Being forced to start the season with no recognised striker is unforgivable in my opinion, especially when we recruited early and the team have had time to get to know most of their team mates. We should have been fired up and ready to roll from the first minute of the opening game, but here we are, 3 games in and still waiting for a so called striker to stumble off the sick list and make an appearance! God knows what state we will be in position and morale wise before we are actually able to field a full strength team. I honestly can't believe how our inept performances and sickening results are simply carrying on from where we left off last season, albeit with a different set of players. It's a shame our players aren't paid on being fit and available for selection, might cut down on the number of injuries our squad seem to be plagued with!
Please don't think this is a 'I told you so' comment here but I knew this was going to happen. Barton has taken us from an non relegation position of 19th in L1 to relegation to L2 finishing rock bottom of L1 and not joint rock bottom of L2. He has the worse managerial record at Rovers than any other manager yet fans still seem to defend Barton's position saying give him time and a chance to have a full squad available and allow players to return from being injured. Issue with that is, we may never have a full available as when some return, others may get injured and be out or a while. That's football. We need to act asap. A new manager's job is to get the best from the players available. He failed when he joined. He has gotten rid of lots of players and brought in a lot and is still failing to get the best from his players. He is fast undoing all the work that Darrell Clarke did to get us into L1 from non league. Im just in a bit of shock that people still want to give Barton time but was happy to get rid of Tisdale and Garner who had better records than Barton.
The one position Barton constantly spoke about last season was our strikers, or lack of. I thought that would be the position he would deal with first. So to start the season with less strikers than what we ended last season with is absolutely unbelievable.
Ref for tomorrows match handed out 82 yellow and eight red cards in 33 matches apart from Barton who will fail to finish for us because of picking up either a red or 2 yellow cards
I've been away for 10 days in a blissfully internet-free bit of South Devon, so I haven't been reading much about Rovers apart from the results. Good job too as it looks like we've been utterly dire again. First league match at home, against the mighty Stevenage, and we only muster a single shot on target straight at the keeper? What on earth is going on? I know that Barton is a useless thug, but my Springer Spaniel could do a better job of motivating and organising these players - his players. Lose again tonight and I can't see any way back for him. Yes, I realise it's just three games into the league season but results and performances have been even worse than many of us thought. Plus, after a year and a half of "we must get a decent striker/targetman" we start yet another game without a decent striker/targetman. Unbelievable. Now he can't even play Hanlan because the bloke doesn't want to play for us anymore. 'sake.
Oldham are a poor side, we should get a result of some sort, but you just know that it will all fall apart in the final quarter, just like most of the other games with Barton in charge.
Todays line up v Oldham Belshaw, Hughes, Grant, Finlay, Thomas, Collins, Anderton, Anderson, Saunders, Baldwin, Rodman Subs Ward, Kilgour, Nicholson, Hargreaves, Harries, Liddle, Pitman Twitter says that Jaakkola has a slight injury
I agree about how we 'should' get a result tonight of some sort, but I can't help feeling very nervous and apprehensive at the moment! Doesn't bear thinking about if we lose again tonight!
4 minutes played first yellow card shown Saunders yellow carded for simulation 4 attempts on goal none on target Saunders for Rovers 1 - 0
We are leading at HT but the question is can we still be leading at FT Sam Nicholson replaces Luke Thomas 60th minute Walsall beating Scunthorpe 1 - 0 Harries and Pitman on Anderson and Saunders off 77th minute Pitman has only been on the pitch for 14 minutes and he picks up a yellow card
Nope. It really happened. First three points of the season and our first victory for bloody ages. Well done lads! UTG!
Excellent result and sounds like a decent performance by the lads. bodes well for when we can field a full strength side. Hope this will act as a springboard for results and performances for the rest of the season. Onwards and upwards now!!
Just a report of the match Rovers had three penalty appeals turned down hit the woodwork and Baldwin had a late goal disallowed for offside 1 win up to15th in table
You were right on all accounts. We got the result against a poor Oldham side but we got fortunate in the 2nd half by all accounts as they had their chances. Thankfully though we got the points. Our first win in 11 games, our 1st home goal in around 600 minutes. And we got a clean sheet. Let's not get ahead of ourselves though. Lets keep trying to walk before we attempt to run. Exeter will be tough.
With our recently signed striker on the bench and Saunders and Collins apparently combining well together Nicholson, Rodman and Anderson putting in good performances Maybe just maybe we are getting the attacking piece of the games on track all we have to do then is defend a little better against teams that will punish us when we give them chances, Still think it is going to be a long season but the clean sheet was a good start, notice Jaakkola was injured again and that leaves us a little thin on the ground in the GK dept
The opening few games were quite tough, so hopefully we'll get a bit of a run now. We've definitely got some decent players for this level, and now that they have got a win under their belts their tails should be up.
