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Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, oh what fun it is to see the City win away!!
So, here we are again, coming into another game off the back of a hard fought, but very deserved win away against fellow promotion chasers Stevenage, our 4th win on the spin no less. That consistency over recent weeks has seen us open up a tiny bit of daylight at the top of the table too, just as we head into the manic and oh so important Christmas period.
This Saturday sees us back on home soil and facing the prospect of what I’m sure the bookies (and many fans) will consider to be a home banker against a struggling Doncaster Rovers side, but as we’ve learnt already this season, much like the Championship, League One has proven time again that if you aren’t ‘on it’ then you can easily come a cropper, no matter who your opponents are. Surely though after what has been an exceptional couple of weeks, BBM will once again have the side well drilled and ready to go… if we pick up 3 points again this weekend then we will be No1 in the charts at Christmas… not a bad place to be eh?
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Who Are You?
Donny were founded in 1879 and turned professional six years later, moving to the Intake Ground. They entered the Midland League in 1891 and were elected into the Football League in 1901. The club lost re-election votes in 1903 and 1905 and so returned to the Midland League, but were admitted into the Football League for a third and final time in 1923.
The club have bounced around the lower leagues for the majority of their time in the football league but slipped back into the non-league system in 1998 following relegation from the 4th tier.
Rovers however regained their Football League status after winning the 2003 Conference play-offs and then went on to win the Third Division title in 2003–04. They won the Football League Trophy in 2007 and the next year won the League One play-offs to secure a place in the second tier for the first time since 1958. They spent four of the next five seasons in the Championship, winning the League One title in 2012–13, though were relegated out of the Championship in 2012 and 2014.
Relegated into League Two in 2016, they won an immediate promotion in 2016–17 and remained in League One until relegation in 2022. Current gaffer Grant McCann (in his 2nd spell after leaving previously to take over at Hull City) guided the club back to the 3rd tier last season with Donny finishing as League Two Champions.
McCann himself has managed 3 different clubs in his time, those being Peterborough (twice, three times if you count his caretaker spell), Hull City and of course this weekend’s opponents Doncaster (2nd time around).
His current win ratio with Rovers is actually better than when in his first spell, with him clocking up a decent 49% win rate (70 from 143 games).
Squad wise, the first name that jumps out will be all too familiar to us Bluebirds, that of Charlie Crew – currently on loan from Leeds Utd, Crew has made 6 appearances for the club so far this term.
The ‘big’ name in the squad is that of the evergreen Billy Sharpe. Now not far off 40 years of age, Sharpe continues to ply his trade at a very good level and has managed to knock in 3 league goals in his 19 appearances so far for Rovers. His return is however bettered by that of midfielder and Captain Owen Bailey, Rovers’ top scorer with 5 in 19. The former Gateshead player is now in his 3rd season with the club and has clocked up 111 league appearances for the Red & White army.
Regular ‘stopper’ for the team is the on loan (from Hull) Thimothee Lo-Tutala, a French U20 International who has played in 16 of their 19 league matches thus far.
Another to keep an eye on could be winger Luke Molyneux. The former Hartlepool player has scored 3 and assisted with 4 goals this term, putting him 8th on the list of the most effective players in the division for assists.
First And Last
Our first encounter with this weekend’s opponents was post 2nd World war, back in August 1947, where a 2nd division encounter at Ninian Park saw the Bluebirds triumph with a resounding 3-0 score line in front of an impressive 44,415 fans.
The Bluebirds goals that day came from the great Stan Richards with the other 2 coming from George Wardle. Richards would only make 57 league appearances for the City but would manage to notch an impressive 40 goals in that time before moving on to Swansea Town where he’d score 35 in 65.
Wardle had joined the Bluebirds that season and would go on to make 40 appearances in the Blue shirt, knocking in 11 goals along the way (his most productive stint with a club) before moving on to QPR in 1949.
At the end of that 1947-48 season the Bluebirds would finish a creditable 5th, 3 points above Spurs (8th) and way above Leeds (18th) with Birmingham & Newcastle being promoted to the 1st Division.
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Stan Richards - not to be confused with Keith Richards - Stan is much, much younger!
Last time out saw a dire 0-0 ensue at the Keepmoat Stadium, also in a 2nd tier game in January of 2012. That season was of course the 1st of Malky Mackay’s reign and the season we made the play-offs (finishing 6th – losing out quite comprehensively to West Ham over 2 legs in the play-offs) but also making the League Cup Final where we were unfortunate to lose to Liverpool on penalties after a classic David v Goliath tussle at Wembley.
The game v Donny was a bit of a shocker for the City, with them struggling to cope with a dreadful pitch and to be fair, a Rovers side managed by Dean Saunders that was packing a few ‘names’.
Sadly for Rovers though, despite that result and their start studded line up they went on to suffer relegation, finishing bottom of the table.
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In the absence of any highlights from the Doncaster game, here’s a look at Ben Turner’s ‘rocket’ in the cup final instead…
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Form
Our visitors come to us in fairly poor form, having picked up just 5 points from the last 18 on offer, though 3 of those did come just 2 games ago when they beat fellow strugglers Peterborough 2-1 at the Eco-Power (i.e. Keepmoat) Stadium.
Overall Donny have the joint 3rd worst attack in the division, mustering a total of 17 goals in their 19 games, and concerningly for their fans, they also have the joint 5th worst defence too, conceding 26 times.
Taking just their away form and it looks even more bleak for the Yorkshiremen, with them having the 2nd worst attack away from their own patch, scoring just 5 in 9 games, whilst defensively they fare slightly better, with the joint 8th worst record for conceding, having shipped 14 goals in those 9 matches.
It must be noted though, as bleak as the stats may be, they have shown they can upset the odds at times, having inflicted a heavy 3-1 defeat on Bradford earlier in the season (who of course deservedly beat us on our patch).
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On The Pitch
Having seen BBM use his squad well in midweek, reshuffling to allow for a greater physical presence, it would be no surprise to see him revert back to something a bit more ‘silky’ now that we are back on our home turf and coming up against a team that our gaffer has described as “a highly technical team who play good football”.
You’d like to think that if Rovers come looking to play us at our own game, our home advantage and current confidence levels should see us come through this one nicely – here’s to hopping eh!
There has been some good news in the form of Ollie Tanner returning to full training. It sounds very much like he is chomping at the bit and raring to get going again, however I’m pretty sure we can expect him to be managed very carefully, with this game perhaps just a little too soon for him to make an appearance.
Osho remains sidelined but is apparently making good progress, whilst Will Fish had an argument with a hoarding in midweek, causing a gash to his head, however, according to BBM he is “pretty tough and more often than not he declares himself fit!”. Odds are he isn’t going to want to let someone take the shirt from him right now given that Chambers has shown how effective he can be in recent showings and young Dylan Lawlor will be eager to get his place back in the team after being rested too.
Dropping Perry Ng right now would be a harsh call, so I expect him to start again over Kpakio but for Ronan to make an appearance off the bench during the game once more.
Predicted Starting 11
Trott
Bagan
Lawlor
Fish
Ng
Robertson
Wintle
Willock
Kellyman
Ashford
Salech
The Odds
As alluded to earlier in the thread, we are very heavy favourites for this one, if anything a little too fancied (always makes me nervous).
With a hopefully fairly decent crowd (given the ticket offer) we will hopefully triumph. Mrs Brizzle and I will be in attendance and I am hoping we see a repeat of the last time we were at the stadium and saw a ‘home’ win (Wales v N Macedonia).
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C’mon The City!!!!
