Doncaster Rovers comment: Gary McSheffrey ‘the wrong man at the wrong time but not only person to blame’

Amid a rebuild following relegation, Rovers are just three points outside the play-offs with 32 games still to go and 96 points – more than enough to win the league – to play for.

Yet the headline statistics don’t tell the full story.

Results were good at the start of the season but the team’s form has steadily declined since their first league defeat, with just seven points won from eight games.

Performances and style largely failed to inspire, even when results were good, and only worsened.

That was despite the return of key players, albeit not at full fitness, and two transfer windows for McSheffrey to put his stamp on this team as per the club’s expectations.

“We feel this is threatening our ability to achieve our stated goals for the season,” said chairman David Blunt.

Doncaster are believed to boast one of League Two’s biggest budgets this season.

By their own admission, the club is aiming for automatic promotion. Even play-off qualification, depending how they do it, might represent a slight disappointment.

Chief executive Gavin Baldwin told supporters last month: "From an emotional perspective as much as anything, no-one wants to be in League Two.

"From the financial side, League One is a far better place to be.

"The finances should allow that to be a real possibility.”

Those above McSheffrey, who was in charge from December amid last season’s relegation, should shoulder their fair share of blame for this latest failure.

From a field of around 140 applicants, they settled on someone with no first-team coaching or management experience.

It also took almost a month to appoint a member of staff who was already in the building.

A relegation scrap is no place for a rookie learning on the job. McSheffrey was the wrong man at the wrong time and never won supporters’ hearts and minds.

Once proud Doncaster Rovers have fallen from a great height in recent years.

In 2014 they were a Championship club and as recently as February last year were third in League One at the season’s halfway point, level on points with Hull City in the second automatic promotion spot.

The club’s next move must arrest and reverse the decline that has set in.