As Matt Taylor walked over to a barmy travelling support on a cold, December afternoon and partook in three celebratory fist pumps, it felt like the start of a new dawn for Bristol Rovers.
They had just beaten promotion contenders Bolton Wanderers 2-1 in their own back yard with an aggressive, free-flowing performance that suggested the only way was up under their new manager. 366 days later and Rovers have parted company with the 42-year-old.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go for Taylor. Although he had lost his job at another club in Rotherham United only two weeks before taking the vacancy in BS7, the former Millers and Exeter City manager’s appointment was widely seen as a coup for the Gas at the time.
The fact that the Rovers hierarchy at the time ended up with a manager who had the desired Championship experience as well as a promotion on their CV, albeit from League Two to League One, spared their blushes after a five-week recruitment process that made it glaringly obvious that there was no succession plan in place when Joey Barton was sacked that October.
Fast forward 12 months and the appointment of Taylor just simply hasn’t worked. There were flashes of exciting potential within the first few months of the 42-year-old’s tenure but ultimately results tell the tale, even if performances are underwhelming, and unfortunately his football team didn’t produce enough of either.
Taylor walks out of the job with a record of a considerable 25 defeats in 47 League One matches in charge alongside 16 wins and six draws. For a club with the ambitions of pushing into the top 10 of League One and beyond, that simply isn’t good enough.
Naturally, it’s easy to blame the manager for poor results and performances and that’s not taking away from the fact that this has been coming for a long time but there’s a wider context. Firstly, players will have to look at themselves. At the end of the day they’re the ones who wear the shirt and whose performances ultimately affect the club’s standings. This group should not be sat in 20th place in League One and hopefully this gives those young players in the squad a reality check of what happens when displays are below their standards.
Of course, the hierarchy too will come under major pressure that they have now overseen two sackings within less than 18 months at the top of the club while director of football George Friend has also been subject to pointed fingers with the players recruited in the summer yet to take Rovers to the desired level of competitiveness within League One.
But at the forefront of all that, Taylor simply hasn’t been able to do enough with the tools provided and has subsequently lost his job, leaving the Gas in a worse league position of 20th than he found them in 12 months ago which was 11th.
Many may have different views and there are certainly other factors to take into consideration but here are some of the reasons why it didn’t go right for him at Rovers…
Three remains a magic number
As Abdullatif AlSaeed mentioned in his recent podcast appearance, the Kuwaitis still haven’t seen a run of three victories in a row since coming in last August. Joey Barton couldn’t manage it before he departed, Andy Mangan came close in his interim spell while Matt Taylor also couldn’t manage in 57 matches in charge.
Inconsistency has been a word thrown about too frequently for the last year, if not longer. It was mentioned often during the second half of last season, however there was quickly an understanding at that point that with so many players set to be out of contract, there was a real uncertainty towards who was actually going to be at the football club come summer.
Naturally, the expected squad overhaul occurred with Taylor backed in the summer window but yet it’s still a buzz word we keep throwing around despite largely being a different group of individuals.
Sure, with young players you are always going to get inconsistency but every time Rovers have shown glimpses of putting a run together, they’ve slammed into a brick wall and have had to start again.
This season has very much been a case of one step forward, two steps backward but if that keeps going for the remainder of this season then the Gas will end the campaign in the relegation zone. That’s the reality of the situation.
Struggles to find the balance
There’s absolutely no problem with Matt Taylor’s approach to focus on fixing the defence first over the summer and then build upward. Some of the goals Rovers conceded last season wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Bristol Down’s League.
There were a couple of clean sheets in there towards the end of the season but then there were also games like the 5-0 defeat at Lincoln City. The Gas also weren’t scoring enough either.
This campaign there has been a number of outstanding defensive displays. James Wilson and Connor Taylor, the latter in particular, are playing their best football in blue-and-white quarters. Bar a couple of poor recent displays, Clinton Mola and Taylor Moore have proven to be excellent additions while Josh Griffiths has, well, been Rovers’ best player.
However, it has felt that, as a result, any glimmers of attacking quality have been compromised in most matches this season. Two goals in seven games is woeful while the shots on target record of late is seemingly worse. When fans were celebrating having a shot way off target in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat to Birmingham City, that’s when you knew the point it has gotten to is a shambolic one.
Only Stevenage (15) and Burton Albion (16) have scored fewer goals than Rovers this season in League One. However, despite six clean sheets, the Gas have still conceded 28 goals in 19 matches while 12th place Stevenage, despite the division’s poorest offensive output, have managed to concede just 17 to win them 25 points in 18 games.
Whoever comes in is going to have to address the severe lack of creativity Rovers have offered in recent weeks, but it shouldn’t take a worldbeater. The likes of Isaac Hutchinson, Shaq Forde, even the isolated Luke Thomas have real quality, it’s now just about finding the right person to unlock it.
The wrong man from the start…for some
Let’s get this straight, this is a minority, but there’s no hiding from the fact that there are some supporters who never took to Matt Taylor from the off because of the fact that he wasn’t his predecessor.
Regardless of your thoughts on Joey Barton, there’s no denying that in the midst of that remarkable promotion, there were fans who worshipped him and still to this day there are supporters where reciting his name on any forum, social media platform or comments section is a daily ritual.
In terms of personalities, Taylor and Barton couldn’t be more extreme opposites and therefore there were fans who simply didn’t take to their new manager.
Even if the previous manager had won the Champions League, it’s important to look forwards, not backwards, and the number of ex-managers, Barton included (again, a minority), that have already been mentioned by supporters as their preferred candidates is frankly a waste of time.
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A case of when, not if
After Bristol Rovers had broken a club record for time without scoring a goal following a run of seven matches without finding the back of the net towards the end of last season, Matt Taylor’s future was under threat before he’d even made it to five months in the job. There were some supporters that vented frustrations with the Reading defeat in April an example of where it particularly got toxic.
Earlier this campaign, it was pretty clear that had Rovers lost a fifth consecutive league match when they hosted Charlton Athletic, Taylor would have lost his job. Bristol Live understands that the 42-year-old was also very close to being sacked after the 3-1 defeat at Huddersfield Town while a poor result against Shrewsbury Town, a game which they won 1-0, also could have marked the end.
As has been written previously, when managers’ names are this closely associated with the idea of the sack, it’s very rare that they see it out.
Frankly, this has been coming for months. Regardless of what fans’ opinions are of the decision, ultimately, Taylor never looked like making it to the end of the season unless he oversaw a scintillating run of form.
It’s sad when it’s a case of ‘when’ as opposed to ‘if’ but the timing of the decision certainly isn’t too late in regards to Rovers still having a good season.
Despite sitting 20th and being just two points clear of the relegation zone, the Gas still have over half of their league matches left to play while the table is still very congested with 13th place Peterborough United only three points better off.
However, margins will widen quickly given the hectic nature of the festive period and therefore swift improvement is vital to ensure that Rovers aren’t going into 2025 in the relegation zone. It’s never nice to use that ‘R-word’ but that’s the reality the Gas find themselves in right now.