Arsenal 3 v 0 Rovers - Cup Semi Final

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Here are a couple of pictures of the game:

Cracking flag Rovers!! Get it out for home games

[thenodrog]

We are getting some unfair stick from the press and media phone ins at the moment. 40 odd passes, dirty fouling rovers, Todd to be hanged on the gallows, poor support.

1. Todd quite obviously did not elbow van Persie. I have emailed talksport to call for this afternoons presenter to publically apologise to Todd for suggesting that BRFC should strip Todd of the captaincy. Wot a dick!

2. We would have filled the stadium if it was the final. The fact that we did not was the fault of the FA. We are a small town team so why do the media never mention the respective popluations of other towns? (course there is also more than a touch of apathy amongst the less committed supporters who I hope are feeling some sort of shame now.)

3. Wenger obviously issues his players with roller skates rather than football boots. They must be under instruction to go down squirming every time they lose the ball to pressurise the refs to award unjust free kicks and to get opponents booked / sent off. Our players hardly ever play act with pretend injuries and I applaud them and MH for it.

4. I paid 45 quid and sat in a £55 seat! But I wish I had only paid £25 now!

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

A bridge too far for us against a quality side but we did our best with what we have, we can all look forward to better things next season under Hughes.

The vocal support from Rovers fans was superb,I'm afraid to say Arsenal brought the 'Highbury library' with them today.....THEY MAY WELL HAVE THE NUMBERS BUT BY CHRIST WHEN IT COMES TO SUPPORT THEY ARE NOT IN THE SAME LEAGUE!!!!

I'm with you Theno, we are really taking an undeserved kicking from the media,from dirty cheating Blackburn to having apalling support, the accusations thrown at us today are infuriating and unjust.

THE 'BIG CLUB' BIAS IS UNBELIEVABLE.

Edited April 16, 2005 by SIMON GARNERS 194

[johnny boy]

Viewing the stadium from block UN3 it we didn't look as physical as maybe it was. I went with a friend who supports Plymouth Argyle so he was fairly neutral and he was disgusted at the referee not picking up Arsenals play acting. Our fouls were noticed!

A Liverpool fan on 606 said our fans are a disgrace. I think we did ourselves proud as we out sang Arsenal for most of the game. Seeing a sea of blue and white on the way to the ground was really special and moving. No matter what people think of us we are the best!

Lets hope we bounce back against Palace.

[Tango]

Just got back as well, overall had a terrific couple of days - good night in Bristol on Friday then the fantastic experience that was the semi-final. O.k. we lost, but to a top quality side and 3 excellent goals. Bit of a shame we didn't create more up front as I wanted a goal to cheer

Thought the atmosphere from the Blackburn fans was excellent and had a good bit of banter with the Arsenal fans on the way there and back!

Btw I noticed the BRFCS flag not too far away from my seat in block UN3... which was nice!

Edited April 16, 2005 by Tango

[tashor]

Rovers lost but played as well as we could.

I am proud to support a small town club.

The media and the f.a. care NOTHING for our national game apart from lining their own pockets by sticking their bloated snouts in the trough.

They wanted us to roll over and die to let the media darlings whank themselves off in a rapturous state of grandeur.

Can't wait 'till we play Palace in a game that means nothing to the REAL SCUM but means EVERYTHING to PROPER football fans.

[BRFC4EVA]

The first thing i have to mention was our superb support today. As i have been trying to say all along, i think its better to have 18k hardcore fans as opposed to that plus another 12k day-trippers. The arsenal support was nothing short of discusting atmosphere wise and i was very proud of 18k Rovers fans easily outsinging the 30 arse fans.

The best part was when they scored their 2nd goal and we (those in lower tier) simply stood up and started singing and continued it to the final wistle! As Green said on 606, all i could hear after arsenal scored their 2nd was rovers fans singing!

I really enjoyed the day and wasnt too disappointed with the result, though i did think the third goal took a little of the gloss off it. Proud to be a Rover tonight!!

[American]

And how biased were the Sky commentators ?. I had to turn off after they said Blackburn were dirty and boring for the 56th time. Yes, we are not too exciting, and we are quite dirty, but we can play as well. Martin Tyler and Andy Gray are probably still in the Arsenal dressing room, deliberately dropping the soap.

You want to try listening to the overseas commentary I had to endure. Gary Bloom was his name I am sure he was sat there in an Arsenal top calling for rovers players to be sent off, continually knocking the way we play and making derisory comments about the fact that we couldn't sell our allocation. At one point he said the cynics amongst us think that should they get to the final blackburn wouldn't sell their allocation. He also said that blackburn have only come to stop arsenal playing their magnificent football. Who is this guy ? I wanted to rip his head off.

Did any other US based rovers fans feel the same way ? or was it just me.

Actually, if you kept listening, he defended us, saying that we would easily sell out for the final and that the early start time was what hurt our ticket sales. I thought he was pretty good. He was talking about our stlye, but I didn't feel it was in a derogatory way, but more that it wasn't prety, yet it was effective.

[Ewood Spark]

A Liverpool fan on 606 said our fans are a disgrace. I think we did ourselves proud as we out sang Arsenal for most of the game. Seeing a sea of blue and white on the way to the ground was really special and moving. No matter what people think of us we are the best!

The infuriating thing about this particular dick was that before he slagged off the Rovers fans 'no-show' he made a few comments regarding Steven Gerrard who......get this......HIS MATES had told him had played well today!!!!!! Un-bloody-beleivable.

Top marks to the Rovers fans in Cardiff today....it was a great atmosphere.

[rover6]

Got to agree that the Rovers fans seemed to create a quality atmosphere and were a credit to the club. Well done.

I still think there was malice in Todd's actions but maybe we can excuse him because it was agaisnt Arsene Whinger's lot.

Edited April 16, 2005 by rover6

[Alan75]

I had a feeling it wasnt going to be our day, from the minute I got smacked in the face by the ball during the players warm up.

That will teach me not to pay attention. There I was admiring the stadium then wham bang, I get a thunderball smack in the face and my specs go flying.

A big thank you to the lass who caught them, before they dropped to the lower tier, my glasses that is

[chopperhopper]

Alot has been made out of something that I did not really think of until the journey home listening to the media.

I would agree that we did put in some cynical fouls, but if thats the way to break down play so be it, it is in my mind far less than being a diving playacting team (that in most people in the medias eyes is good football).

I have to say I was very very proud to be a rovers supporter today, 30k arsenal fans absolutely dead silent for first 20 at least and just as silent when there 2nd goal went in.

Had a brilliant day down there, it was our final and certainly the fans came with the attitude that it was.

My man of the match in my eyes was Patrick Viera thought he was quite outstanding, our man gotta be friedel superb saves that meant that he really should not have been on the loosing side especially by the margin that we did.

Lack of high quality striker showed again today but overall I was impressed especially first 20, we were playing football then as most pundits have failed to mention.

[adopted scouser]

Todd quite obviously did not elbow van Persie.

Behave yourself Theno, he nearly took his bloody head off !

Despite that, the fact that Wenger's lot fall over at every available opportunity makes you turn a blind eye when they get snotted, Savage's high tackle even made me look away. Pires kicks Lucas in the nuts and Lucas is to blame, deary me.

Didn't want to win it anyway... mickey mouse cup.

Edited April 16, 2005 by adopted scouser

[Andy_f]

3. Wenger obviously issues his players with roller skates rather than football boots. They must be under instruction to go down squirming every time they lose the ball to pressurise the refs to award unjust free kicks and to get opponents booked / sent off. Our players hardly ever play act with pretend injuries and I applaud them and MH for it.

I Totally agree with that statement. I just cant believe how many times the fags fell over, and how easily they went down. I just can't believe the ref's buy it!!

It happened at ewood a few weeks ago and i thought the same back then. Unbeliveable!!!!

Anyway moan over...Had a superb day out today with the lads, Great atmos, shame were not going back to Cardiff in a few weeks time!!

I've uploaded all my pics from today to my website so feel free to have a LOOK

[americanrover]

That will teach me not to pay attention. There I was admiring the stadium then wham bang, I get a thunderball smack in the face and my specs go flying.

A big thank you to the lass who caught them, before they dropped to the lower tier, my glasses that is

give that girl a contract

[colin]

A good (if long) day out:

I think the 3-0 flattered Arsenal although I don't suppose anyone here will disagree.

I'm getting a little cheesed of with the details of the media reports that we are a dirty team. This seems to have started after "The Chosen One, aka Maureen" had a whinge, and seemingly everyone is having a pop. Rovers 4 yellow cards, Arsenal 3 yellow cards, hardly a one way battle.

Can't understand the criticism levelled at Matteo I thought he had a really good game. Hey-ho, diffences of opinion & all that.

Dickov was rubbish, but when you are playing on your own against the Arsenal defence then you'd have to be Thierry Henry in a training match to get anything.

Fans were great (us not them)

Finally: Who owns that marvellous great massive humungous flag that went round, a tip of the hat to whoever brought that along.

Till next year then...........................

[colin]

It's gonna be either a total humiliation, e.g. Arse 3-0 Rovers

OR we'll lose on pens... 

Nice and optimistic you muppet! i hope i bump into you

Would you like cream, custard or ice cream with that humble pie?

[adopted scouser]

It's gonna be either a total humiliation, e.g. Arse 3-0 Rovers

OR we'll lose on pens... 

Nice and optimistic you muppet! i hope i bump into you

Would you like cream, custard or ice cream with that humble pie?

[nellybc]

Well

Where do I start

Absoloutely spot on train conductor on the way from doncaster to derby - this bloke deserves a medal, sorted out about 5 groups of rovers fans and then as we were getting off, wished us luck over the tannoy system. Top Man.

Great sets of lads on the way from doncaster through to cardiff - amazing what blue & white can do for meeting people.

Great atmosphere - Didn't really go with a flourish the game but enjoyable in patches.

Managed a couple of quick pints after then decided to catch an early train home. Got 2 gooners sat next to us, couldn't believe how nice they were, real fans that go home and away and the salt of the earth for sharing the beers on the way back to doncaster.

All in all a long day - 17hrs is long enough for me to be up and on the go.

Just a shame that we lack a quality striker and god bless brad, a couple of amazing saves today, just to show arsenal what they are missing between the sticks.

[nottsrover]

Just back. Agree with the majority of the comments on the thread. The better team won, if only in terms of their finishing ability. At the moment I can only dream of Dickov putting away a chance like Van Persie's third.

I am amazed at the media backlash against Rovers' physical tactics. If you compared the match today against a semi final from 10 years ago, I would imagine that there would have been about 1/2 as many tackles but twice as many bookings. That can't be right. Rovers were physical but that is part of the game.

I felt that the gooners continued where they had left off from Ewood and Reyes in particular was almost comical in falling over everytime a Blackburn player came near him. I'm just glad that he didn't get Lucas sent off (who incidently I thought had a good game). However, prize buffoon for me has to be Lehman for writhing around in agony after Emerton's sliding tackle on him. By the time Emerton reached him, he could not have been moving at more than a snail's pace but still Lehman was over on the floor as if he had been hit by a train. Has he no shame?

Moment of the match for me goes to the fans. Despite falling two goals beyind we outsung the gooners until the final whistle. It was genuinely an emotional moment.

[cn174]

As others have said Rovers played well but we just weren't good enough to beat Arsenal. I thought our defence played well, Brad made a couple of outstanding saves.

Midfield was where we didnt have control for much of the game. Vieira was excellent today I thought.

However as we probably knew before the game we didn't have the firepower up front to cause them any kinds of problems.

I've had a read at some of the reports on the internet and its a bit shocking how our performance has been perceived today. We were physical but I didn't think we were overly dirty! Its not our fault all the Arsenal players are soft b*stards.

But despite not winning, I'm not overly gutted. We got to the semi final which is a great deal better than we've done in the recent past. Our support was excellent also, so despite there only being 18,000 or so of us I think we did ourselves proud today.

[RevidgeBlue]

I had a feeling it wasnt going to be our day, from the minute I got smacked in the face by the ball during the players warm up.

That will teach me not to pay attention. There I was admiring the stadium then wham bang, I get a thunderball smack in the face and my specs go flying.

A big thank you to the lass who caught them, before they dropped to the lower tier, my glasses that is

It wasn't the most successful trip for me either.

Some twonk ran into the back of me on the M6 yesterday.

I was a tad disappointed with our performance today. In the first half we had the ball in numerous promising positions but seemed to lack the confidence in our own ability to make something happen, preferring instead to knock the ball backwards and retain possession.

The game plan was obviously not to concede and after performing extremely well for the first 35 minutes it was obviously crucial to get to half time at 0-0. I felt however we took our eye off the ball slightly for five to ten minutes, Brad bailing us out with a terrific double save before we actually did concede.

In the second half we tried hard and showed a little more ambition but never really looked like scoring.

If there is one criticism I would have of Hughes's tenure so far it's his continued preference for playing Dickov as a lone frontman when I think it is plain for all to see that he can not fulfill that role. Today Stead looked sharp when he came on but should have had at least 25 minutes,it's unrealistic to expect him to do anything in six minutes.

Still hopefully we can learn from this and with our new found resolve there may well be other big occasions like this to look forward to in future if we can sort out our lack of creativity and firepower.

[tcj_jones]

Over all the Rovers were magnificent- some brilliant tackles and distribution. I disagree with anyone knocking Matteo or Neill but MGP did his little boy lost routine again in the second half.

Andy Todd will get banned and you will all agree it is totally deserved when you see the behind goal replay. Nasty vicious short right arm jab. The headlines for Rovers will be about us being brutish thugs because of that stupidity. Still a last hooray for Short or a chance for Amo to show how he has benefitted from proper coaching- if he can concentrate he is a much better footballer than Todd anyway.

I have to agree with this analysis (apart from the harsh analysis of MGP):

1. Neill and Matteo have become undeserving scapegoats. The lengths that some go to bag them is beyond belief sometimes.

2. Andy Todd was disappointing, and I do believe he intended it to release some frustration. Afterwards he looked very disappointed and I think he knows how much he let the club down.

For god sake, everyone who is saying Todd elbowed him deliberately needs to watch the replay again - it was clearly accidental. And Neill was directly responsible for the first goal because he left Toure free at the back post and it was he who passed it accross the six yard box. Dickov was again useless and Stead actually looked quite sharp when he came on. Oh, and Friedel was awesome today.

We weren't half bad in the first half but in the second we lost our momentum and I was thinking that Hugehs tactics were extremely suspect, waiting until the 82nd minute to bring on a striker, but look what happened when he did - two Arsenal goals.

1-0 was fair, 2-0 also a pretty fair reflection, but 3-0 was very harsh.

[SouthAussieRover]

And how biased were the Sky commentators ?. I had to turn off after they said Blackburn were dirty and boring for the 56th time. Yes, we are not too exciting, and we are quite dirty, but we can play as well. Martin Tyler and Andy Gray are probably still in the Arsenal dressing room, deliberately dropping the soap.

You want to try listening to the overseas commentary I had to endure. Gary Bloom was his name I am sure he was sat there in an Arsenal top calling for rovers players to be sent off, continually knocking the way we play and making derisory comments about the fact that we couldn't sell our allocation. At one point he said the cynics amongst us think that should they get to the final blackburn wouldn't sell their allocation. He also said that blackburn have only come to stop arsenal playing their magnificent football. Who is this guy ? I wanted to rip his head off.

Did any other US based rovers fans feel the same way ? or was it just me.

We had Bloom here too.

What a disgraceful biased commentating.The knob was drooling everytime Arsenal was on the ball.

As for Pires and Vierra...the French tarts went down as if they'd been chopped in half.

We didn't deserve to win but the arrogance of Arsenal is sickening to watch.

[ABBEY]

(Please don't use that word again) OFF INBREAD.......................11THOUSAND ..AYE TALKSPORT @#/? DINGKLLES WOULD OF TOOKEN 50 THOUSAND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!2-1 MORTEN GAMPST PEDERSON TRALLLA LAAA LAAA