Rovers 0 Cherries 0

[Boz]

A poor first half, felt we conceded far too much space when we ought to have been defending higher up the field. Needed an ankle-biting Craig Curran type performance from our wide players and didn't get it, despite other creditable elements to their game. It got better second half, but only in the last 10 minutes were we really laying siege to their goal.

No criticism of any of the defenders, who were sound. Fon Williams only had one taxing save to make, at the start of the 2nd half, which was then cleared off the line by Goodi. It was further up the field where the problems were...

Welsh. Abysmal set pieces and should have taken the lead in pushing forward, but otherwise ok, bit hard done to with the booking.

Weir. A couple of good run and pass movements in the first half, but largely anonymous. He is better suited to the Robbo role than Baxter imo.

Baxter. Drifted in and out of the game, some nice touches but didn't look a cut above the rest. Surprised he got sponsors MoM.

McGurk. Mixed bag from Adam today, some good crosses and tracking back, but got caught in possession and couldn't get past his man too frequently.

Akins. Very quiet first half, but played really well in the second and ought to have won us a penalty when his heels clipped in the box.

Enoch. Much too isolated.

The subs showed we're lacking strength in depth. I'm unsure it would have made much difference introducing them earlier, given the quality, save perhaps the Labadie-Weir one. At least Joss was an improvement on Welsh at set pieces.

My MoM would be Ash Taylor for his contribution further up the field, all of the back four being equal quality defensively.

Those of you who were using this as a guide to Rovers play-off hopes are likely to have concluded that, unless the injured pair of Robbo and Devaney get fit soon, there's little hope. Being positive, the attendance stayed over 4k and we got a point more than the corresponding fixture last season:smile:

 

[drwhoman]

CHERRIES

Thanks for the report Boz. At the risk of stating the b...obvious they badly need someone who can put the ball in the net. If you look at the table for the Division the defence is as good as anyones. Goalscoring is the real issue. Yes - the Les system does not help but the simple fact of the matter is that the attack is essentially toothless.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

I agree with most of the above. For the final half hour I thought we did ok, and took the game to Bournemouth, but frankly that isn't good enough in a game where we needed to seize the initiative and really push for the three points.

As has been commented the midfield trio were poor, particularly in the first half, and Bounemouth played the better football for long spells. I agree with Boz's comment about sitting far too deep. Against Brentford, a similar footballing side to Bournemouth, from the first minute our front men pressed the ball high up the pitch, disrupting the rythym of the opposition. We did not do that in the first twenty minutes today, and as a result Bournemouth grew in confidence and got control of the midfield.

I think Baxter's role was a problem for us today. With Bournemouth playing three in the middle, we needed the midfielders to be tigerish when we lost possession of the ball, but too often Jose ball-watched when the ball was given away. That said, he was our only player who looked like scoring from open play, and does always look dangerous around the six yard box, but I think Les has a decision to make about how to best accommodate him.

I felt Labadie could have been brought on a bit earlier, but I was more frustrated at Tiryaki being given another five minute cameo role: if Enoch is not cutting the mustard (and he isn't) Mustafa should be given a decent half hour to show whether he can make it at this level, rather than being thrown on in the dying minutes and being expected to produce a Roy of the Rovers moment. I agree that we need Robinson back ASAP, but unless one of our strikers
starts scoring, at least occasionally, I fear that we could sink further down the table.

In all, a pretty frustrating afternoon, that leaves us having picked up only five points from the last eighteen available, and it is concerning that as last season we are now dropping a lot of points at home against struggling teams. On the positive side, we have now kept clean sheets in more than half of our league games this season.

Postscript: it is frustrating that none of or forward or midfield players seem interested in attacking balls in the six yard box. McGurk, who I thought did ok, put six or seven good crosses into the box, and there was not a white shirt within twenty yards of the ball. How do we expect to score if we do not get bodies in the box ?

 

[DIW]

Agree with pretty much everything that has been said. Our 'forwards' are next to useless. Enoch looked effective last season but has been dreadful so far this year. Tiryaki I doubt will be be good enough, but as someone else mentioned maybe more than 5-10 minutes would be a good idea. I could go on but the points have been made well by others.

Do these sponsors who choose MoM actually watch the game? In the last two home matches their choices have been met with incredulous laughter from the Kop. Baxter today was anonymous for vast periods. MoM my arse. I would probably have gone for Taylor who has bounced back well and looked very good in the air.

And what the hell do we have to do to get a penalty?

 

[drwhoman]

CHERRIES

Les made the same point about attacking balls in the box RLC. Disappointingly he said that they were as poor during the game as they had been at training the day before! Mid table is all we can hope for unless we can find a loanee able to score a few goals. Enoch is off the pace and there are questionmarks about Mustafa. Still give him a go there is no harm to see if a goal boosts his confidence which must be pretty low.

 

[Tartantranmere64]

Looks like Robbo is out for another couple of weeks. According to what he said on Twitter he had a setback but will be back in a fortnight. That's probably why Les never mentioned him in the build up to yesterday's game.

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

Reasons to be cheerful

Looking hard for positives.

1. Another clean sheet. Last season, we would have probably lost 1-0 to a late goal.
2. Only one booking yesterday.
3. There's not much wrong. We don't concede many and we create enough chances to win most games. Morale is good. We just need a couple of our "strikers" to hit form - or find a good young loanee.
4. We have a straight-talking manager who doesn't whinge. Even though we had most of the play, had two good penalty shouts and should have won, he gave Bournemouth credit and admitted the ref could have give the Cherries two penalties.

 

[Boz]

I'm unsure about the merits of Bournemouth's two penalty claims, from where I was sat, didn't have any moments when "we were lucky there, thanks ref" flashed across my mind. The one where Akins had his heels clipped in the box, seemed nailed on from my viewpoint, less sure about the handball claim for Rovers.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

The handball incident was right in front of me and I thought it was a nailed-on penalty, but in truth we did not deserve to win the game.

 

[Sparky]

Immediately after the game I was very negative but another clean sheet and one of the best records in the league helped......but

Once again as with a few others, I have to question some of Les' decisions:

1. Labadie. Yes he hasnt exactly been on top form but he can take decent set pieces and poses a genuine goal threat (when no-one else does at the moment). He simply must be in the team when we're not scoring. Its not Welsh' fault he cant take corners so Joss could take them....but why not Weir, or McGurk, or even Buchanan !!

2. Weir. The opposite. Seems to be non-existent and would rather have Joss in or even Max Power. Robbie hasnt performed for a while so lets pull him out and shake things up.

3. Enoch. He should be dropped. I have big concerns whether Tiriyaki is good enough but he deserves a run of games at the very least. He cannot do any worse than Enoch. Failing that, change from the 4-3-3 at home at least, and throw McGurk up front alongside Tiriyaki or Enoch. McGurk is doing nothing at the moment playing wide.

4. MOM - Everyone around me found it amusing. I assumed the sponsors were Everton fans. I was a little disappointed with Baxter as I had high hopes for him. He's not the quickest but lets give him another few games yet before making a decision.

We're looking more and more desperate for Robbo & Devaney to come back but they cannot be rushed but unless we start scoring, as RLC says, I fear we'll drop like a stone....

 

[Higgy]

Agree with everyone Mustafa must be given a chance and contrary to some opinions I think he might come good with a few goals (if not prolific) and some assists.

Also agree with Sparky that I think someone technical and mobile like McGurk should be in the hole or up with the fronnt man. Given he is one of the better players it would be good to see him on the ball more - and he does know where the onion bag is. Might miss his crosses while devaney gets fit, but naybe we can play through the middle a bit and get Zoum outwode for now as a stop gap.

 

[bigmart]

a poor game a poor performance from us and the lack of goals is very worrying as we dont have a goalscorer in the squad

 

[SonkORLY?]

B'mouth were well prepared to deal with our system, playing Cooper (who is usually a dodgy centre-half, but was my MOTM on the day) between the lines, in the same space occupied by Baxter. At times in the opening 45 they leisurely kept possession in their own half, with Akins, McGurk and Baxter not really having the the awareness (or the energy levels?) to press higher up the pitch in response. Our transitions from defence to attack were too direct as usual and unsurprisingly Enoch was often left isolated - at one point he did excellently well to drop in and win a flick-on, yet Akins, McGurk and Baxter were still some way behind play, running back up the pitch after defending. Akins' hard-work in this regard (getting forward quickly after defending) often goes unnoticed, but he can only humanly be expected to do so much.

Second half we were less direct and a little better. Disagree with Higgy that we need to change our system, but definitely think Enoch should be dropped - we all have varying degrees of doubt over Muzzy, but can he be any worse really? He's probably also more suited to "making something" out of these useless long-balls we quite often resort to.