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Reply | Braintree Match Thread
at 14:25 6 May 2025
Whilst I can understand how a game like Braintree can go the way it did - nothing was at stake, the hard work securing play offs already achieved - it is still worrying to me that at this stage of the season we can put in such a poor performance. We had very little going forward and both of their goals were exceedingly sloppy. I'd hoped that we had moved beyond playing like that and my worry is that we can easily play like that again in the upcoming fixture(s). It would have given me more confidence to have gone into the Southend game on the back of a decent performance/win. |
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Reply | Refwatch - Solihull Moors v Rochdale
at 08:11 30 Apr 2025
We dominated the game and should have lead going into half time if not for some better finishing. In games gone by it’s the sort of situation you would expect us to concede a late goal out of nowhere and lose it 1-0. But we now look much more solid and it certainly never felt like Solihull were going to trouble us. The fact we got the goal and secured the points gives me hope we can grind out more results in the weeks ahead. In fact, not being able to do that when it mattered has been one of my big criticisms of McNulty. Finishing off the season in 4th place has to be seen as a successful season, no matter what happens in the play offs and despite my protestations in the past Jim has earned the right to lead us into next season. I still think we won’t have enough to get past York, but I’m optimistic we have something to really build on for a proper promotion push next season. Unless Jim proves me wrong once again…. |
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Reply | Refwatch - Altrincham v Rochdale
at 17:40 18 Apr 2025
Was fully expecting that to be more points dropped so very encouraging that we managed to pull something out of the bag to get a deserved 3 points. One more win from our last four should secure a play off place. With Jay Bird supposedly returning soon could we go on a bit of a run here?? I’d love McNulty to prove me and the other doubters wrong. |
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Reply | Joe Thompson
at 13:16 18 Apr 2025
There are few players in the history of Rochdale who we can say scored a goal which changed the clubs entire trajectory. Chris O’Grady with the promotion goal against Northampton is one. Joey Thompson and the goal that kept us up against Charlton is another. For that goal alone he would have been a Dale legend. But to do have done it having missed most of the season recovering from a second cancer diagnosis. To do it being a local lad, one of our own - surely puts his goal above all others. His fight, both on and off the pitch, was inspirational. I’m absolutely gutted by today’s news and I trust that in time the club will come up with a fitting tribute to a true Rochdale legend, taken far too young. |
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Reply | Refwatch - Sutton United v Rochdale
at 14:43 9 Apr 2025
He doesn’t like pressure. Will do anything to avoid putting pressure on the players which is reflected in how readily he’ll defend poor performances. Can’t cope with it when it’s applied to himself as evidenced by us capitulating in every game that means something. |
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Reply | Refwatch - Sutton United v Rochdale
at 14:27 9 Apr 2025
This would be my concern, that one of the teams below us go on a bit of a run and take our place in the top 7. It feels like we are only still in the play off places because of how poor everyone else is. There have been so many teams dropping points that have meant we’ve managed to cling on despite a poor run of results. But that’s unlikely to last for the rest of the season and usually someone makes a late surge.
In theory - we could still get promoted this season. It wouldn’t take much for us to get in the play offs ourselves and then win a few more games. But does anyone at all think this is going to happen? I’ve never heard McNulty once talk about it. Does he mention in his interviews that we’re on course to get promoted? That that’s the aim? Thats where this club should be? Or do we just get references to budgets and injuries and pitches.
Coming into the business end of the season and we have zero momentum. I don’t see how anyone is pinning the blame anywhere except on McNulty. |
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Reply | Refwatch - Sutton United v Rochdale
at 08:39 9 Apr 2025
I don’t think this is at all about recruitment. The problem is McNulty himself. From when he first took over as caretaker you could hear him making excuses for the players in the post match interviews. There was no anger at the position the club were in and no suggestion that they were prepared to fight like hell to give themselves the chance to survive. He, McNulty, lacks the grit, character and determination required to fight our way out of this league. It is passed on to his players. You see it every time they are too scared to take a player on or try something different but instead make the easy boring predictable SAFE decision to pass the ball sideways/backwards five yards. You see it in every game we fail to go for the kill and concede late on. How many points dropped because of the lack of grit? How many opportunities wasted because we don’t have it in us to fight? He constantly wilts under pressure and has a million excuses at the ready after another pitiful display rather than taking some accountability. Maybe he is best suited, like BBM, to youth team coaching where the players are only every encouraged and they can be complimented and reassured after every game on their lovely passing and keeping of possession. But it’s not suited to getting us back into the football league regardless of which players get recruited. After two years of watching him in this job the verdict is in. He needs to go. |
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Reply | FA Trophy semi
at 19:45 5 Apr 2025
Exactly this. We’ll be out after the first game as we put in another gutless performance when the pressure is on. I can’t see any other outcome meaning McNulty has to go at the end of the season. If you can’t get the team to turn up for the games that matter we can’t ever hope to gain promotion. |
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Reply | FA Trophy semi
at 19:40 5 Apr 2025
This whole thread is you defending the indefensible. |
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Reply | FA Trophy semi
at 17:51 5 Apr 2025
I think this gets to the heart of it. It’s not just losing an important game - it’s that it comes on the back of several years of disappointments and having the club let the fans down. No-one has any goodwill left in the bank. It’s not too much to have asked we could beat a part time team from the division below in order to see us play at Wembley. The manner in which it happened was utterly predictable. This is McNulty all over - no fire, no grit or determination. Folds when pressure is applied. Not sure how anyone can be defending him after that. |
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Reply | TVOS Preview - Rochdale v York City
at 20:07 26 Mar 2025
Amazes me how people seem to forget who was the manager of Rochdale AFC at the point we got relegated out of the football league.
Now granted, the damage had pretty much been done by the time JM took over but did anyone witness any fire, grit or determination in those final performances of that season? You could see from every team selection and interview that JM - this great loyal servant of the club - had already accepted our fate and wasn’t putting up any fight. That’s why I’ve always been against his permanent appointment. I had accepted us going down, what I couldn’t accept is going down so pathetically and JM’s role in that won’t be forgotten by me.
If by some miracle we get promoted this season then fair enough, I’ll eat my words and JM will have every right to crow at the doubters.
But there seems almost no likelihood whatsoever of that happening because here we are - two years on - with JM’s teams still showing the same absence of fire, grit and determination. The exact qualities you need to win trophies, to win crucial play off games. To, you know, GET PROMOTED.
Why anyone thinks this man should be entrusted with 3 years to carry on is verging on the definition of madness - we’ll be playing exactly the same in the future as we do now yet some of you will be expecting a different outcome. It’s time for a change. |
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Reply | Refwatch - Maidenhead United v Rochdale
at 12:22 24 Mar 2025
edit - was supposed to be replying to samueloneils post
I think this gets to the heart of the issue - we watch the games week in week out and (apart from I would say, this recent spell of wins) the football under JM has been dire.
We find ourselves in non league in perhaps the worst position in the club's history and actually I think the fans have been remarkably restrained. But no-one is happy with this and actually there is an underlying anger at where we are that can jump to the surface at any point.
In order to keep that at bay - the key is ARE THERE GROUNDS FOR OPTIMISM?. I started to have some with the win over Alty in the cup and the series of wins - Bird being for me the main catalyst of the change in how we played. But with Bird gone and the recent results of 1 point from 2 games against relegation zone opposition - the optimism has gone again. Getting us into the play-offs doesn't feel like an achievement if there is zero expectation we can go on to win it. I would have no faith in Jim's team, minus Bird and playing as they have done for the majority of the season, to grind out some results and get us back into L2. I don't know how anyone who has watched his teams over the past two seasons can think they have the fire and grit and determination needed to show up and perform when it counts. In fact - quite the opposite is usually true.
So despite the FA Trophy and despite the league position I am still not convinced JM can do what's needed to get us promoted and I don't want to see him in charge for an entire 3 year plan as I think his time in charge has shown we will end that 3 years exactly where we started. [Post edited 24 Mar 12:24]
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Reply | The race for 7th (Saturday 15th Feb)
at 10:03 16 Feb 2025
With every game we drop points we fall further away from the play offs making our games in hand absolute must wins. But they are going to start coming thick and fast - and lots of must win games in quick succession is going to be very difficult when you have a squad like TS says with no character or steel. I’m afraid that where once I was sure we had enough to get into the play offs I now think with the ground we have to make up, the fixture congestion this late in the season and lack of grit we see week in week out - we aren’t going to do it and will likely finish 8th or 9th. We are a team on the decline at the worst possible moment. |
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Reply | Ebbsfleet (H) match thread
at 10:13 9 Feb 2025
I was never in favour of Jim taking over full time just based on how he was as caretaker. In every post match interview he came across as the players friend, not their manager. Nothing has convinced me he is in fact the right man for the job and yesterday summed it up. It was clearly the game plan that we would only cut back with a cross along the face of goal once a player got to the goal line. Had to be as they did it so often and rarely put a cross in from anywhere else. Yet the players never seemed to be there waiting for it and I don’t think it ever created a single chance. So what was the point of that? And if you could see it wasn’t working why not change things up during the second half? The answer I’m afraid is that McNulty doesn’t have a Plan B. He can’t think dynamically. He can’t impose himself in the game. His substitutions always happen too late and/or involve the wrong personnel. It smacks of indecision. This is Jim doing the best that he can I’ve no doubt. I’ve no doubt either that after all his time here he does care about the club and I’m not cynical enough to think this is just a stepping stone for him (after all didn’t he have talks over the Burton job which he turned down?). It’s just a case that his brand of football is not going to get us out of this division. It’s not going to increase the crowds in fact it will see them dwindle as it is boring as fook. Thats as clear now as when he was caretaker. The only questions is why aren’t the board aware of this? When will they decide that the best interests of the club lie elsewhere. |
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Reply | Tamworth Tuesday
at 14:51 18 Dec 2024
glad that we scored 3 but the lack of goals will, unless addressed, cost us any chance of the play-offs. As a good rule of thumb - the teams looking at promotion average 2 goals a game. The teams facing relegation average 1 goal a game. Anything in between means, well, you end up somewhere in the middle.
So - after 22 games
1st Barnet 46 goals
2nd York 44 goals
3rd FGR 39 goals (off 1 game less)
4th Gateshead 41 goals
At the bottom
21st Braintree 19 goals
22nd Maidenhead 27 goals
23rd Boston 19 goals
24th Ebbsfleet 16 goals
We are on 31 goals scored (or 1.5 a game). Not good enough for promotion, safe from relegation. Maybe we have enough for the play-offs, but as the season goes on I think the lack of goals will see us drop out. And even if we did manage to sneak in, one of those teams scoring much more goals would be more likely to go up IMO.
The issue for me is that we simply do not create enough chances to address this issue, even if the personnel gets changed around and we brought in more forwards. McNulty doesn't seem to know what to have the players do once they get into the final third. The way we play needs to change and I'd be very surprised to see that happen McNulty is stubborn in sticking to his 'philosophy' which like someone else posted reminds me very much of BBM, and we saw how that played out. |
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Reply | Wealdstone match thread
at 22:38 16 Nov 2024
Poor performance from the Dale once again showing that McNulty has no Plan B. If Plan A goes well we can put in a great performance and look like real contenders BUT if we’re off the pace (which we absolutely were today), if the opposition seem more up for it than us (which Wealdstone did) - what can McNulty do to impose himself on the game? It was obvious first half it wasn’t working and then when we concede one minute into the second half surely the manager has to think - right let’s shake this up. Yet he waited 20 mins before even making the first sub. I can’t think of too many times where Jim has changed things around to get us some points. We either start off well and go on to get something or, like today, we show absolutely nothing from minute 1 to minute 90. And I feel like this is happening more and more as teams are studying us and finding us out. So what’s the alternative Jim? Is there any degree of flexibility in how we play to adapt to the game as it’s happening rather than ‘sticking to the game plan’?
I don’t know whether a lack of Plan B comes down to Jim’s lack of experience as a manager - or (and the bigger worry) it’s part of his personality. He wants to be the players friend, and sticks with them for far too long in games when they aren’t producing and need to be shaken up. Hints of exactly what BBM did. You hear it after most games where his first response in an interview is to say how proud he is of the lads even if we’ve put in a dogsh1t performance.
Still after all these games not convinced at all about McNulty. If anything I think the signs are there he really isn’t the man for the job. Put in a performance like that against the BIFFOs and it will be an embarrassment we’ll never live down. |
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Reply | New kit?
at 11:36 2 Aug 2024
do you have the announcement from 2008 saying our new visual identity will be blue, black and white but NOT that that means blue and black stripes? |
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Reply | New kit?
at 13:55 31 Jul 2024
the quality looks decent but I just don't get why this design was chosen by the majority.
I liked the idea of us wearing blue and black stripes as a nod to integrating the centenary kit (which was a beauty) and our traditional blue colours. I felt like it was a way to give the club a unique identity, when there are countless other clubs who wear a similar blue/white like we used to.
However, since the blue/black was brought in we've had 9 seasons of stripes, 3 of black pinstripes and 4 (now 5) with predominantly blue with black/white elements.
I don't feel like we are sticking enough to a visual identity.
Most other clubs who wear stripes will every so often mix it up with a variation of the stripe, but for us it seems we have abandon the conventional stripes just as often as we've kept them.
I'm not blaming O'Neills here as they've gone off the public vote - I just don't get what's motivating other fans to keep switching it up like this. |
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Reply | Big Jim's contract extension?
at 13:34 26 Jul 2024
I'm surprised by this as I'm still yet to be convinced Jim is the right man for the job. This season was going to be the big test to see whether he could make it work with off field issues resolved and a budget to be competitive for a play off spot.
We have made good signings, and he may well prove himself in the role but I'm not sure what he has done so far that warrants the club showing such faith in him. Nor am I convinced by the idea he might be getting poached.
What this does signal is Jim will be here until at least the end of the season (I had thought they might get rid of him mid way through if he was not meeting expectations). So putting their faith in Jim also gives us an idea of how much of our faith we should put in the board. If he comes good, and gets us into the play offs (or better!) then fair play they knew what they were doing here. If it doesn't work, and we part ways with Jim due to poor football and poor results then you can't say the signs weren't there already. Big call by the board this. |
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