Walsall 2 Rovers 0

[Rockford's Love Child]

Woeful second half tonight. Up until half time the game was tight, we were playing some decent football and looking reasonably solid at the back, but our inability to score goals is really costing us against the top sides. Walsall's front four were a constant threat, epitomised by Brandy skinning Goody and Ash for pace for the penalty. By contrast, Akpro looks really out of sorts and Sidibe is not a natural goalscorer.

Once we were behind our peformance was as poor as any in recent weeks, with the ball repeatedly given away, no creativity and no threat from the fornt two. When your top scoring striker ends up out on the wing you know you have got problems.

As three of the top six are apparently as inconsistent and mediocre as us, we might just scrape in, but it is going to be touch and go.

 

[SonkORLY?]

Victories for Brentford, Bournemouth and Orient - as well as Walsall obviously. Crunch time.

 

[drwhoman]

WALSALL

Simple sad fact - we have lost half the team from the successful early part of the season and the replacements are not up to it. This said, to put it in perspective - a good season by recent (low) standards even if we do not make the top six. Shame we lost Cassidy who does not appear to be getting a game at Wolves while Gibson remains on the injury list. The loss of Wallace and Robinson has also really hurt us.
On an unrelated note I see Labadie is now turning out for Torquay. A decent player who had an attitude problem.

 

[Ian]

Ohh dear. No fight, no desire. What's going on? If the players we have now aren't technically as good as the first half of the season, they could at least show passion and desire. I was hoping from more up front with Sidibe and JLAA but we have lost that cutting edge. The squad should be fighting for 90 mins.

Same situation as Saturday. No leader in there. Someone that can grab the bull by the horns. No Wallace or Robinson. Whos stepping up to the plate in their absence? It's not good enough.

 

[Sparky]

I think Drwhoman sums it up quite well. A result that was disappointing but not unexpected given their form and our injuries.

Lets be honest, with the current side we have out, we are an average league one side at best. We're missing too many big players and replaced them with average ones.

Even the players who were in the team at the beginning of the season e.g. Palmer, must look around himself and think he has gone from having Wallace alongside him, an in form Robbo and McGurk on the wings, Cass in front and Gibson behind. Thats all gone now - and no one can be blamed as the injury list is ridiculous and on our resources, we cannot bring in the same quality.

The worrying thing from Ronnies quite scathing comments, is the work rate and attitude. But this ties in with confidence which despite the Oldham win, must be be very low. Ronnie will have to earn his corn trying to lift their spirits and belief.

I dont know how he can change it for Sat. Kay and Black may feature, Daniels too.

Our only hope now is that due to the inconsistencies of other sides, we scrape into the play offs - and get Robbo and McGurk fit, perhaps bring Gibson in, but other than that it aint looking great.

 

[Tartantranmere64]

Ronnie: “It’s not good enough. It’s as simple as that. It was powder puff, mentally weak. “Everything that could go wrong went wrong. There was no guts, no determination, no sharpness."


A repeat of what he said after Yeovil.



Too many heads dropping when we go a goal behind. Need to lift ourselves for MK on Saturday - they are in terrible form and really have nothing much to play for. We should try to target this as one of our "must win" games. We still need four wins from somewhere to get into the play-offs.

 

[roverstillidie]

Hopefully Ronnie's comments might kick a few players up the backside: players like Holmes, Zoom, OFW, Palmer and JLAA who are probably guilty of complacency.

As well as the established players being complacent, some of the players playing now were probably complaining when they weren't playing when we had a good team earlier in the season, now they have the chance to play and are simply not performing (with the exception of Kay). When the squad gets back to full strength and these players are back on the bench/in the stands they will only have themselves to blame (if they're still here).

 

[SonkORLY?]

I don't think it's complacency. I think it's just the vicious cycle of poor form breeding low confidence breeding poor form.

 

[DIW]

Well one team from the top 7 is going to miss out on the playoffs, and, at the moment you have to say it looks like us. That final game against Bournemouth could be quite painful.

 

[SonkORLY?]

Bournemouth are in worse form than us. It's Walsall and Orient I'm worried about.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

I would repeat what I said on here a couple of weeks ago: I think we have several mentally exhausted players in the side now. RM singled out the full backs for criticism; well they have played virtually every game this season.

Yesterday was similar to Yeovil in that we more than matched them for 50 minutes, but once we went behind we could not raise our game. We pushed our foot on the pedal and nothing happened. I don't think it is laziness so much as fatigue.

Ronnie's reaction is understandable as he is trying to somehow create a spark, but it can be dangerous to be too scathing about players in periods like this, as confidence could be pushed even lower.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Bournemouth are in worse form than us. It's Walsall and Orient I'm worried about.

On current form Walsall will definitely make the top six, as their points per game ratio in the last couple of months must be much better than any of the top six, bar perhaps Yeovil. They are injury free and scoring goals for fun.

 

[DIW]

Bournemouth are in worse form than us. It's Walsall and Orient I'm worried about.

Well that depend on how you look at it. Over the last 5 games we have more points than Bournemouth. Over the last 10 they have more than us. Before their blip they had been on a hell of a run - but won last night and I would suspect will be back on track a bit. On the other hand we have been struggling for quite some time. I agree that Walsall and Orient are a worry - especially Walsall. We have a tricky away game on Sat against the Franchise whereas Walsall are at home and the Cherries at Oldham. For some reason Yeovil don't appear to be playing. We can't be out of the top 6 on Saturday (unless we get absolutely mauled - and things have surprised me less) but we could be hanging on by the absolute skin of our teeth which I thought was unthinkable a few months ago. I've been pretty positive for some moths now but the signs are not good at all.

To be honest we have been right ****ed over by bad luck to some extent. Losing the spine of your team in Cass, Gibbo and Wallace would screw any team in League 1. And that's before you go on to Akpa's injury, the loss of Robbo etc.

However we do still have a chance but need to start scoring.

 

[SonkORLY?]

At this point I even think just keeping Wallace fit would have made a gigantic difference.

 

[DIW]

At this point I even think just keeping Wallace fit would have made a gigantic difference.

I totally agree.

 

[Ian]

Teams who can score goals will get a chance to go up. Teams mentioned like Walsall who seem menacing up front at the moment can score goals and win games. We are struggling to score more than 1 a game and will be the reason we miss out if we don't improve.

We have been unlucky with injuries but that's the way it is. We can either feel sorry for ourselves or roll our sleeves up and get on with it. We are still in a great position and its not too late to turn this around.

 

[bigmart]

Agree Ian lack of goals is the big worry, also lack of creativity withouth wallace robbo & mcgurk. JLAA has been fairly disappointing since returning from suspension and needs to step up more as well as some others.

I will be very surprised if Bournemouth dont make the play offs and expect them to finish the season quite strongly. Think there will be a few teams in the mix for the last play off place us yeovil walsall the most likely.

 

[Boz]

I'm not a fan of Ronnie singling out players either as individuals or by position; were the full-backs any worse than the forwards or central defenders? It seemed that the Walsall penalty owed something to the failings of the latter.

Our away form hasn't been good, Colchester notwithstanding. The Franchise are equally erratic, great win at home to Donny and draw in Sheffield only to be beaten by Shrewsbury. I'd look to pack the midfield and take a point, unless we get a lucky break.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

I'm not a fan of Ronnie singling out players either as individuals or by position; were the full-backs any worse than the forwards or central defenders? It seemed that the Walsall penalty owed something to the failings of the latter.

Not noticeably to me to be honest. Goody and Ash won a lot in the air, but were caught high up the pitch in the build up to the penalty incident. Grigg, Brandy and Paterson are the kind of nippy, mobile players they were always likely to struggle with.

I think in his interview RM was really contrasting Goody's willingness to play through injury for 60 minutes with the attitude shown by some of those around him.

I would like to see us try and impose our own game on MK on Saturday rather than matching them up in midfield. Apart from Sheff Utd away, I can't recall a single game this season where we have played 5 in the middle and played well, or even won a point.

 

[Gray]

I'm not a fan of Ronnie singling out players either as individuals or by position; were the full-backs any worse than the forwards or central defenders? It seemed that the Walsall penalty owed something to the failings of the latter.

Our away form hasn't been good, Colchester notwithstanding. The Franchise are equally erratic, great win at home to Donny and draw in Sheffield only to be beaten by Shrewsbury. I'd look to pack the midfield and take a point, unless we get a lucky break.

I was quite surprised by this, nobody covered themselves in glory but the problem certainly wasn't the full backs IMHO. As much as I love Goodi I thought he was to blame for the pen, losing the ball high up the pitch and there were times in the second-half where we didn't close down quickly enough.

Quite simply we gave the ball away far too often and created absolutely nothing. We're struggling all over the park and will be lucky to make the play-offs unless something changes.