Bristol Rovers - 25 November

[jono]

16 hours ago, Sparkle said:

I missed the game yesterday as I am away but most of the reports sent to me suggest we were dreadful for 70 minutes and fortunate to win the points, is that the case ? 
Chris Martin did ok I assume ? 
several interesting results around the division yesterday I thought

We weren’t dreadful. We weren’t great either; Bristol, a couple players apart weren’t very good. Martin lead the line well enough I suppose and scored the obligatory old boys goal from a set piece, but Nelson and Cash pretty much snuffed him out when he wasn’t wrestling them to the floor. Our lads worked hard but lacked polish over 90 minutes .. did enough to narrowly win it. I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse. 

[Tamworthram]

8 hours ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Don't know about the pen, but both our goals were helped by woeful defending.

Another day, we score zip from those chances.

Maybe. But maybe on another day Bird might have scored when clean through (only denied a shot or a penalty by an outstanding piece of defending) and Sibley might have sneaked his effort under the goalkeeper when also through one on one. 
 

It was neither a great game or a great performance but if we’re going to play the “on another day” game perhaps we should apply it with a little more balance.

[SSD]

It was a 6 out of 10 performance. First half I think we all agree wasn't good enough. Second half, once we made the subs I thought the team had more energy and created more clear cut opportunities. 

Big positives were defensively I thought we looked solid again, we know the Wardrobe would be a handful and Cashin and Nelson on the whole dealt with him well. Mendez Laing having a really good patch of form to drag the team along. Definitely helped Collins when we put NML upfront. 

Negatives, midfield was completely dire again. Hourihane and Smith, one of them needs to be dropped. How many times this season are teams going to just plough through our midfield without any fightback. Hourihane wants to play Quarter Back and by doing this he offer nothing of value going forward. Smith, he shouldn't be anywhere near the midfield. Again, offered absolutely nothing and lost his man far too many times. It's a shame Fornah does not have consistent performances yet. He's either brilliant or a rabbit in the headlights. If Fornah can play some more minutes and build confidence, he'd put Smith right onto the bench.

The awful defensive protection by our midfield really pours praise on Nelson and Cashin. Our two players of the season so far. If we had Sonny Bradley playing every week, I don't think we would have such a good defensive record. 

Anyway, it's 3 league wins on the spin, exactly what we need if we're going to get out of this hell hole of a league.

[Tamworthram]

14 minutes ago, Stockport Ram said:

There’s a bloke called Mount who has been treated it’s utter derision by those entitled twonks at Old Trafford, but it appears we pay with peanuts rather than contactless card payments now. Not in any way disrespectful to Mr Clowes, who I will thank until my dying day, btw.  

Are you seriously suggesting, regardless of how he’s being treated at Old Trafford, that we should be in the market for players like Mount. Hilarious.

[Crewton]

I love it when we win. It's always fun to read all of the reasons why we shouldn't simply enjoy a narrow win against an in-form team on a day of respect for one of our most dedicated fans. 

In a nutshell: the first half was even; our build-up was much too slow; when we created promising situations, players fluffed their lines. Second half we generally dominated the opposition, looked far more dangerous going forward, showed great character to create the winning goal and were good value for the win in the end. 

[Wolfie20]

21 hours ago, Mucker1884 said:

Unless I'm very much mistaken, I think that was the point that @Tamworthram was making.

I suspect your post would have been better assigned had it been in direct response to the post to which @Tamworthram was responding, and not to @Tamworthram's post itself?  

My point was agreeing with @Tamworthram who was responding to a post which appeared to suggest Rovers had moved up a gear and scored. They did score but not by applying more pressure - more through our clanger!

[ram59]

12 hours ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Don't know about the pen, but both our goals were helped by woeful defending.

Another day, we score zip from those chances.

Some on here seem loathe to give our players any credit for a victory, it's either the worst team we've played this season or only defensive errors let us score or bad luck for the opposition. 

Both our goals come from excellent runs to the byline with, for a change and what I've asked for previously, intelligent hard low crosses or pull backs rather than a chipped cross which is easily defended.

What about their goal which was scored as a result of a crazy challenge from one of our players? They created nothing apart from the one chance that hit the inside of the post, whereas Bird and Sibley could have done better with their chances and Cashin had a couple of headers which needed a bit more on them.

[DavesaRam]

1 hour ago, Wolfie20 said:

My point was agreeing with @Tamworthram who was responding to a post which appeared to suggest Rovers had moved up a gear and scored. They did score but not by applying more pressure - more through our clanger!

Actually Rovers had been coming more and more into the game for probably 10 minutes before they scored, largely because having scored we tried to sit back and defend the lead almost straight away. The equaliser was as inevitable as it was that Chris Martin would score it.

It is also worth noting that both of our goals came from crosses played along the ground  instead of being whanged at flight-path height to no-one.

[Walkley Ram]

2 hours ago, Stockport Ram said:

Of course not - just mildly lamenting the chasm that has appeared in merely four years.

The barely-out-of-nappies mason mount we loaned back then can't be compared to the player he is today. There's nothing stopping us approaching top clubs for similar young players in need of senior experience. There is an argument that we might not play the type of football that top coaches want their kids playing, but let's not get into that.

[Walkley Ram]

13 minutes ago, DavesaRam said:

Actually Rovers had been coming more and more into the game for probably 10 minutes before they scored, largely because having scored we tried to sit back and defend the lead almost straight away. The equaliser was as inevitable as it was that Chris Martin would score it.

It is also worth noting that both of our goals came from crosses played along the ground  instead of being whanged at flight-path height to no-one.

I remember differently to be fair. I think I even made a comment that we were well on top and pressing for a 2nd, so I couldn't wait for Bristol to score. Pretty sure we were going for it.

[Crewton]

2 hours ago, oodledoodle said:

I remember differently to be fair. I think I even made a comment that we were well on top and pressing for a 2nd, so I couldn't wait for Bristol to score. Pretty sure we were going for it.

I also saw it that way. Bristol had upped there tempo, gone a bit more direct, but hadn't got any closer to scoring than they had in the first half (the effort that hit the post aside), while we had quite a bit of pressure that resulted in Birds charge through the middle, Sibley's 1v1 and Cashin's header, while Rovers created no meaningful chances before we gave away that freekick from which they equalised.

[On the Ram Page]

3 hours ago, DavesaRam said:

Actually Rovers had been coming more and more into the game for probably 10 minutes before they scored, largely because having scored we tried to sit back and defend the lead almost straight away. The equaliser was as inevitable as it was that Chris Martin would score it.

It is also worth noting that both of our goals came from crosses played along the ground  instead of being whanged at flight-path height to no-one.

They came into the game more because they went behind and weren’t going to get the point they came for. They had no choice but to try and up their game, so not necessarily because we sat back. We changed things at the back, yes, Nyambe moved across to left back, I think because they bought Luke Thomas on. I wouldn’t fancy him running at Sibley, so he was moved forward when Bird had to go off. There is always a chance you will concede if you give a free kick away near the box, which is what happened. Some people moan when Warne doesn’t respond to the opposition changes and still moan when he does. 
 

[Van der MoodHoover]

19 hours ago, sunnyhill60 said:

It is a pity that you and others do not appear give credit for the brilliant work of Mendez-Lang and Fornah putting the defenders under extreme pressure.

The first one the defender was not under extreme pressure, if he swings his left foot at the ball it's cleared towards the halfway. He inexplicably turned it directly in with his right. No attacker breathing down his neck, he was stood alone.

Second one I couldn't tell why the keeper seemed to stick a leg out to stop it and failed. Defenders couldn't do much tbf.

I did say that our goals were "aided by" as opposed to "solely caused by" the defending. Mendez had a decent run for the first but he was put through by a big hoof that the defender jumped underneath and missed.

[sunnyhill60]

6 hours ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

The first one the defender was not under extreme pressure, if he swings his left foot at the ball it's cleared towards the halfway. He inexplicably turned it directly in with his right. No attacker breathing down his neck, he was stood alone.

Second one I couldn't tell why the keeper seemed to stick a leg out to stop it and failed. Defenders couldn't do much tbf.

I did say that our goals were "aided by" as opposed to "solely caused by" the defending. Mendez had a decent run for the first but he was put through by a big hoof that the defender jumped underneath and missed.

But still no "credit" for Fornah and Mendez-Laing?

You make its sound so easy, was the defender for first left or right footed? There were two Derby players waiting for the ball if he missed it. As Shaun Barker described it, there was not much the defender could do but swing a leg at it.

Your comment on the second suggests woeful defending it was not!!! 

QED

[derbydaz22]

It’s time for a change in midfield it’s obviously not working and we are to easy to play against as Smith is like playing with 10 men as he’s contributes nothing and Hourahan needs resting in my opinion. I would drop Bird deeper with Fornah and Sibley which will give us legs and hopefully start dominating midfield but I fear Warne will just carry on with a midfield that’s not working.

Edited November 28, 2023 by derbydaz22
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[derbydaz22]

 

[Archied]

1 hour ago, derbydaz22 said:

It’s time for a change in midfield it’s obviously not working and we are to easy to play against as Smith is like playing with 10 men as he’s contributes nothing and Hourahan needs resting in my opinion. I would drop Bird deeper with Fornah and Sibley which will give us legs and hopefully start dominating midfield but I fear Warne will just carry on with a midfield that’s not working.

Yep that silly warne , can’t he see he needs to change up to break this losing streak we are on 

[derbydaz22]

1 hour ago, Archied said:

Yep that silly warne , can’t he see he needs to change up to break this losing streak we are on 

Did I call him silly? So you think we are playing well and dominating games because I don’t. Silly me.

[Walkley Ram]

2 hours ago, Archied said:

Yep that silly warne , can’t he see he needs to change up to break this losing streak we are on 

Just because we're winning doesn't mean we can't improve. Did you call Pep silly for signing Haaland? They'd already won the league.

[FlyBritishMidland]

4 hours ago, derbydaz22 said:

 

Best post in this thread!!