The thing that really bugged me about the ref was that for the first 10-15 minutes he was very liberal about contact, with the result that Cantwell spent a lot of it sat on the ground moaning at the ref. Then it was like a switch had been flicked and he started giving them a free kick every time they went over. Wouldn't have made any difference to the result but it wasn't very consistent.
Of course he wasn't. I still expected our wingers to get in behind and cause issues for the CBs. Gelhardt caused issues for Oxford last week.
There were plenty of negatives to yesterday but I thought that a real positive was that McBurnie showed again that we really do have a proper striker now. Obviously he fed of scraps but when we got the ball up to him he caused trouble, won things in the air, created space for Joseph when he was on, and actually won a header at an attacking set piece which is unheard of at this club. In the last few seasons we've had games where we've played much better than that but barely had a shot, yesterday we actually did have a few decent chances despite being clearly second best.
I was waiting to get a word in, still waiting. The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.
Too much talk about the ref. To be hoped the team was affected by a virus or expect troubling times ahead. I think the 5 on 10 player rating given by the HDM is generous. With the odd exception, can we have a transfer embargo on signing players from the Turkish league. It's times like this I miss Sinik for his behind the scene influence.
Based on last week, that's a reasonable expectation - unfortunately, like everyone else, Gelhardt was off it yesterday. It was just an all round flat performance, which was so out of kilter with what we have seen so far, that I would say the virus explanation is accurate.
A win, a draw and a loss puts us 15th. I still think that's about where this squad is. When they are all fit and firing we'll win a few and surprise a few. When we have a few out or off it we'll struggle with our depth. I do like the fact we've got some real character in the side and many of them seem close to each other. I also like what I've heard from the gaffer so far. Midtable season building seems reasonable give the restrictions we have to deal with.
Godot will turn up before that, and now I remember who you and Ric remind me of. The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.
Think Rovers had us figured , they two upped on our wingers and pressed us early , our luck not score and theirs to score totally did got our confidence . Last week we played some great stuff down the middle but yesterday we stayed attacking from the wings for the most part . Mind you we marked the spaces and not the players most of the time and a big gap between defence and attack with no one there .
What was really refreshing was to hear the crowd still getting behind the team even when 3-0 down. Too often being one goal down has led to it being like a library. Long may it continue.
Last week I noticed the amount of running Crooks did, between defence and attack he seemed to be popping up everywhere. It has been said a lot on this thread - Slater plays a different game. The gaps were not there last week. Oxford had not done the planning as well as Rovers had. They knew the diagonal cross field ball had to be prevented and they did it well. I agree with the adjective “listless” that someone said. I sincerely hope it was virus to blame. Had we got the early goal it may have been different energy that came off the back of it. Last week the early goal came from an early push. This time the chances didn’t go in. But after the 3rd we could have folded and didn’t. I am looking for optimism as life is too short to focus on the uncontrollable. My journey home is 2 hours. It gives you time to put life into perspective. I enjoyed last weeks journey more than this weeks. Defence were nervous as there was a significant change. Ref did have a shocker and there was no chance for any fluency from us due to the number of free being given. And that suited Rovers more than us, with most away sides wanting to be disruptive. But we cannot blame the ref for the result - we should have managed that by standing up in the tackle and generally being smarter. (Although if Giles had clattered their player prior to the 3rd then that would have been fine.) My optimism wants me to blame the virus. And therefore I will leave the blame there for a few days and try not to overthink it for now.
