League Two Rovers v Harrogate

[Sparky]

The stats say it all. 60% possession.

12 shots.
1 on target

 

[Ian]

Yes Sparky, highly frustrating. The best striker out there tonight plays for Harrogate and they are struggling in 20th! Those in charge of recruitment need to take a serious look at themselves. We can't go another season with barebones strikers.

 

[mellow submarine]

Yes Sparky, highly frustrating. The best striker out there tonight plays for Harrogate and they are struggling in 20th! Those in charge of recruitment need to take a serious look at themselves. We can't go another season with barebones strikers.

Wondering , do Tranmere have a smaller budget than Harrogate ?

 

[dollar'sbloke]

Against better teams the full backs won't dare go up and that stops TRanmere completely, diamond is a nonsense.

 

[Am on mobile]

Again it was poor it was a lovely free kick but goshwe are shit uptop and a piss poor turn out by the fans

 

[Keith Hill (Bolton)]

Got the result right (again) scoring wrong way round.
Hewelt did well, but my mom was Bristow.
Until thirty minutes had gone the diamond was woeful, but a couple of tweeks, led to the improvement up until half time. Second half could have gone either way.
The diamond has improved our play for sure, but it isn't the answer yet to get wins. A lot of work on the system is needed, especially going forward out of our own half, when playing out from the goalie.
Have we got a plan B?
it was an entertaining game. Except for the first half hour!

 

[Sparky]

Karl Robinson was at the match tonight. May mean nothing but interesting

 

[Ian]

Karl Robinson was at the match tonight. May mean nothing but interesting

That's probably put him off !

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Karl Robinson was at the match tonight. May mean nothing but interesting

In all seriousness, we are a club lacking direction at the moment and he would be a good appointment. I still can't see it happening though.

 

[Boz]

In Micky's last game in charge we got thumped at home by a Newport team only a couple of places above the two we've drawn with under Dawes. The lack of quality in certain areas of squad is the main difficulty and the change of management doesn't seem to have caused a significant impact either way.

I agree with Keith Hill than Bristow had a good game. A couple of great runs and he seems to have become smarter defensively and made good use of possession.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

In Micky's last game in charge we got thumped at home by a Newport team only a couple of places above the two we've drawn with under Dawes.

However, Dawes has the benefit of the new manager bounce whereas Mellon had been slugging it out with an inadequate squad for months. If Dawes had been in charge for thirty-odd games this season, I am far from convinced we would have stayed out of relegation trouble. I think Mellon did a decent job to keep us stable this season.

I agree about the lack of quality.

 

[bigmart]

Karl Robinson was at the match tonight. May mean nothing but interesting

Several of his family are rovers fans

 

[ADD]

Enjoyed the game overall. Yes we didn't win again but the desire to go for a victory even if we didn't get it works for me rather than the "pragmatic" style of the majority of this season particularly as the players will take time to "gel" with the new system. Poor in the first 20 minutes however as we started slowly and you could see Dawes trying to get the players to up the tempo with only 10 minutes gone. Good goal for them - with a great cross. The first 20 minutes of the second half were much better as others have said though as the half went on we also were opened up a couple of times as mentioned. Hewelt had a much better game with a couple of excellent saves which kept us in it. Hopefully his confidence will grow from that. Thought Hughes was good and will only get better with a run in the side - think MM missed a trick there as he is a clever intelligent player at this level. On the other hand Mumbongo simply shouldn't be playing. Burton or even Taylor should be starting ahead of him - simply isn't up to it. No point whatsoever playing him as he will be out the door in June. Burton and Taylor also might well be as well but at least it is worth seeing them more in action.
Harrogate I felt were decent and for those dismissive of them due their League position yes that's true but their recent form was better than ours with 2 wins and 2 draws from their last 5 games before last night so not exactly complete pushovers.

 

[Boz]

However, Dawes has the benefit of the new manager bounce whereas Mellon had been slugging it out with an inadequate squad for months. If Dawes had been in charge for thirty-odd games this season, I am far from convinced we would have stayed out of relegation trouble. I think Mellon did a decent job to keep us stable this season.

I agree about the lack of quality.

A new manager bounce isn’t a given though, as Duncan Ferguson at FGR illustrates, so think have to give Dawes some credit for that. If he’d been in charge the whole season, no idea, though early indications are he hasn’t a plan B, just tries to make the diamond work better.
Micky was unlucky with injuries. The lack of depth in the squad has been a big factor this season. If all the key players had stayed fit we were probably a decent striker away from being play-off contenders.

 

[Boz]

ADD, think you make a fair point about the quality of our opponent last night, Harrogate keep popping up with results that just keep them out of danger, while there are a couple of players in their squad, not just Armstrong, would happily welcome to Rovers.

I don’t think Mumbongo is FL standard but he is improving, more prepared to get stuck in, actually winning a few balls in the air. Should have done better with that shot though.

The attacking side of Hughes’ game is good, probably worth giving him a run out to see if he can cut out the sloppy/over-ambitious passes and work on the defensive side of his game. Very much a work in progress for me.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

A new manager bounce isn’t a given though, as Duncan Ferguson at FGR illustrates, so think have to give Dawes some credit for that. If he’d been in charge the whole season, no idea, though early indications are he hasn’t a plan B, just tries to make the diamond work better.
Micky was unlucky with injuries. The lack of depth in the squad has been a big factor this season. If all the key players had stayed fit we were probably a decent striker away from being play-off contenders.

I don't think we are good enough in the final third to play the open game that Dawes favours. We don't have enough of a goalscoring threat in the squad to simply try and outscore the opposition. In the last two matches against poor opposition - and yes, Harrogate are in twentieth position and are poor, despite short term form - our keeper has been busier than the opposition keeper.

The victories we have achieved this season have been based on defensive solidity and grinding out one nil wins. I think that is the right approach if you have limited goalscoring threats in the squad. I think Mellon's 'pragmatic' approach was absolutely focussed on achieving a victory, whereas the current style seems to place more emphasis on playing football in the middle third of the pitch for its own sake.

Each to their own, but I preferred several of the recent performances under Mellon - Orient, Stevenage, Salford - to the last two games.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Hughes was given more opportunities by Mellon than some are suggesting. As the season progressed, he was clearly preferred to McAlear.

However, the 442 formation does not suit him, which I think is why Mellon did not use him regularly. He is not a winger and he is not strong enough physically to play in a two man midfield. The diamond suits his game because he has bodies around him and always has an option for a pass.

 

[Boz]

RLC, why do you think Micky’s pragmatic approach didn’t work against the likes of strugglers like Pools & Newport for example, while we were only a fluffed penalty away from dropping points against Crawley?

It will be interesting to see how we fare playing the diamond against one of the promotion contenders in Carlisle, up next.

 

[Am on mobile]

I know someone who works high up at the club and as he says if you give your manager a shit budget and poor quality players what do you expect him to do looking at the forward line last night we need to shift all of them out as nd get some proper forwards in and spend some money on them

 

[keep the faith]

I may be easily pleased but I enjoyed the game, yes we were sloppy at times but at least we tried to make a go of it, looking at the players we have a Klopp/conte as manager couldn,t do much better, if we are to progress we need to decide are we going to carry on as we are or just keep trying to unearth future players we can sell on, is the problem the owners, recruitment, manager or do we only buy players on the cheap? I don,t expect rovers to get promotion as of right I just expect us to at least have the ambition of actually wanting to achieve that goal.