Saunders has done excellent job for us, says Ryan

Relegation from the Championship would cost Doncaster Rovers £5m but manager Dean Saunders has been told his job is safe.

Rovers are bottom of the Championship after Tuesday’s draw at Crystal Palace and head into tonight’s Keepmoat Stadium encounter with Birmingham City needing a win to cut the four-point gap to Bristol City and safety.

With just seven games remaining to scramble for survival the pressure is on Saunders and his team, but chairman John Ryan insists the former Wrexham manager is doing a good job and without him Rovers would have been “relegated by Christmas”.

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Saunders arrived at the Keepmoat after Sean O’Driscoll was sacked following a terrible start to the season which garnered just one point from seven games.

With some high-profile short-term signings like Pascal Chimbonda and El-Hadji Diouf, Saunders has kept Rovers in touching distance of safety.

“Dean has done very well,” said Ryan. “I think we would have been relegated at Christmas if Dean hadn’t come in. As far as I am concerned he has done an excellent job.

“It’s very difficult to come into a club that hadn’t won for goodness knows how long. We had one point from seven games, the whole thing was a disaster zone, and he has given it a very good shot in my opinion.

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“We were at St Mary’s on Saturday – Southampton are top we are bottom – and you wouldn’t have know the difference until Billy Sharp scored, and even that was (from) a corner which should have been a goalkick.

“We are not far away, I just think we need that little rub of the green which we haven’t had. Maybe we will get it in our next seven games. If we can win four or five games we will be alright. It’s not impossible.”

Asked if Saunders would be at the Keepmoat Stadium next year, Ryan replied: “Absolutely, I don’t even know why you would mention that.

“We are not a club that hires and fires managers. Sean O’Driscoll stayed for over five years, Dave Penney stayed for well over five years, and that’s been the last 10 years. We are not exactly known to chop and change and we don’t intend to with the current position either.

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“It (Saunders’s position) won’t come under scrutiny here because Dean came into a very bad position and I think he’s done well. We are still in the hunt and might still be in the hunt right to the end of the season. If we go down, well it certainly won’t be Dean’s fault.

“My view is he should be here next season, let’s try and get back again. Peterborough did it.”

Rovers have four home games left, starting with play-off chasing Birmingham tonight, then comes Burnley, Portsmouth and Ipswich Town.

Their away trips see them visit Leicester, Middlesbrough and a crucial match against fellow strugglers Coventry City on the penultimate weekend of the season.

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Relegation to League One would cost Rovers about £5m in lost revenue, although low crowds at the Keepmoat Stadium – only 7,572 fans turned out for their last game versus Millwall – mean attendances will not be drastically reduced if they drop down a division.

Ryan said: “It costs a team who gets relegated about £5m in all, because you lose television revenue and also lose gate revenue because crowds go down.

“But as our gates aren’t particularly high, even in the Championship, hopefully we won’t lose too much.

“The crowds have been disappointing. I know there are reasons for it. Doncaster is a poor town and people struggle to afford Championship football, I suppose.

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“At least the ones who do come get behind the team. The more that come for these last four home games, the better.”

Doncaster dropped two points on Tuesday night against Palace, following on from Saturday’s defeat to Southampton where former striker Sharp netted twice.

It has been a hectic March for Rovers – tonight is their ninth game of the month – but Ryan knows with the chances they created, Doncaster should have taken maximum points at Palace.

“It was a good point but it was a game we really should have won, we had plenty of chances,” said the 61-year-old chairman. “I think we should have really got three points, but a point isn’t too bad.

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“It now means we really have to beat Birmingham on Friday night, there’s no two ways about that. We have been playing particularly well. We played well at Southampton and obviously our old player (Sharp) did us, and we played very well at Crystal Palace on Tuesday.

“In all fairness, Billy wanted to go and he’s a good lad. You can’t hang on to players if a team like Southampton comes in.

“Billy can see the Premier League coming up so he went with our best wishes. He gave us some great service, and scored plenty of goals for us. It’s just a shame he scored against us, but that was always going to happen.

“We have got to win our four home games and then win at Coventry. They are the crucial ones. We have to beat Portsmouth, Ipswich, Burnley and Birmingham; we have to win those four home games which we are capable of doing. We are playing well.

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“It’s just not going for us. We hit the woodwork and had some great chances on Tuesday, we should have won at Palace. But we have had a horrendous fixture list, nine games in March, the fixtures haven’t been kind to us.”