Romaine Sawyers provides honest reflection of Bristol Rovers' predicament amid relegation threat

Bristol Rovers have four games left to save their season after dropping into the League One relegation zone on Saturday afternoonSport

Daniel Hargraves Bristol Rovers reporter

07:00, 15 Apr 2025

Romaine Sawyers pictured in action for Bristol Rovers against Exeter City(Image: Steve Taylor/PPAUK)

Romaine Sawyers has proclaimed that Bristol Rovers have to “start taking accountability” after they fell into the League One relegation zone on Saturday afternoon, adding that “an open and honest conversation” was had post-match following their 2-1 home defeat to Exeter City.

A sixth consecutive defeat, alongside Burton Albion’s 3-0 win over Huddersfield Town, saw Rovers drop into the bottom four for the first time this season. What’s even more alarming is that they have just four games to get themselves out of the situation while Burton, who are level on points (42) have a game in hand and a far superior goal difference.

The Gas haven’t picked up a single point since they beat Bolton Wanderers 3-2 at the Mem over a month ago, scoring just three goals in the process, with their worst run of the campaign coming at the worst possible time.

In his post-match press conference, Inigo Calderon revealed that he, his players and staff had had a long conversation in the changing room about the predicament the club is in.

“I think we’ve got harsh realities in the situation that we’re in and we need to start taking accountability to a man,” Sawyers declared. “I think we’ve had an open and honest conversation now. It’s about trying to react and bounce back because like I said, we’ve been poor for the last five, six games now, and although performances might have been close and X, Y, and Z, the be all and end all is that we haven’t got no points on the board.

“[It’s] irrelevant how well we think we’ve played or thought we played, the league table doesn’t lie. So we need to look at ourselves as an individual and then as a team and we have to do something about it and we’re running out of games so we’ve got to be sooner rather than later.”

Despite a bright start, Rovers fell behind after just 11 minutes as Caleb Watts found the back of the net after Exeter’s first move forward. Ruel Sotiriou came closest to scoring an equaliser as goalkeeper Joe Whitworth kept out an effort but the Pirates ended up going into half-time 2-0 down as Reece Cole scored an outstanding volley.

Sotiriou halved the deficit in the second half but it wasn’t enough to earn the Gas a result.

Ruel Sotiriou celebrates scoring for Bristol Rovers against Exeter City(Image: Steve Taylor/PPAUK)

“Like I said, to a man, we’ve just got to take accountability,” Sawyers added. “Could we have run more? Could we have had more quality? Could we have defended our box better, been more clinical in their box? There’s many things that we can point out, but like I said, the be all and end all is that we’ve got to look at ourselves and take accountability to a man.

“We’ve got to realise our position, our roles in the team as individuals, and then if 11 working men are working well, it will make it better. But I think sometimes we, should we say, do too much for our role and I think we’ve just got a soft under belly. It’s a bad situation.

“Obviously, nobody’s confidence is high at the minute. We have to find it from somewhere. Find a purpose, a reason why we do it. Why we come into training every day. We’ve got to create a standard, got to get across the white line and put everything out there. We’ve got to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror after every game and just say like, I did our role and I don’t think, me included, we can do that today.

“I think they’re not a greatest of sides, no disrespect to them, but coming here at home, we’ve gotta defend our home. If somebody was breaking into my house, I’m not defending like that, and I think we’ve got to start doing that on a Saturday.”

Anyone who didn’t realise the severity of Rovers’ situation, who have spent most of the season down the bottom end of the table without dropping into the relegation zone, will do now.

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Realistically, the Gas cannot afford to slip up again with four matches remaining – and their task doesn’t get any easier.

A trip to second place Wrexham, who are only a point above Wycombe Wanderers in the automatic promotion race, on Good Friday is their next challenge with Rovers currently the worst side away from home in the division with a meagre 11 points collected on the road all season.

After the trip to North Wales, it’s back-to-back home games against Stevenage and Reading, from which it seems Calderon’s men have to get maximum points from to give themselves a chancce, before heading to Blackpool on the final day.

The Spanish head coach insisted that his sole focus will be operating on a game-by-game basis, starting with the game at Wrexham this week. For Sawyers, he and his team have to go to the Racecourse with the full intention of spoiling the Red Dragons’ party.

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“They’ve got a team that’s got a good feel factor,” the midfielder said. “They’ve got a big stadium, they’ll have their fans rocking and we’ve got to go and crash and spoil that party. Simple as that.

“I think you’ve gotta bottle this feeling in. Nobody likes this feeling. Before every game now we’ve just gotta remember this feeling so in that 90 minutes, we don’t want this feeling again.

“Like I said, we’ve had it for a few weeks now and we’re running out of time. We’ve obviously had results that haven’t gone our way. We’ve got to do all we can. It sounds like a beating drum and we’re just going over and over and saying generic things but we can say what we want here. We can say what we want before the game, after the game, but it’s too late. Between them 90 minutes, we’ve got to do everything we can to keep this football club in this league.

It’s a situation nobody wants to be in, but you have to rise, either swim or sink, and this is something that’s going to define you as a person, as a character, as a player. These kind of things you don’t want on your CV. Nobody wants a relegation.”

Romaine Sawyers provides honest reflection of Bristol Rovers’ predicament amid relegation threat

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