[Archived] Rovers 0 Spurs 1

[Tris]

About ten minutes from the end, the camera focussed on Mark Hughes

I think you'll find it focussed fair and square on Manchester Blue.

Hughes was just stood in the way.

[Kiwiwannabe]

As we left the ground we overheard someone say, " Same old ****e."

As I left the game I heard someone say, "well nevermind, we'll have to see how the other results went"

[Alan75]

Whether Ive become immune to Rovers results or whether Ive lost all interest I dont know. Until I switched on my pc tonight, I haven’t watched, listened or thought about football since leaving the ground last night. I had even forgot about the cup draw. In fact when I got back to the car last night I didn’t even tune into the radio, I just listened to a cd.

In the previous games the Rovers have shown an improvement in work rate, but they never showed enough creative ability to kill off teams.

Although Rovers had plenty of possession, Saturday there was no creative edge or ideas in the Rovers team capable of making a break through. Which has been the crux of the problem all season. Rovers don’t have a player with the imagination to provide that bit of magic that will split a resolute defence, nor a proven goal scorer. Whilst Dickov will cover every blade of grass he doesn’t have that killer instinct in front of goal, unlike Spurs who had Keane.

As for Gallagher, on yesterdays performance he has a lot to learn and at present he's too light weight, getting knocked off every ball.

Once again Nissa proved hes not a left back and his lack of vision to lay off the ball is very worrying.

Ah well my immune system cant be that good, Ive started to remember Saturdays game again.

[colin]

Another lacklustre performance. The sort of game that saw us go down with Hodgson & Kidd.

A complete lack of invention and thrust. Pumping high balls to Dickov is a pointless waste, similarly playing NEJ on the left wing is asking too much, he's a central defender for goodness sake and he proved his worth there at City.

Ggggggr. Angry,

[thenodrog]

Bothroyd started quite well but later seemed to be falling out with team mates.

He did start well but Jol had done his homework well and by bringing Gardner on to go 5 at the back stifled him.

One thing I did notice was that Bothroyd makes very early runs as soon as he sees a team mate recieving a pass and by doing so frequently ends up turning back from an offside position. As soon as our midfielders cotton on to his game and begin to provide a few quick / early first time through balls without needing the obligatory 3 touches and a good look around the sooner we will see the best of him.

I think his frustration with team mates was simply down to their tardy service.

btw Just to cheer some of our more morose contributors, although I am probably clutching straws here ....... a win and a loss is 50% better than 2 draws.

[neozijian]

i think the next game against palace will be crucial in shaping our season. if we win, which we should, then we can look forward to less stressful days ahead. if we lose or draw then...

i think by end-March we should have ourselves at least in 14th place.

if not, a late surge by Southampton or one of the newly promoted clubs could catch us offguard

in 1999, we were 16th with 31 pts from 28 games (or 28 from 31, i'm not sure) and sitting quite comfy above the bottom 4. then we managed to pick up 4 pts from the last 10 games (or 7 from 7), including a loss to then about-to-set-(but didnt)-lowest-ever-pts-in-premiership Nottingham Forest. Southampton were way below us at that stage but they had a late surge which kept them aloat.

we've had good end-season results in the past few years, and hopefully this will continue.

[thenodrog]

We have a bottom 5 squad neoizjan. We just have to make sure that it doesn't turn into a bottom 3 one.

[Flopsy]

wait a second, Rovers have the majority of the ball, has a large amount of pressure, ball breaks, midfielder runs 3/4 the length of the pitch past a number of amusingly weak tackles, squares it for the striker to score. Rovers conceed a goal on the counter. Now where have i seen that before? The minute Brown started that run I knew he was going to score. Why? Because I have been following Rovers for quite a while. It always happens. That will teach people to be confident in Rovers, always expect the unexpected.

[Nayef]

I don't think it's been mentioned but shouldn't Atouba have received a straight red for what he did to Dickov?

Maybe Bothroyd should follow his Atouba's example and the next time he wants to kick someone, do it discreetly.

Had Spurs been down to 10 men, there may have been more space for Gallagher who I have to say cannot cut it at this level judging by that game. Moments when most players in the prem would have crossed, he took his time to compose himself on the ball and the moment was gone. How many times was he dispossessed?

Monday morning blues.

[BuckyRover]

I have never felt Gallagher would be anything more than average in the Premiership.

Admittedly I haven't seen him play that often, only against Fulham did he do well.

I hope he proves me wrong, but I rate Bothroyd much higher (how tall is he? he is a giant)

[CAPT KAYOS]

Im amazed that people find it so surprising that we got beat.

Fair enough I didn't see the Fulham game but was at Norwich and Citeh, and I didn't see anything again on Saturday to make me feel any different. I came off after seeing a very poor game played with two poor teams.

Basically we got found out, and its interesting to see posters are now making the same comments I have made over the last couple of weeks re our limitations - especially re Dickov and Emerton being played on the wrong side.

Very few positives can be taken from the game, but I thought Neill played well (good grief - its only taken 1 and half seasons) and Todd and Short did ok.

I might stir a few people here, but if we had anybody else of any capability to fill the central midfield role I would be saying drop Ferguson as as somebody has said he has had more bad games than good and is too slow at passing - and as nobody else noticed his shouting at other players more than often when its his own fault. Not denying he is good player but he needs to start doing alot more in my book.

Thought Tugay played well and was surprised he was taken off - but oh for the Tugay of old as I feel there is only him that has that creative ability of making that killer pass, and a shame that age is catching up on his little legs.

Thompson as I have mentioned before will not be the saviour as everybody thinks he will be, and at leasts he shoots but he tries to do too much and overcomplicates things rather than keeping them simple.

Reid and Emerton where poor considering - but see above re Emerton.

On the attacking aspect we look absolutely clueless, and its only because we have played some poor teams recently this has not been commented upon.

I juts hope that the 3 teams that people seem to think are going to be below us are knocking about (poss Norwich) because at the moment I just can't see it and will say again that I hope January is not too late in coming.

Will be an interesting next copuple of weeks - and the arrival of the FA Cup game could just go to being a preview to the type of games we will be playing next season.

[den]

I thought Saturday was a day, where we were crying out for an Andy Cole.

BIG BIG mistake.

[philipl]

I have a nasty feeling about this one. Spuds won at Everton earlier in the season and their mean defence could well achieve a shut out if their under-performing front line grabs the opening goal at Ewood.

I would have preferred 0-0.

I totally agree with den that Andy Cole was the big missing factor on Saturday.

The Evening Standard's take on the game. At first I thought they had got their geography horribly wrong but then realised the number of times Spuds have taken players from Yorkshire clubs.

Edited December 6, 2004 by philipl

[Hughesy]

Saturday we controlled the game and had alot of possesion. The problem was that Tottenham didnt give us time to play with the ball. It was a case of nocking it around but with very little space to run into.

Spurs worked hard and played the counter attack well.

I cold help but think that some of Hughes Tactical decisions were wrong.

Gallagher and Tugay off?

Was it just me or was Tugay one of our better midfielders on the day.

Then he decided to play matteo in midfield when he had flitty on the bench. Why?

[Realbluesman]

It's funny reading through the messages today but we all seem to be watching the same game but seeing different things. After being a season ticket holder for a lot of years my life has changed and I can't get to Ewood much this year. I have watched us on TV and was getting more upbeat. But I got to Ewood on saturday and you see different things when you see the game. I ended up very down on Saturday and like some others couldn't bring myself to think about the game until today.

My take is that we look to be very weak all over the park, except for Brad and Toddy. Many people will call me for being a pessimist but this is what I saw :

Shorty - legs have finally gone but tries

Nisa - never has been & never will be a left back

Lucas - after a brill first season has been the consistantly worse passer of the ball in the side, but was one of the better players on sat

Reidy - worked his socks off but has yet to prove he's Premiership class

Toogs - played well until his legs went, we need to replace him as his days are past

Barry - very ineffectual, didn't dominate midfield and easily brushed off the ball, is he good enough to run a midfield in the Premiership?

Emerton - in the last 10 minutes when he moved to the right he was ace, up til then he was total sh.... , to me he was the cause of their goal with the way he returned the ball immediately to Toogs without taking any responsibility(as usual)

Gally - looked very lightweight and had little efect apart from the one shot

Dickov - wasn't good enough playing for Leicester last year and no better for us. Simply not a quality striker no matter how hard he tries. We can't rely on him to get us the goals

Bothroyd - changed things when he came on, but can he score?

Matteo - is he seriously still getting a game in a Rovers shirt - he makes Baggio look productive

I'm sure I will get lots of abuse for this from fanatics on the site who thought we weren't bad, but let's get real!! We are a very very poor side. Souness has left Hughes with a very difficult job to do.

[baxendenblue]

Could someone tell me what has happened to Mickey Gray - rumour on Saturday was that he wont play for Rovers again - Why?

We need some pace in the defence and an out and out left back who can push on when required has to be better than an out of position centre back.

Someone needs to tell Fergie to pass forwards sometime - starting to look like Ray Wilkins with his sideways passing!

We have no imagination only time we worried them was from set pieces and even then they werent too worried.

Must beat Palace!

Roll on January and hope Hughesy can pull something out of the hat _

Dickov, Gallagher, Bothroyd, Stead or Jansen - none are going to score the goals to keep us up.

[LeChuck]

Stead or Jansen - none are going to score the goals to keep us up.

I disagree...I've been saying it for a while but I think those two could form a great a partnership. Jansen has been showing signs that he is getting somewhere back towards the player of old, we have to give him a run in the side when he's fit to find out. Stead is still by far and away our best young prospect, he hasn't scored this season but at times he has still looked a class above the rest (Southampton for example) and he has hit some good shots that he was unlucky not to score with, I've no doubt the goals will come again for him. Collectively I think that partnership would have a good balance to it as well, although not up to Dickov standards niether are work-shy and I think they could be relied upon to supply a steady (boom boom?) stream of goals.

Dickov would still be very useful to bring on in the final half an hour or so to try and rattle defences if needs be, I just don't think that's the right way to approach a game from the off...as others have brushed on, there is a reason why, at 32, he has spent his whole career moving between Division One and relegation material in the Premiership...although it's obviously not through lack of effort.

[waggy]

i am still very upbeat about this season,since the two 4-0 drubbings we have steadily improved.january is going to be vital and hopefully hughes will have sounded out the players he wants,so we are not waiting till january 31st for the players ala boothroyd.

all said and done,we had plenty off possesion on sat yet created very few chances,that is down to the midfield/wingers.if we can get our money back on fergueson i would take it,tugay has started preforming but in my eyes should have left last summer.so hughes is going too be very busy in these next few weeks trying to get a squad to remain in the premier,and lets not forget he is untried in the transfer market.

[chris]

Dickov situation makes me laugh, when we win all the Dickov lovers come out and when we lose people note is not a goal scorer or has enough quality, some consistency people.

Last week some poor bloke got a bashing because he stated Dickov didn't win enough headers, and now 8 out of people are saying he's not good enough

I think it a case of maybe he is suitable for the more scrapy games, lower quality, scappy, and not for game when we need that bit of class

maybe more of a sub role would be better, I think he only got 1 goal in open play in 13/14 games but that goal and the pens came in the last third of the game

Edited December 6, 2004 by chris

[AndyC]

Bothroyd started quite well but later seemed to be falling out with team mates.

He did start well but Jol had done his homework well and by bringing Gardner on to go 5 at the back stifled him.

One thing I did notice was that Bothroyd makes very early runs as soon as he sees a team mate recieving a pass and by doing so frequently ends up turning back from an offside position. As soon as our midfielders cotton on to his game and begin to provide a few quick / early first time through balls without needing the obligatory 3 touches and a good look around the sooner we will see the best of him.

I think his frustration with team mates was simply down to their tardy service.

btw Just to cheer some of our more morose contributors, although I am probably clutching straws here ....... a win and a loss is 50% better than 2 draws.

they never spotted dwight doing the same thing, so I wouldn't hold your breath mate!

[broadsword]

Oooooooooooh, put your handbag down sweetie!

He would've been a big hit for us if only we'd passed to him properly! Not his fault at all!

[92er]

My impression is that many of the people who went to the match are angry/frustrated etc.

I'm really fed -Brad in the LET thinks it was a one-off.Well, my suggestion is that if the team have not performed, give your wages to charity.The team were very poor, the attendance was up-I bet the extra fans were really pleased they gave their hard earned money to the Club and gave up their time to attend.Relegation is still a real fear as well as the question as to why fans should continue to go to see such untalented,limited players who are paid an obscene amount of money that they don't earn.

Not happy!

[thenodrog]

........ as well as the question as to why fans should continue to go to see such untalented,limited players who are paid an obscene amount of money that they don't earn.

Better ask the fans of about 80 other clubs for the answer to that one.

[Hughesy]

One thing I did notice was that Bothroyd makes very early runs as soon as he sees a team mate recieving a pass and by doing so frequently ends up turning back from an offside position.  As soon as our midfielders cotton on to his game and begin to provide a few quick / early first time through balls without needing the obligatory 3 touches and a good look around the sooner we will see the best of him. 

I think his frustration with team mates was simply down to their tardy service.   

Exactly what i was thinking on saturday. Jay was off as soon as they had control of the ball but by the time our player releases Jay was off side due to our slow reactions, Therefore the ball had to go elsewhere. I think the 1 man (hate myself for saying it) that could have created something on saturday would of been Youri Djorkaeff.

Edited December 7, 2004 by Hughesy

[joey_big_nose]

My impression is that many of the people who went to the match are angry/frustrated etc.

I'm really fed -Brad in the LET thinks it was a one-off.Well, my suggestion is that if the team have not performed, give your wages to charity.The team were very poor, the attendance was up-I bet the extra fans were really pleased they gave their hard earned money to the Club and gave up their time to attend.Relegation is still a real fear as well as the question as to why fans should continue to go to see such untalented,limited players who are paid an obscene amount of money that they don't earn.

Not happy!

Uh, I really dont see how you criticise the Rovers effort. Everybody seemed to work hard. The general consensus was a lack of imagination which I would concur with.

I think Brad is right that it is a one off. They closed us down and didnt let our wingers move- hopefully Hughes is working a way round that.