First game, pro's and cons

[AndyB]

We won, the rest is all just talk!

But seriously, pros Hendrick's goal, Christie, clean sheet, cons looked a bit shaky at the back, didn't create many good chances but credit goes to Rotherham for that.

I would like to see a loan centre back as Whitbread, O'Brien and Barker are fitness doubts, not just now but generally.

[Alan Ramage 4 EVA]

Cons; the steward goading the home fan into 'going outside' which he reacted to and got thrown out from in a massive scuffle that some poor little girl got knocked in the face to at about 8 mins in really spoilt the game for me 

 

moved to the south stand for an atmosphere and regretting it now

If you are referring to the fan in dressed in blue 3 or 4 rows back behind the goal.He had been warned several times by stewards regarding standing and obstructing the view , and this was his first game back after a banning order .Good riddance to the arrogant TW-T Banned again first match of the season HaHa

[CheltenhamRam]

I do think we have been spoilt for atmosphere towards the end of the season when we were playing good stuff (on the whole) with play-offs and a final to look forward too. A very cagey game vs. newly promoted opposition without scoring for a large portion of the match was always going to dampen things.

[Uptherams]

Our style of play takes a few matches to get into the swing of things. In 5 games we will be flowing smoothly again. For now we have to just countdown the misplaced passes and poor decision making. Comments on the new players for me.

 

Christie was much better than what I have seen of him and probably what Cov fans have experienced. Because he has a reputation for bombing forward like a mad man when he should just be holding his position. Think we have potentially got ourselves a new Forsyth.

 

Omar. Very small, it will be interesting to see him rotated throughout the center of our midfield. Think that him and Bryson are going to work very well together. Up against a physical side he is a no go as a holding mid. Think he will be very effective for us in terms of counter attacks. Keogh as an example here takes his sweet time to make a 10 yard pass. Omar appears to quickly get it out his feet and want to look for that wide pass and not to simply pass it to the nearest player. 

 

Best. We only got a glimpse. Will be much better out wide than Sammon, never mind up top. Big physical player. His pace will surprise a fair few. But importantly his timing and positioning was excellent. Watch closely over his next few games. He is the exact backup we have been looking for. 

 

Ivan Calero might be one to watch on Monday. Might be asking questions of Ward's place in the match day squad and even Sammons. Someone who can play multiple positions better than someone else can play one makes that decision easy. 

[Malagaram]

Omar is actually 5 11 ins,wouldn't call that very small

[Angry Ram]

Are we not all going to Charlton now?

B4 is going to be gutted.

Pros 3pts.

Cons atmosphere

[Ram a lamb a ding dong]

Con.

 

Pre match music. I know there are some on here who hate it. Maybe there are some that like it. 

 

Is there anything we can do to get it stopped, changed, or reduced?!?

Last year was not too bad where I am, but feck me they must have fixed the nearest speaker or something, because yesterday was nuts. I love music. I love loud music. I'm a guitarist, whose played in bands that were extremely loud. Time and a place though. It's a football match! That period between  half two and three o clock, the atmosphere should be slowly building. What is the point when no one can hear themselves think let alone sing??

 

What is the purpose of this music anyway? Is it there just to annoy people?

 

Do the fan cam if you must. Do the family seat upgrade if you must. Make announcements. But for gods sake stop that music. Let the fans build the atmosphere.

Agree entirely. Going to tweet john vicars as it was too much

[Ram a lamb a ding dong]

I do think we have been spoilt for atmosphere towards the end of the season when we were playing good stuff (on the whole) with play-offs and a final to look forward too. A very cagey game vs. newly promoted opposition without scoring for a large portion of the match was always going to dampen things.

Sorry but the atmosphere where i was seated in the south upper was v good. There was a bit of a lull towards the end 0f the first half and around 70-75 mins but the rest of it really good. Compared to how it has been in recent seasons big, big improvement.

[Tombo]

PROS:

 

-We won. Simple as.

 

-First 20 minutes we were absolutely fantastic and we were unfortunate not finish one of those chances

 

-South stand generated a good atmosphere that unfortunately struggled due to the game being 0-0 for 80 minutes. Promising though.

 

-Rotherham fans. Fair play to them. I know they were on a big day out and it was a celebration that they were playing their first game in the Championship, but regardless of their reasons, they brought a good number of fans and made lots of noise. I always say, a football match atmosphere has to be two ways. If it's just one team making all the noise it's embarrassing at times.

 

-Pitch looked good. Well done groundstaff.

 

CONS:

 

- Queues at half time. Really, really, REALLY, not happy with this. It should not take over half an hour of queuing to get 3 lousy beers. The staff were totally unprepared for the demand, clearly too inexperienced. I can understand that will get better over time as they learn the job but there needs to be something done because I went down before the 1st half finished to beat the queues, and still could not get served until the 2nd half was already well under way. Really needs sorting.

 

-Queues outside the ground. Less disappointed with this. New system, new tickets, high demand, fairly understandable. Just wish there was more clarity on how the ticket is supposed to work. Some people said the ST cards go in the machine (and that's how mine worked) and others are adamant that you just hold it in front of the machine like last year, and putting it in the machine does nothing... Which is it?

 

-Can't see the time on the big screen. Minor annoyance.

[Ramsam]

With all three front men off their game we were ponderous and disjointed going forward

I think we need to be mindful that our game requires very high fitness levels and the lads don't have that yet and it will likely take another 3 or 4 games before we get there.

A very good win I thought against an opposition that were professional and organised.

Pros

We won

Christie's performance

Cons

We still don't have someone who can take a good free kick or corner. We get so many and score so little from these situations.

[chewbacca]

Pro's Keogh, Bucko, Christie.

Con's Dawkins, Russell, Bryson.

MOM Bucko

Biggest frustration too many crosses fizzing across the area and no one there! Ala Wembley, need to work on final third.

[observer]

If you are referring to the fan in dressed in blue 3 or 4 rows back behind the goal.He had been warned several times by stewards regarding standing and obstructing the view , and this was his first game back after a banning order .Good riddance to the arrogant TW-T Banned again first match of the season HaHa

 

 

yeah to be fair I dont care about the fan or who he is,

 

a steward should not be offering to go outside with a home fan under no circumstances, as for standing its meant to be a bouncing south stand now to be honest I didnt notice said steward saying anything to the 20 blokes stood the whole game next to where I was sitting

[Alan Ramage 4 EVA]

Fair point but he was a total w*n*er

[BondJovi]

Some of the reaction is a bit OTT.

First competitive game since Wembley. Expectations so much higher than last season. I highly doubt many teams will come here and try to outplay us. Teams will do as many did last season, come here to frustrate us, look to grab a goal from a set piece.

 

Important thing is we got the win, important for the players to get that swagger back and that belief that Wembley would have dented. Will take a few games but we did not give up, carried on and showed patience.

 

I am sure Mac, and many others, said we did not use the width properly so I would hope that is something rectified for the future.

[AmericanRam]

Pros:Christie was excellent and the resiliency we showed to get the max points.Also,Keogh played far better than he did in the preseason.Hope he can keep it up.

Cons:Dawkins just looked lost today imo which is rare for him,and the wingers just never really got into good places to create anything.

Overall 3 points is 3 points and lets take it from here.SM is someone I trust to work the kinks out.

P.S.Best and Calero should start vs. Carlisle imo.

[IlsonDerby]

To justify my previous statement.

I was sat in the east stand and the south stand could only be heard once we scored. I could only hear the Rotherham fans during the game. It is no good doing the bounce once we have scored. Looked over to the south stand on 70 mins and I may as well looked at the west stand. Or a morgue.

It was intended that the south stand was there to generate an atmosphere but from my opinion it didn't today. I can verify this from people around me

It was ok trailing this in big games against forest and Brighton in the playoffs but from today easily more noise came from the Rotherham fans.

 

I think that this is your view because the away support were closer to yourselves than we were. From the south stand (and i sit 10 seats from the away fans) it was pretty even, we out sang them in stages, they outsang us occassionally but after we scored it was no contest. Yanno it isn't just the south stands responsibility to create an atmosphere, the east stand is now right next to the away fans so your stand should be contributing something rather than sitting there complaining about the lack of noise from us... 

 

Disagree about Omar, thought for his first appearance in English football he played well. He's gone from being a tiny fish in the ocean at Real where hes expected to just get the ball and pass it to Alonso/Modric etc to a normal fish in a normal pond where people expect him to dictate the play from deep. It'll take him a few games to make the position his own but he certainly didn't shy out of any challenges and I expected this to be the case. 

 

 

Yet he was sat in a stand where the club are trying to create atmosphere? He might not be the nicest person but some of the stewards are dxckheads. When I was 16 years old, I was dragged down the stairs, past the away fans and into the police cells before being thrown out of the match for "persistent standing". I was 16 and about 5ft2 at the time and in the south east corner. The police were gobsmacked when they came to take my details and realised I was too young to have any ID on me and my dad still looked after my season ticket, they didn't agree with me being thrown out but because one steward had a stick up his arse it happened and I missed 2 of the goal against Blackpool when we won 4-1. I managed to pluck up the balls to sneak back into a different stand for the end of the game so caught nacer barazites first goal for us but it ruined a brilliant victory.  

 

 

Omar is meant to be brilliant at set pieces which is why I was surprised he didn't take them when he came on.

 

[ladyram]

The team will know what they have to do, where improvements need to be made and not to be complacent. Dunna panic.

[Ambitious]

Hughes is far from lightweight. The amount of times he crunched their players showed that he is more than capable in that position.

Also, for him, it's unfortunately time to adapt or be left on the bench.

Hendrick is well ahead of him as an attacking player, at the moment. Bryson, although poor against Rotherham, is one of our key players.

Hughes has never been the creative genius people make him out to be, he's more capable of excelling further as a deep lying player, in my opinion. His quality in the tackle, vision in the pass and awareness of what goes on around him makes him perfect for that position.

[Srg]

Crunching tackles, yes.... but lightweight in the fact he didn't even last a game of doing that before getting hurt.

[peakram]

Bit harsh on Will, u could equally level the same kind of thinking towards Thorne using that outlook, injuries can occur at any time in any position really.