League Two Rovers v Stevenage

[Rockford's Love Child]

I think Hockenhull must be injured. Burton is back at Marine apparently, so Mellon clearly rates Taylor more highly.

 

[Boz]

Grim stuff so far could be 0-5 down

 

[Sparky]

Sitting on a sun bed by the pool following the Twitter feed. Admittedly not too reliable, but sounds like it the visitors are dominating

 

[Ian]

Yeah, doesnt sound good so far. We need a few chances.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Yes, sounds like Doohan has kept us in it. The back three not dominant enough, particularly Jameson, judging by the commentary. Not our first choice defence of course.

 

[Sparky]

The visitors take the lead and sounds like it’s deserved

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

The visitors take the lead and sounds like it’s deserved

Error by Jameson who seems to be struggling badly.

 

[Boz]

Defensively it has been shambolic and while Doohan has kept the score respectable, it’s clear that he doesn’t have much confidence in Jamieson either.

What does concern me is that there’s been little of the good attacking play from pre-season. We’ve barely had a shot and our first corner went out for a throw-in without anyone touching it.

It reminds me of Rob Edwards first league game in charge v York. That bad.

 

[Charlton1975]

Hmmm, doesnt sound like the 'goals, goals, goals' football we have been promised, unless we misunderstood and it meant 'goals, goals, goals' for the opposition teams.

Only half time though, hopefully a kick up the arse from MM and we get on the front foot second half.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

1-1, Hemmings.

McAlear with the assist.

 

[Ian]

Seem to have woke up now.

 

[Sparky]

Behind again after a free header in the box. Clearly missing Davies (and Clarke?)

 

[Ian]

Defence sounds all over the place at times. Need some experienced heads in there.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Jameson and Robinson simply not good enough defensively by the sound of it. We need Turnbull and / or Davies back.

 

[Sparky]

I wasn’t at the game and of course it is very early days but pre match I was wondering a few things.
Micky made it very clear pre season we’d be playing 5-3-2 and has brought in players for that system. That is fine but it means every opponent knows how we’ll set up. Do we have a plan B? Possibly not because we only have Morris and hawkes as true wide men if we wanted say 4-4-2. We’ve overloaded ourselves with centre backs and centre mids and it could lead to an inflexible and rigid/predictable system.
We all mentioned an ageing squad last season but have we gone too far the other way? Have we got any leaders out there willing to give a rollicking when needed? Micky always liked his senior players like Scottie, McNulty and Clarke who ran things on and off the pitch. Do we still have that? Has the chairman given too much weight to Vaughan’s approach?
When fit we still have Davies, Byrne Morris; Hemmings plus OConnor and cogley who have experience but are any of them natural leaders? I’m not sure at all. Doohan by the sounds of it made some good saves but again I’m thinking do we need Murphy’s know how out there? I just wonder last season we weren’t far off from the top 7. Arguably not much needed to change, but we’ve really changed a lot both in terms of style of play and personnel, much younger players and was it really needed? We finished 5 points off 3rd don’t forget.
I knew it wouldn’t be easy today but at home to a side who finished 21st last season couldn’t have been an easier start. It sounds like we were bullied at times and have we lost that steel by losing spearing and Clarke.

Maybe I’m going overboard but did we really need to change so much?

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

I think we have to give a new style of play more than ninety minutes. The issue today seemed to be that we were bullied defensively and gave cheap goals away. Turnbull and Davies will give us leadership at the back, but I do wonder why we signed Jameson given his reputation at Oldham.

You would expect it to take a while for the attacking players to gel, and it seemed that McAlear and Cogley had some good moments.

Three of the four promoted teams played 352 last season, and we have two very good wing backs.

 

[frenchrover]

First game of the season I know, and supposedly a "developing team", and i'm desperately trying not to be negative, but....that was shocking. Far worse than anything we had to suffer under Hill. Apart from Cogley and Doohan the defence was non-existent, totally, totally shambolic. Hemmings took his chance well but spent most of the game either trying to support the defence or at best, playing as an attacking midfielder. As for the rest of the "midfield" well, totally anonymous, which was why we presumably resorted to "hoofball" for the majority of the game.
Early days, I keep reminding myself, but it was difficult to see where improvement is going to come from. It's going to be a long season until we get the likes of Davies and Morris back, but from joint bottom the only way is up.....i hope

 

[Sparky]

Yes only one game of course with another 45 to go. I just wonder have we put all our eggs in one basket and are we missing a spearing or Clarke type character to give us some steel
I love Micky but his recruitment at times has been questionable (not always). Jameson was released by relegated Oldham so you do wonder why we snapped him up. Was it desperation before we realised we could bring turnbull in?

 

[Boz]

On another day we could have let in 8 or more. What planet the sponsors were on nominating Hemmings MoM, who took his goal well, but made little impact otherwise, I do not know. Doohan made two or three excellent saves, some good claims and kept the scoreline respectable. There were a couple of headers off our line too, a sitter missed and a Jamieson back-pass only just going the right(for Rovers) side of the post.

Will post at greater length when I’m home. Not happy.

 

[ONIGP]

Ouch! Desperately need Davies and Turnbull fit. A better second half than first but the error strewn beating we took in the first makes it difficult to argue that we deserved a draw. Stevenage are at best an average side and I'll be surprised if they challenge. Rough, tough, won everything in the air but that was more than sufficient. Honourable mentions for Doohan and Cogley. Hopefully things can only get better.