and forced onto the treatment table. So for me, we haven't put our strongest XI out once this season.
I think the instability off the field has impacted us on the field since Darren Moore was at the club, losing a 20 goal a season striker in John Marquis and never replacing him, then letting Ben Whiteman go to Preston, for me, one of the best League One midfielders at the time and never replacing him. So when Darren Moore left for Sheffield Wednesday, leading to Andy Butler being appointed manager things started to really unravel, not due to Andy I might add.
I think Butler was given a tough hand and not very much support, he had inherited a squad that was made up of Darren Moore’s players and they clearly didn't want to play for Andy Butler, that led to a poor end to last season. Doncaster dropped effectively from top of the table, had we won our games in hand, all the way down to 14th come the end of the season.
Richie Wellens was then appointed in May and recruited ready for this season. Some of those additions have been extremely underwhelming to be honest, poor performances and poor results led to Richie getting the sack and now we're in a very deep hole with Gary McSheffrey, the man recruited to get us out of that hole and hopefully survive in League one this season.
Gary McSheffrey
That leads me nicely onto if I'm happy with Gary McSheffrey as an appointment or not, and if he's the man to save us from relegation.
In terms of emotion when McSheffrey was announced, it was neither joy nor sadness. There was just sense of underwhelming inevitability to be honest around the appointment. I want any manager to succeed at Doncaster and I will back any new manager fully until they demonstrate that they’re not up to the task. But for me, I was disappointed in the manner of the appointment after hearing and reading about a high calibre of applicant, applicants with Championship and Premier League experience rumoured to have applied for the role.
With such an inexperienced squad the appointment of McSheffrey threw more questions about the board's decision making than it answered in my opinion.
At the time of his appointment, I still had hope of survival, but with poor damaging results, I fear our season is all but mathematically over. I hope I'm proved wrong, if not then I hope Gary McSheffrey is given a chance to stabilise the club, as more off the field upheaval, in my opinion, could result in a very tough season in League Two next year. So, hopefully we get out of it. But if not, I do hope Gary's given an opportunity to turn things around.
Stand Out Players
It's been a really tough season to watch with very little to get the fans off our seats and on our feet. So I'm finding it very difficult to single out any individual for praise to be honest. There's three shining lights for me, but all three are tinged with a little bit of darkness.
The first being Tommy Rowe, he’s put in some great performances and is clearly putting 100% into every game that he’s played. I just feel he is not being utilized where he is most effective, he will cause so much more damage up the field rather than at left back, he is our top scorer. And that's all I need to say really.
Tommy Rowe is having to pull a lot of our inexperienced youngsters through games and I think he's got a lot of pressure on his shoulders to perform every game, it's impacting his overall performances.
The next player for me is Ethan Galbraith on loan from Manchester United. I don't know if he'll be here, post January or not. There are rumours that he's going to a Championship team or another League One team.
In the opening half of the season he’s put in some very good performances, but for me, he hasn't been as effective as I think he could be because of the confidence, experience and ability of the players around him. So I think in a different team, you could see a very, very good Ethan Galbraith. And we've seen glimpses of that this season.
The final shining light for me would be Charlie Seaman. He has been injured for a chunk of the season, but he came on against Fleetwood and provided some attacking intent that we've been lacking a lot over the last, well, half a season. So yeah, hopefully, he stays injury free, and we get that attacking intent throughout the back half of the season.
With everything I've said regarding injuries and opposition, I would expect to see additions in January, I'm surprised that we've not seen any, as of the time of recording this to give us a chance of survival or at least plans for a good foundation to bounce back from League Two. There are rumours of three signings this week but nothing concrete. (Kieran Agard joined Doncaster after this piece had been submitted)
Favourite Donny v Latics Game
I'd have to say my favourite ever match between Doncaster and Wigan Athletic would have to be the game on the 5th of May 2018. It was a one nil defeat unfortunately for the Rovers with Will Grigg scoring in the winner on the 75th minute.
I've chosen this game because we were safe after promotion from League Two we finished in 15th that season, Wigan needed to match Blackburn's result to be crowned Champions on the day. The atmosphere was fantastic from both sets of fans there was over 12,000 in the Keepmoat Stadium, it was just a bit of a party atmosphere for both clubs and to this day it is the most watched video on my YouTube channel with over 12,000 views as well. So for a small channel that's massive for me I'm extremely grateful of the viewing on that so a big thank you from me to all the Wigan fans who have watched it.
Match Prediction
This is a very difficult prediction to make, not because I think it'll be a tight game, but because I'm worried for Doncaster Rovers to be honest.
Wigan are fourteen unbeaten across all competitions and scoring freely at the minute with 31 goals, that is seven more than Donny have scored in all our games this season. You've only conceded 14 goals in those 14 games and we're struggling to score. Wigan’s last defeat was back in October. I think there'll be another week added on to that undefeated run here. I'm going Rovers one Wigan five.
Dan's interview, along with special guest Jack Whatmough feature on this week's podcast which can be found below.
You can catch Dan on twitter @18Dapper
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