It wouldn't be too controversial to suggest that Robbie Gotts has been Doncaster Rovers' star man since the turn of the year.
The midfielder has started every league game for Rovers since the defeat at Stockport - their last fixture of 2025. His performances have seen him come to the fore and it's coincided with, at times, him playing slightly deeper at the base of midfield. Safe to say he's enjoying the new demands being put on him by Grant McCann.
"Yeah, I'm absolutely loving it," Gotts told the Free Press recently. "I feel you can probably see that from my performances. I feel like it (playing slightly deeper) gives you freedom to get on the ball and do the other side of the game which I actually really enjoy doing - helping out your teammates, getting back. I like to try and be all-action."
Arguably, one of Gotts' best traits is his sheer workrate and tenacity as he seems to cover every blade of grass.
Robbie Gotts has become one of the first names on the teamsheet for Rovers in recent months. (Photo:Howard Roe/AHPIX LTD)placeholder image
Robbie Gotts has become one of the first names on the teamsheet for Rovers in recent months. (Photo:Howard Roe/AHPIX LTD)
That good engine is built on the foundations of a strong pre-season out in Spain last summer, with Gotts attesting that it was as tough as he's experienced. The 26-year-old suffered a severe case of blisters out in the heat which made life doubly hard for him in training.
He recalls: "I've never seen anything like that before. It was tough. I had to crawl in the morning to get a shower because I couldn't actually walk! And then I was thinking, how am I going to train here? But then somehow I got through it. Looking back on it now, it's funny but it was all worth it in the end."
Gotts was able to push through that testing experience probably because of his grounding at boyhood club Leeds United. He came through the Whites' famed academy and was there for the iconic Marcelo Bielsa era. The Argentine legend famously put his charges through their paces with gruelling training sessions that included 'murderball' - where players compete in a match where the ball is continually put back into play with no stoppages.
That was just one of many sub-plots to a fascinating time at Elland Road, most of which played out across two series of the Amazon Prime documentary 'Take Us Home: Leeds United'. The doc straddled the Covid pandemic-affected seasons, across 2019 and 2020 which saw Gotts on the fringes of the first team as they were pushing for promotion to the Premier League.
Robbie Gotts made his debut as a Leeds player, away at Arsenal in January 2020. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)placeholder image
Robbie Gotts made his debut as a Leeds player, away at Arsenal in January 2020. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
When asked about being part of the club during that time, a big grin is etched across his face: "You didn't really notice the cameras around too much.
"And in terms of that group of players, it was great. I think because I was younger as well, I kind of looked up to them as role models.
"You don't really realise at the time what it means. But looking back on that and being a bit older now, you realise the respect those older players must have had for me, to do the little things that they did for me. And I've always reverted back to that time and thought: What were they doing in certain situations? What were they doing in the gym at that point? What were they doing extras? How were they pushing it and living day to day?
"That part of my career was massive, but at the time, it was crazy because I was obviously a fan. And then I was on the bench and being part of it all when they got promoted which was surreal."
A mural of Marcelo Bielsa in Leeds. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)placeholder image
A mural of Marcelo Bielsa in Leeds. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
Gotts made the breakthrough in the 2019-20 campaign, although he had to bide his time with an extended period of being an unused substitute. That became something of a running joke, albeit well-intentioned, among the Leeds fanbase.
He finally got his big break and senior debut away at Arsenal in an FA Cup third round tie - "I remember I found out in the press about it! It was a proud, proud moment for me and my family" - but ultimately had to go elsewhere to further his career. Loan spells at Lincoln and Salford preceded a permanent move to Barrow in 2021. Four successful seasons there then led to his Rovers move.
Whilst his time at Leeds didn't go the way he would have wanted, he remains indebted to Bielsa - who always spoke fondly of Gotts despite being unable to give him the game time he wanted.
He once said: "Gotts is a player I feel guilty about because he does everything to try to achieve his goal, even though he hasn’t had minutes on the pitch."
"It felt very much like a headteacher kind of vibe!" Gotts says of his old manager. "You always felt like he was looking over you and obviously he didn't speak English. So when he was shouting, it was really intense. Every day in training, you didn't really do small-sided games or possession stuff. It was all specific drills for positions, little one-twos and everything was a sprint.
"Looking back, it was an unbelievable time really."
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