• Nigel Adkins has been given the Tranmere job on a permanent basis signing until the end of the 25/26 season. Continue the discussion here.

Rovers 0-1 Donny

Ian

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Well, finally the unbeaten run ends, and in disappointing style.
The lads just weren't with it today.

Donny's early goal was enough to make them put 10 men behind the ball, and we just couldn't break through.

We tried, especially in the second half, but ended up going round in circles most of the time.

The performance just wasn't there though.
The lads looked slow to the ball, the passing wasn't up to much, the creativity wasn't there, and it was just very frustrating to watch.

Our best play came from set-pieces, which sums up how useless we were creating chances in open play. How many saves did Sullivan have to make, I don't remember many?!

What worries me is that these are the teams we must beat, not only because of the placement in the leagues, but if we did happen to finish in the top six, then we would have to play these teams in the play-offs. I don't think we've got what it takes to do it.

Look at the previous results against the top six this season:

Swansea: Lost
Doncaster: Drew & Lost
Carlisle: Won & Won
Nottm Forest: Lost
Walsall: Drew

Our only success coming against Carlisle. We need to do better against the top teams in the league, otherwise if, and it's a bit if, we do make the play-offs, it will be heartache yet again! :-({|=
 
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Liam Palmer
A pretty accurate summary of events, I'd say.

Too many players looked sluggish against a well-organised, but by no means brilliant Doncaster side.


Ronnie changed things in the first half, bringing an extra man into midfield, but I thought the problem lay in our two wide men, Sheriff and JMW had shockers. Absolute nightmares. Ad God, we missed Jennings for his energy!

I think he should have started with Zola, as for me Greenacre and Moore do lots of good work miles away from the goal. I'd rather see Moore poaching and not spending time chasing back and working hard (a la Kuyt).

Well, every game's a cup final from now. Don't worry about bookings, etc, just go for it. We can still do it, and I honestly think we can win at Swansea, they are BOUND to lose some time....

SWA!
 
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Liam Palmer
And another thing, only one win in five games, hardly play-off form.....
 

Joe_TRFC

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You can turn stats in all kinds of ways because before we lost everybody was saying unbeaten in 8 games. It was disappointing by the sounds of it but we are still in with a chance.

I think it will be a lot clearer what we need to do after Swansea. But at the moment i'd say we can only afford 2 more defeats this season. My Target would be... win at Oldham, defeat at Swansea, 10 pts from 12 pts from 4 games after Swansea leaving us needing 10 pts from final 15pts to reach 75pts at the end of the season. I think this would see us get a play off place. A tough ask though.

If we fail to make the play offs I definitely think its our home record against the higher teams that lets us down.
 
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Johnny Morrissey
Just a poor perfromance from us yesterday. Too many players off the boil, and although they worked hard we never looked like doing any damage.

Like the guys have said our record this season against the better teams is poor, and had someone said in January do we deserve to make the play offs I'd have said no way cos we looked terrible. A little bit of form came after that and cos of the poor quality of the league we're in the top 6 somehow.

So we have to try and make the most of it. Good from from now til May may see us promoted, but we have to do a lot better than we did yesterday. Still all to play for though, I haven't given up dreaming just yet!
 
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Alan King, Barry Dyson
I'm not so gloomy. In a way, I'm glad our unbeaten run has come to an end as we seemed to be dropping too many points of late trying to defend it. What really matters now is how we play in the next couple of games. If we can bounce back, I'll be really optimistic about staying in the top six.

I don't share Ian's pessimism about the play-offs. They are just a lottery. When Little's team finished third, we won five out of six matches against the other three teams involved in the play-offs - including the double over Hartlepool. Didn't do us much good, did it?
 

Boz

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It doesn't sound like a great game from what's been said. However we need to be sure of getting a result in the next match at Boundary Park. Now that Leeds have gone to arbitration, there is a real prospect they'll get some of the 15 points back, so Rovers need to be aiming for a minimum of 5th spot to avoid any last minute disappointment.
 
M

mouse

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It doesn't sound like a great game from what's been said. However we need to be sure of getting a result in the next match at Boundary Park. Now that Leeds have gone to arbitration, there is a real prospect they'll get some of the 15 points back, so Rovers need to be aiming for a minimum of 5th spot to avoid any last minute disappointment.


I would be AMAZED if Leeds got any points back given the time that has elapsed since the points deduction, the Football League will look like a joke if the points are given back - they have defied league rules and should be punished accordingly!

We do need to pull our socks up, and what better way than a victory against Oldham. It's still in our hands because after Swansea we have four winnable games and three of them are at home against Swindle, Hartlepool and P Vale. The key month is April, because we face three play off rivals in Walsall (A) Southend (H), Forest (H) and bogey side Huddersfield (A). After that it's the last game against Northampton (A). We can still do it providing we can beat our play off rivals!
 

Griff

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I really want to stay on board with Ronnie, but some of his tactical choices are starting to get me worried.

Why oh why did he take off the only recognised wide player (JMW) leaving us with a centre back and a striker out wide. regardless of how he was playing. Everyone was poor.

The changes he makes seem to be overly complex for the players. We end up with 3/4 players out of position and changing formation mid match is difficult for a premier team to take on, never mind Rovers.

I cant see why he didnt take Sherrif off, move JMW over to his natural left side and put greenacre on the right. That would leave a space for Zola to come in alongside Moore. This would have us in a simple 442 with only Greenacre out of natural position and he has played wide for previous clubs.

Zola must be wondering what he has to do to keep his place. He looked to be getting a good understanding with Moore. Fair enough that ronnie has tried greenacre/Moore, but it lacks one thing. Hight. At the end of the day, when the football breaks down, you often have to go long and moore/greenacre simply cannot compete with decent centre backs in the air. IMO Zola needs to be in the team to get the ballance between playing football and the onlg ball game.
 

Ian

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I agree with you regarding the forwards. Moore and Greenacre does not provide any height, so long balls are useless, even though they continued to provide them. It's no wonder Doncaster where happy to sit on a one goal lead soaking those aimless balls up.

Zola for all his faults, does give us height and is just akward. For himself and every one around him. He just provides something different.

I dont have a problem with playing Greenacre and Moore up front, but the football has to be played on the ground!

Wasn't it interesting to see Jennison playing on the left for a change! I think that's the first time I've seen him in his natural position, and he looked a lot more comfortable ableit it only being for 20 mins or so..

Also, Curran got a mammoth five mins to impress yet again.
Come on Ronnie, it's a joke!
 

Gray

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Well, it was bloomin awful wasn't it?

Ronnie obviously had a game plan to play the two smaller guys up front and try and play the ball through the middle and on the floor, only it didn't work. We couldn't get the ball down and when we did, there was no movement. It wasn't a case of poor passing, it was that there was no one moving into space to pass to. Surprisingly, Mullin was probably our best player, whenever he got the ball he just put his head down and got forward, of course it never came to anything, but most of our attacking moves seemed to come from him. We just got so narrow and it was painful, boring and infuriating to watch.

I just think they lacked confidence on Saturday, unbelieveable for a team unbeaten in 7 or 8, or whatever it is. The lack of movement and width was an obvious demonstration of this lack of confidence. With this in mind, I'm very worried now about Swansea and maybe even Oldham :-(

I'm a great believer in 4-4-2, with one big man and one poacher up front and with our choices up front we're set up perfectly to play like this. Ronnie should have changed it, put Zola on for Moore or Greenacre and put Curran on for Sheriff on the right, it was obvious at half time that that we were going to get nothing on Saturday playing as we were (actually it was obvious after 10 mins and I said as much to my Dad).

Walsall away in four weeks time is another big game but I still think we can scrape into the play-offs and then it's down to a big slice of luck.

MOTM: Mullin :-o

EVERY BALL'S A WHITE BALL!
 

Ian

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I was very impressed with Mullin. He did put his head down and run, but made some decent runs too. Not bad for a player who's been out for most of the season. It's a shame the regulars in the side couldn't follow his example.
 

Boz

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.

Zola must be wondering what he has to do to keep his place. He looked to be getting a good understanding with Moore. Fair enough that ronnie has tried greenacre/Moore, but it lacks one thing. Hight. At the end of the day, when the football breaks down, you often have to go long and moore/greenacre simply cannot compete with decent centre backs in the air. IMO Zola needs to be in the team to get the ballance between playing football and the onlg ball game.

While I'd agree Zola had been doing quite well before his injury, height is only good if you use it. How many goals has Zola scored or created using his head?? Very few in my memory, Moore definitely and Greenacre possibly are better in the air than Calvin is.
 

Griff

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I do agree that Zola isnt good enough in the air for his hight

But what he brings is contention for the ball, whether he wins it or not. Even if he isnt winning the challangers, he can put the centre half under enough pressure. Against moore/Greenarce the majority of high balls end up being a free header for the CB that he can get 30/40 yards on. If Zola can at least challange, even when he doesnt win, he can force a throw, or the clearance will fall short.

I do beleive we could play with the two smaller forwards, but we need better quality from midfield. Balls either need to be to feet, or over the top to run onto. Our problems have always been in midfield this season, but to be fair to Ronnie he has had injury and now supension problems that have left us all over the place. CB on the left, Left winger on the right, long time injured player returning in the middle.

Does anyone know whats going on with Mike Jones ? He looked half decent in a couple of games, yet when we dont have wide players, he no longer seems to be in contention. Must be something internal.

My niece's fella went to school with the lad and he says that its Jones's opinion that he simply ignores the young players and wont give them a chance, but then I would suppose every player left out looks for non-football excuses sometimes. Shorley if he is good enough and hasnt been upto anything off the pitch, he would be used. Wouldnt he ?
 
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It was a poor performance with too much hoof. The only players to come out with any credit were Goodison and Kay. Goodison because he was solid and took out Price! And Kay because he played very well after his stupid error.

I don't see why Greenacre's playing - he runs around a lot, but his job is to stick the ball in the back of the net which he has hardly done at all this season. Zola was playing well with a bit of confidence and for a change (Fingers crossed) was injury free and then he finds himself on the bench!?. Zola needs to replace Greenacre, or Curran needs to given a chance alongside Moore.

The main reason why were so poor was because our most creative player - Mclaren was restricted to a holding role as Mullin was playing. Moore must know they can't play together, so he should give Ahmed a chance in the holding role and let Mclaren do what he does best. Otherwise our midfield will become non existent again and we will resort to hoofing it.

I agree with Griff about Jones. Moore doesn't seem to give youngsters a chance. Surely it would make sense to play Jones on the right and JMW on the left to give us a bit of attacking pace and width in midfield.
 
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Zola didn't train much in the week leading up to the Donny game - hamstring problem. That's why he was on the bench.
 

Ian

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I actually thought Goodison had a poor game in comparison to his other games. He was making silly mistakes and just wasn't as solid.
 
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