[Archived] Huddersfield Town 3-1 FT

[roversmum]

I heard someone who couldn't pronounce Zura's surname had resorted to calling him 'Jimmy'.

So 'Jimmy' it is as far as we are concerned from now on!

Cracking lad, though. Works hard, good pace and makes a real nuisance of himself.

Can't fault Dickov and Gray for the work they put in tonight. Not sure what to make of Savage's contribution. Bentley - not quite there yet but if Souness hadn't stolen Lady Luck he would've scored. Bellamy - whhhhhhoooooooooo! Bert frustrating as usual. Tugay, gave his all, quite a bit of showboating and knackered completely by the end! The Admiral steadfast and Lucas had quite a good game. Brad didn't have a great deal to do.

Strange referee and ass. referees. No idea what all the 'offside' nonsense was about. On one occasion right opposite us there were three Huddersfield players in a line plus two more in front of them; no sign of any Rovers players and the flag went up for offside. Perhaps it was just in case. Eddie N had a word with the fourth official at half time and it seemed to do some good as the flag waving was a bit more limited after that!

I was glad I went. Well worth the cost. Only drawback - was sitting near the bench and had the privilege of Eddie bawling out his instructions to the team in my ear.

[Paul]

Good game. Impressed by Huddersfield who played well throughout although Rovers were not seriously troubled till it went to 2-1 and then Bellamy settled things with his second. This was an entertaining match that we controlled from the start.

Friedel - his usual self

Neill - didn't notice him much so he must have been OK

Gray - started nervously and his distribtion was poor in the first half. Seemed happier in the second

Nelsen/Zurab - could be a good combination

Savage - much as we expect, too many misplaced passes

Emerton - brightish start, then faded away

Tugay - good game, nothing outstanding but competent

Dickov - largely anonymous

Bellamy - very good game, took his goals well and provided a constant threat

Bentley - good game, I think this lad is going to be very good. Just needs a few more games.

Much happier, role on Saturday

[FINRover]

Great we made three goals! CHEERS!!

[thenodrog]

Strange referee and ass. referees.  No idea what all the 'offside' nonsense was about.  On one occasion right opposite us there were three Huddersfield players in a line plus two more in front of them; no sign of any Rovers players and the flag went up for offside. 

348575[/snapback]

The ref (though too severe in terms of yellow cards brandished) was only responding to signals from his linesman re the offside decisions.

[eddiemd]

Fantastic to see us scoreing 3 goals in a game, just hope that we can carry the goal scoreing form to the Man Utd Match on Saturday and beyond.

One disapointing thing, the offical rovers website lists the attendance as just over 11,000 (Don't know if this includes the Huddersfield Fans) if it does then very dissapointing to say that tickets were only £10

[thenodrog]

Fantastic to see us scoreing 3 goals in a game, just hope that we can carry the goal scoreing form to the Man Utd Match on Saturday and beyond.

One disapointing thing, the offical rovers website lists the attendance as just over 11,000 (Don't know if this includes the Huddersfield Fans) if it does then very dissapointing to say that tickets were only £10

348581[/snapback]

Yet 30% of fans on the attendance poll site over priced tickets as the main reason for crowd numbers falling.

Yet again that just shows what blolox the poll is!

[RevidgeBlue]

Whilst maybe not top quality this game was a lot more entertaining than much of the Premiership fayre this season for the simple reason that both sides were making an honest attempt to win the match.

Bellamy showed his class once we managed to provide some balls for him to run on to and was head and shoulders our best player.

Gray also did very well I thought after so long out.

I have to disagree with some of the other player ratings though

I thought Friedel had a terrible game. Rooted to his line or coming halfway and then retreating when he should have been taking command of situations.

Tugay very subdued

Savage warming to the task now he is fit. Here there and everywhere breaking the opposition down. He is always going to misplace the odd pass as he is involved

so often.

Emerton superb pass for the first goal and good header second half otherwise generally very poor.

Bentley Flashes of real quality but needs to be more involved over the 90 mins.

Dickov Quite awful Neither him or Kuqi anywhere near good enough, therein lies our major problem.

Still a 3-1 win from not a brilliant performance. Can't complain.

Long term at Premiership level Bellamy is going to need some quality support though.

[colin]

There was a big accident somewhere at the north of the M66 which really slowed down The Terriers' fans on their way to Ewood. Queues from south of Bury all the way to Haslingden.

Me too BTW, I missed the first 15 minutes.

The Huddersfield supporters (when they arrived) were great.

Good luck to them.

[Lee]

From official site: "FULL TIME: ROVERS 3 HUDDERSFIELD 1. A thoroughly entertaining night at Ewood Park."

That sounds great. Can't wait to hear from the guys, who attended the match

348555[/snapback]

I attended the game, and guess what? I thought it was a thoroughly entertaining game at Ewood Park

Nice to see oposition try to take the game to us, unlike Fulham, Spurs and Newcastle.

Rev, I agree with you about Friedel, his hesitancy lead to a couple of nervy moments that will probably be classed as errors by Zura, but if Brad had come out and cleared when expected to, there'd have been no incidents.

Edited September 22, 2005 by Lee

[rog of the rovers]

Missed the game! Gutted

Just started Uni so I felt it would be too much to come home so soon, hopefully get a home tie in the next round, or one of the Liverpool clubs away!

Well done lads.

[RevidgeBlue]

Thing is Revidge on Saturday I know I will have a really good day out, footy excepted, so i'm happy to pay.  Tonight even if I can get out of work not long after 6, I have to rush home and then rush up to the match and I might just make it.  All for something that I don't eant to watch.  Where is the sense in that?

All this talk of supporting the club and loyalty is daft.  Football has gone so far away  from what it was in the 80's that you can't seriously think that you owe the club loyalty.  In the 80's I remember John Haworth coming round the night before a game because they needed the lottery money my Dad collected.  The club were reliant on the fans in those days.

How were they repayed?  By being left outside Spartak Moscow's ground ticketless and helpless because John Haworth couldn't help as he would have missed the match himself.  You see loyalty is a two way thing RB.  If I can't afford my season ticket next year do you reckon i'll get a discount because i've been loyal? 

I can't believe people seriously think we should pay money simply for the sake of it due to some kind of misguided loyalty.  Football is now a business, an entertainment business.  That entertainment is somewhat lacking at present so i'll be a little choosy about when and where I spend my time and money.  If anyone has a problem with that then fine but you put down how much you've handed over to BRFC in the last 20 years and i'll put down how much I have and we'll see who is 'loyal'.

348449[/snapback]

1) How does having a good day out (minus the football) help Blackburn Rovers? You may as well be supporting the Buccaneers.

2) Sorry to hear about your experiences with John Haworth but IMO he couldn't organise the proverbial knees up in a brewery and is a relic of a bygone age. I'm sure in a similar situation today you would get a more than satisfactory response from Tom Finn/ John Williams. Why hold that against the club now?

3) You're now engaging in a "I'm a better fan than you" type argument. This is totally pointless. You certainly won't have been to any more home games than me over that period. You may have been to more away games but I sponsored the match ball on several occasions in the 80's when the club really needed it. So what?

4) I couldn't agree more with general concerns about lack of entertainment/ quality as a whole but when the Club make the gesture of slashing the price to a tenner and it's going to be a desperately low home turnout, then I figure it's time to show up and voice any other concerns at a later date.

[salothsar]

Having read a few reports it sounds like Emerton actually had a pretty good game for a change. Anyone else agree ?

[Manchester Blue]

1) How does having a good day out (minus the football) help Blackburn Rovers? You may as well be supporting the Buccaneers.

It doesn't, that was kind of my point. Strangely enough Revidge my first thought when waking every morning isn't 'What can I do for Blackburn Rovers today?' Call me disloyal if you will but there you have it. As for better fan than you thing, if you read the thread it is clearly the you aren't a proper fan if you don't pay £10 to the club that has prompted that. My point is I have given more enough of my hard earned to justify picking and choosing when it is more convenient for me.

There would be occasions when I would happily miss the first 30 mins and still pay on but at present i'm afraid not. You still seem to be missing the point that was raised the other day but I can't remember who by. When the club was struggling to pay the leccy bill you felt like a part of something. In turning football into a business, 'entertainment business at that', Blackburn will suffer just like every other club. You can't have it both ways.

Anyway glad to see Bellamy get off the mark and hope this brings some confidence to the team, it will take a lot more than that sadly to bring some confidence to a lot of the fans.

[Glenn]

Got to the ground at 7-45pm, (late because of an accident on the motorway which caught out a lot of Huddersfield fans). Didn't have tickets and saw the queues outside the Blackburn End ticket office and decided to go in the Darwen End with my Town supporting mates. Got to be a first for me sitting with the away fans!!!

348574[/snapback]

I thought I was going to miss kick-off. I left Leeds at 5:30 and pulled onto the Albion Mill Car Park at 7:50 ! I couldn't believe the huge queue outside the BBE ticket office at 5 to 8 though.

[bob fleming]

Having read a few reports it sounds like Emerton actually had a pretty good game for a change. Anyone else agree ?

348600[/snapback]

No. I struggle to think of a player with less of a "football brain" than Bert. 2-3 yards behind play at times. Sure he played Bellamy in for the first with a nice pass but surely anyone would have seen that run (the hard work (creating a bit of time on the ball in the midfield) was done earlier in the move by Tugay).

Bellamy is streets ahead of anything else we have in our team. A different class. Hughes needs to build a team around him and Nelsen. I just hope they stick around long enough for that to happen. (Judging by the activity in the last Transfer Window, the 2010/11 season is starting to look very promising )

Brad - little to do apart from concede at the Darwen End. Which he did.

Neill - strolled through the game at half pace

Nelsen - Class act as ever

Zurab - Tidy on the ball - not sure about his aerial ability (defensively anyway!)

Gray - Nope.

Savage - "Ran around a lot"

Tugay - "If only he was 10 years younger" - yeah - he'd be at ManU or the like

Bentley - Class act. Good passer. Like him. Keep him.

Dickov - Match fit?

Bellamy - Best striker we've had in years

[Jolly Giraffe]

'Twas a good game with plenty of good things to take heart from.

My only gripe is that the formation was not working early in the second half and it seemed to take too long for Hughsie to react.

Where was Bentley supposed to be playing ?

We had no presence down the right as Bentley drifted into the middle meaning the first 20 minutes of the 2nd half were spent entirely in front of the managers.

Dickov had a stinker and really struggled to make any kind of impact, he is too similar to Bellamy for them to play together.

The simple solution would have been to take Bentley and Dickov off, replacing them with Pederson and Kuqi.

We could have then switched Emerton to his natural right side and partnered Bellamy with someone he could feed off.

This would have given us much more balance and more food for thought prior to the visit to the Mancs on Sat.

I also noticed Friedel's hesitancy on a couple of occasions, could he be suffering from "being handed a new contract syndrome" ? Still, it was nice to see the tv pictures at half time of the new keeper playing in the reserves.

All in all, there were more good points than bad with a timely confidence boost prior to Saturday.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

A good match - that we should have won by more (not taking anything away from Huddersfield who gave a good acount of themselves).

A few worrying signs for me though :-

Brad - should I come or should I go - his hesitancy off his line considering his experience was strange

Neill - Ok

Nelsen - Ok, struggled at times with height of their attack

Zurab - See Nelsen, though this guy does look as though he could replace Todd given a few more games.

Gray - Ok - but against Ronaldo, I think not

Emerton - actually felt sorry for the guy, obviously struggling for form (been 2 years now) - and he is playd largely on the left

Tugay - down to him we actually controlled the football, but can't shake off his invisible friend - which against Utd would be costly

Bentley - class player, like Tugay likes to get ball down and make us play. Faded in and out of the game badly

Bellamy - a reason to be optimistic

Dickov - Kuqi without height or pace

Savage - I thought he was a good buy, but when you see him next to Tugay you can see how limited a player he is - always gives 100% though

MGP - Looked better than he has for a while

Kuqi - Hustled and bustled well - too little time really

Axe - Ok

For me MOM was close between Tugay and Bellamy - Tugay mainly for making us play football rather than constantly giving the ball away (see Savage)

On to the next match - Bellamy with Bentley just behind him has to be worth another try.

Edited September 22, 2005 by DavidMailsTightPerm

[Ozz]

If you`ve ever seen the Peter Sellers character in Dr Stranglelove who cannot control his right arm from forming a Nazi salute, then you will have recognised him as the linesman on the Jack Waker Stand side of the pitch during the first half. Unbeleivable.

[key76]

Dickov had a stinker and really struggled to make any kind of impact, he is too similar to Bellamy for them to play together.

348605[/snapback]

Dickov isn't similar to anyone, he just can't play alongside any other striker.

[promoted2001]

Quote from sky sports:

"Hughes delighted with victory

Mark Hughes thinks the 2-0 Carling Cup win can kick-start their season."

Yes, well done sky

[Ozz]

BTW, does anyone else think that David Bentley truly beleives he`s David Beckham?

Even the way he kicks the ball is the same.

[T4E]

Dickov isn't similar to anyone

348611[/snapback]

Except maybe Jimmy Crankie.

[Tony Diamond Inc]

Good entertainment for a tenner - just how it should be!

Some people have been advocating dropping Todd (our player of the season two years running!) for Zurab. I see it very differently, the obvious move would be to drop Neill and move Zurab across!

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Thoroughly enjoyed the evening!.Open,attacking football from both sides and despite the crowd just being short of 12,000(a GOOD gate when compared to some on Tues!)the atmosphere was good.

We saw what Bellamy is capable of with his lightening speed and I agree with others that the team needs to be built around him...nice to see 4-4-2 formation.

This game came at the right time for Rovers and will no doubt provide a timely confidence boost for Sat.

P.S.

The Hudds fans were a credit to their club,they were still coming into the ground at nearly half time!...I wonder when was the last time they had a following like that?

[RoyRover]

It was good to get a win, for Bellamy to get his first goals for Rovers and for us to progress to the next round. I would have liked to have seen Johnson given a run up front, because we all know what Dickov can or more to the point, can't do. Enckleman could have done with a run out as well. Hopefully this will give the team a bit of confidence, although it will be a different matter against Man United.