‘Were Rovers players on sedatives?’

It was an astonishing coincidence that the Russian athletics drugs scandal should break at roughly the same time as Bristol Rovers crashed out of the FA Cup to “Southern League minnows” Chesham United.

A friend of mine said, after returning from a dismal Sunday at the Memorial Stadium, he wondered if the players would be subject to drug tests. There was no way they could play that badly without taking sedatives.

Just a few days later, I find that the Gas have been dumped out of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy by Southend United. What’s worse still is that the loss occurred away from home and Rovers just don’t lose away from home.

No wonder Darrell Clarke is worried. In fact, Darrell lurched into the land of cliché by declaring post match that “we can concentrate on the league now and if we keep performing like that we will be shooting up the table”. Uh oh. (To be fair, the manager did acknowledge he was about to use a cliché before he came out with it.)

Now Rovers have finally lost an away game, I fully expect them to win at home to Carlisle United this week. This is the way things tend to happen in football. The brilliant away record comes to an end swiftly followed by the dismal home record.

The season will now be defined, certainly in terms of success, by how well the club performs in the league. A decent cup run brings in not just hope to the supporters, it brings in money to the football club. And winning, whether it be in the league or the Paint Pot Trophy, is a good habit (another cliché, which I offer to Darrell for his next press conference).

The manager has no alternative but to announce that he is now concentrating on the league because that is all that remains to the Rovers. No away trip to Manchester United in the FA Cup Third Round, no Wembley final to boost the coffers – the manager knows what he has to do between now and next summer and if he doesn’t there could be consequences.

In League Two terms, the season is far from over for the Rovers. The club is handily placed in mid table, there is much to play for. Improved form at home and sustained form away from home should see the club challenging at least for a play off position by next spring.

We have been told by the chairman, Nick Higgs, that the manager has a competitive budget for this division and there is money to spend in January to bolster the squad if Rovers were in the shake-up during the transfer window so we have, in the words of Ian Dury, reasons to be cheerful.

The manager’s main job is to re-establish confidence in a squad that has recently lost it. If he doesn’t, or can’t, the club will stay in mid table and the season will fizzle out, amid falling crowds and falling income. This could be the most challenging part of Darrell Clarke’s career at Bristol Rovers.

Am I doubting the manager? Of course not. In football terms, he has been there five minutes and it really is time Bristol Rovers took a long term view. Nick Higgs does not have much of a track record as a long term thinker in footballing terms, with a history of failed appointments, until this one.

I think Darrell Clarke is destined for a long and successful career as a manager. It would be nice to think he could achieve it at Bristol Rovers.