If the first week of the season is anything to go by, then Sean O’Driscoll is facing a long, hard season as Doncaster Rovers manager. The team lost an equaliser in the 83rd minute at Brighton and a winner in the eighth minute of injury time. As if that somehow wasn’t enough, Rovers saw their two leading goal threats depart the Amex Stadium on a stretcher.
With Billy Sharp and James Hayter joining seven others on the injury list, Donny could ill-afford to lose anyone else in the League Cup game against fellow Rovers, of Tranmere. Imagine O’Driscoll’s horror when talented playmaker Ryan Mason became the third player to be carried off in agony in the space of two games.
So now Doncaster have to prepare for tough back-to-back home games with promotion fancies West Ham and Nottingham Forest with a full team unavailable. There are no guarantees that Muzzy Dumbuya and Richard Naylor will be fit either, while Rachid Bouhenna awaits international clearance and Chris Brown is struggling to get through 90 minutes at the moment.
While certain clubs have expressed disappointment at the number of subs allowed dropping to seven, O’Driscoll will be pleased to be able to name five. An attacking option among them? Unlikely, unless a loan move goes through, because Giles Barnes and Kyle Bennett will probably start. O’Driscoll’s task to keep Rovers competitive in an uncompromising division is getting tougher.
Rovers, I feel, are at a Championship crossroads. We no longer have the momentum that comes with promotion (Brighton, Southampton and Peterborough benefitted from this last week), we are no longer a club that is under-estimated (like the first year), we no longer have the likes of Matt Mills, Richie Wellens, Jason Shackell, Elliott Ward or Gareth Roberts and too many key players are sidelined.
Perhaps most worryingly, we are not able to compete financially with many of our rivals. One therefore has to sympathise with O’Driscoll, his assistant Richard O’Kelly, Chairman John Ryan and the directors. They all know what we need to be successful but it is not sustainable to plough money into the football club the size of ours, because that only goes one way.
The team’s search for a league victory stretches back to Tuesday, March 1 at Derby. How do we end that sequence? How can we get to 50 points with all of these long-term injuries? In some senses, all we can do is try to win the next game. Which brings me back to an excellent article on O’Driscoll written by Michael Walker last season after our excellent start. In that interview, O’Driscoll was quizzed on his ambition for the campaign.
He said: “Our ambition is to win the next game.” And beyond that? “Win the next game. That’s my ambition.” He later added: “To go back to your original question about where that will take us, I haven’t got a clue. And in some senses, I don’t care. It’s pointless if I’m fixated on promotion.
“I’m under no illusions that I have to win matches but for me the best way to do that is to have a team that is flexible, made of players who understand why we do what we do. And when we do that well, we’re as good as anybody.”
While luck has not been on O’Driscoll’s side since that interview, his philosophy will remain the same. Rovers will go out tomorrow afternoon looking to play good football, looking to put in a performance, looking for a way to overcome a West Ham side who possess a Premiership midfield in the form of Scott Parker, Mark Noble, Kevin Nolan and Matt Taylor.
The odds will be stacked against us, but, in all honesty, when are they not? O’Driscoll said he will send the team out with no fear and I reckon that is the way to go. If we go out feeling sorry for ourselves, if we are in awe of the Hammers, we’ll get beat. However, if we’re positive in everything we do, if we’re competitive and creative in equal measure, then you never know.
With eleven players (at least) unavailable, will that be enough? And where will that approach take us this season? I don’t know, and in some senses, I don’t care. We’ve already been written off but we’ll give it our best shot. I can’t speak highly enough of O’Driscoll or his players, and will back them to the hilt, whatever the weather.
