The Christmas Game Thread And Poll

Oh yeah definitely but just so disappointed today with the line up

 

It is a good return until you realise we have conceded 9 goals to a team below us

 

City losing 3-2

 

DC needs a total rethink on the defensive side of things. It might be a couple of personnel, but I think there's something about the way we play too, particularly away from home.

 

Its a massive weakness in the team sort that out and we will be fine

 

I think we are desperately needing a new keeper.

 

The one thing we should be bringing back from the valley tonight is Josh Magennis

 

City conceded a 3rd goal in the 93rd minute now 2 - 3 Reading

 

HOLD ON...6pts from 9 ain't bad, and we're still in touch with the playoffs...

 

Don't get me wrong its been a good festive period but today I just can't get my head around once the GK and defence is sorted we will be fine

 

On the coach home now. Obviously a disappointing result, I was surprised when I saw the line-up but I don't think that was what let us down today. It was our inability to defend set pieces.

The first two were both free headers for Magennis, whose strength caused us lots of problems all afternoon. Leadbitter was off the pitch for the third one and Charlton exploited the space he left, and the fourth came as a result of a counter attack and some indecision from Puddy. We were ok in general play.

On the positive side, Easter took his goal very well and we seemed quite comfortable until the equaliser. Moore was probably our best player, and his yellow card was very harsh.

Hope Leadbitter's injury isn't too bad.

 

Cheers for your comment I can only go by what I hear on the radio from the commentators so its nice to get it from someone else who was actually there

I think our line up is part of what let us down. You saad you were suprised and I was too at the line up. But I could see what was going to happen and sadly I was right. There was no pace or creativity from the 6 changes that DC made. Lawrence is no winger and I would never play both him and Mansell together who both cannot be match fit. Somehow they both managed the full 90 minutes and fair shout to them. That will help them for sure in getting full match fitness but playing them both together like that was a poor decision. Montano and Line would have been far more effective for us going forward. But with what DC chose to do gave no service to Easter and Gaffney.

But you are right about our inability to defend from set pieces. Lockyers man was free for the 1st 2 goals. That was unacceptable school boy errors from him. All players makes mistakes but to make 2 exactly the same in the same match is too much to understand for me. The 3rd was scored by someone who again was unmarked in the 6 yard box centre to the goal. That should never happen regardless if you got 11 or 10 men on the pitch.

The commenators said we were comfortable for the 1st 30 minutes but what did we actually do in that time? We didnt attack or create a thing apart from getting lucky with our goal which Easter took very well to round the keeper. Apart from that, we didnt offer anything forward and just allowed Charlton into the game. Thankfully they took 30 mins or so to do that otherwise the score could have been far worse!

If we had a little bit of creativity and pace on the pitch, we could have attacked Charlton in that 1st 30 min spell and got a 2nd goal which would have turned their fans on their own players and basically killed the game early. So the line up is to blame for me but if we cant defend set pieces we will get what we deserve. Nothing!

 

After seeing Charlton at the Mem I was thinking that the score would end up in double figures. I would be very interested to know how clubs manage to find players like Magennis when we don't seem to be able to, is it down to a lack of funding of scouts or are we using a pool who pass on information ot other clubs and don't think it is worthwhile passing it on to the Rovers

 

Gashead79 shouldn't your first video be entitled LOWLIGHTS