League Two Stevenage v Rovers

[Sparky]

I think with their penalty claims It was inevitable they would hope the ref would try and even it out and give them one eventually. Thankfully the ref held firm.

re murphy, I remember when he came in last season and Clarke and davies just looked more at ease with joe behind them. As RLC said his handling was very good and he just has that know how and is calm and relaxed.

bigmart we played 4-4-2 for the most part. Jameson came on late in the game when they were going for it

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Stevenage are a typical Steve Evans team with the style of football and antics they employ.

What formation did we play

Hawkes did particularly well with the penalty I thought.

There was a lot of gamesmanship and Piergianni in particular was in his face, but he kept his composure. The keeper guessed the right way so his placement had to be perfect and right in the corner, which it was.

You could make the argument that Hawkes is the most natural finisher we have at the club.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

There has been a lot of comment on our 'terrible' recent form. However, it is worth bearing in mind that our recent run of fixtures has been awful.

The last seven matches have all been against teams in the top half, and five of those games were against sides in the top seven. We have come out of those seven games with nine points, which is actually a reasonable return, and we were obviously without key players for much of that period.

The next six matches are all against sides currently in the bottom seven, so there is an opportunity to make progress now.

 

[Am on mobile]

wow hasn't joe m got a wired-shaped head, just got up, and my body hurts from such a busy day yesterday only a 16hr shift doing sod all today, great win and we should slag them off more often if that is the result

 

[Goody Two Shoes]

We gained eight points from the previous fixtures this season against five of the teams we’re playing next (nine points from six games if you add the Rochdale game during that period); some sort of parity with the points gained against the top teams RLC refers to.
It does highlight that league position is no guarantee of points in the bag and could be argued is a summing up of our current mid-table position.
However, I agree the next six games should rightly be seen as an opportunity to progress, providing the team are up for a run of far from glamorous fixtures (not many of them, to be fair, in League Two!).

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

We gained eight points from the previous fixtures this season against five of the teams we’re playing next (nine points from six games if you add the Rochdale game during that period); some sort of parity with the points gained against the top teams RLC refers to.
It does highlight that league position is no guarantee of points in the bag and could be argued is a summing up of our current mid-table position.
However, I agree the next six games should rightly be seen as an opportunity to progress, providing the team are up for a run of far from glamorous fixtures (not many of them, to be fair, in League Two!).

However, three of those five games (Hartlepool, Newport, Harrogate) were away from home, and we are yet to play second-bottom Crawley. Four of the six upcoming games I referenced are at Prenton Park.

We also did not have the January recruits when we played the reverse fixtures.

In any case, a ratio of eight from five is better than nine from seven which corroborates my original point.

 

[Ian]

With a few players coming back and the new additions hopefully we can get some consistency in our play. Any news on Walker?

 

[Sparky]

Hawkes did particularly well with the penalty I thought.

There was a lot of gamesmanship and Piergianni in particular was in his face, but he kept his composure. The keeper guessed the right way so his placement had to be perfect and right in the corner, which it was.

You could make the argument that Hawkes is the most natural finisher we have at the club.

Yes hawkes is now joint top scorer for us in the league with 8 goals alongside hemmings. A very good return for a winger when you consider josh is normally taken off at some point in most matches whereas Hemmings played every minute up until recently.

On paper we have a real chance now to pick up some more wins over the next month or two. We’ve dropped points away recently against the likes of Doncaster, Crewe and Stockport, when they were relatively out of form, however as RLC suggests at home it’s a different prospect and we should really go for it as we’ve nothing to lose.

 

[Sparky]

Interesting post match interview with Murphy. Says for the last 4/5 years he’s felt physically very fit and that in the second part of last season he was playing some of his best ever football.
I did wonder at the time whether we needed to bring in Doohan when Joe would have been fine. Unless it was part of the youth and development route but clearly if it was, it hasn’t worked

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Interesting post match interview with Murphy. Says for the last 4/5 years he’s felt physically very fit and that in the second part of last season he was playing some of his best ever football.
I did wonder at the time whether we needed to bring in Doohan when Joe would have been fine. Unless it was part of the youth and development route but clearly if it was, it hasn’t worked

Yes, there have been rumours that Murphy has been struggling with fitness but it sounds from that interview like he is happy to carry on playing. However, I still think we need to sign a keeper in the summer.

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

I did wonder at the time whether we needed to bring in Doohan when Joe would have been fine. Unless it was part of the youth and development route but clearly if it was, it hasn’t worked

Signing Ross Doohan on a free and then selling him six months later for £100,000 sounds like good business to me, although we have surely dropped a few points because we then played a goalkeeper without any league experience.

The youth and development policy is making money, but the downside seems to be there is not always a plan to replace the players who move on. We replaced Nevitt with a slightly better player but not Doohan. Perhaps we will do better selling players and replacing them during the summer transfer window. It’s early days yet.