BEFORE the season started I said it was important that Rovers got off to a good start to stop the doubts creeping in among the supporters, writes Simon Garner.

The longer you go on without winning a game it can creep in to the players’ minds and it can affect confidence.

It only adds to the pressure, and you don’t want that when you’ve just got relegated.

They need to start grinding out a result to get up and running.

It was a bad result on Saturday.  You want to get off to a good start, especially at home where they need to winning games.

You need that win to get the fans back on your side.

They took a good following to Southend, there was a good crowd again on Saturday, and then they go and lose at home.

The fans will have expected better and they have to bounce back as quickly as possible.

They go to Bradford on Saturday, who were in the play-offs last season, so they could have done with going there with three points to their name.

I heard there was criticism of the formation the manager played, but you would expect that whatever formation you played, against 90 per cent of teams in that division, that you could go out and win the game.

At the end of the day he’s right in what he says that it doesn’t matter what formation if you’re winning games the fans won’t be bothered.

If you win games of football, the fans will be happy.

As a player you have got to be versatile.  If the manager changes the system he will have worked on it and the players will understand it.

Players nowadays they are better off at understanding that, and if he wants, he can change his personnel to fit that.

It will take a while for him to know what his best side is going to be in that division, and a while for the players to gel together.

There might be a few shocks along the way with the team, from what the fans expect, but if these players can knuckle down they will win games of football in this division.

Meanwhile, I just want to say thank you to those that voted for me to be in the Rovers Heroes XI alongside Alan Shearer up front.

I would have loved to have played with him but he joined the season that I left in 1992.

I could have taught him a thing or two about scoring goals.

I said when he was here, he missed a lot of his first season through injury, and if he had played for that whole season he would have been close to my record.

Although I hated to see him leave the football club, deep down I was quite pleased about it because I think he would have beaten the record.