[Archived] Uefa Cup First Round Draw

[brfc fan]

There should be some sort of apology to the fans and an inquiry into this.

[briansol]

We're the joke of Europe.

Probably the worst I've seen Rovers, taken the opposition into account. Except for Friedel I think everyone had as bad as game as I've seen them play.

Most of them looked like they were thinking about which posh car to buy next or which soap star to date next.

Probably 2 of the worst spent hours of my life, and I've spent time on a lot of crap.

Ah, it did help to let out some steam..

[Mr. E]

What a bunch of whiney little girls. Ok, so the performance tonight was poor. (At least I assume it was, as I didn't see it on TV. Then again, neither did many of those who have given up the season.) But if some little ######-pot Greek club can beat Rovers 2-0 on their patch, then what's to stop the reverse from happening at Ewood? Why the certainty that our participation in Europe must be finished?

I'm no happier than anyone else with this result, but blimey, the defeatism here is an embarrassment!

Because at Ewood they'll close-up shop tighter than a brick wall. It will be frustration after frustration, and even if we somehow manage to squeeze in a goal, they'll tighten up even more. This is of course taking into account that they don't score on the counter, which will knock us out on the spot. 2-0 away in Europe is just a hammer blow.

[Beta Ray Bill]

What's worse than a dreadful Rovers performance? Coming on here and reading the lurching comments from "Top 4 Material" to "Joke of Europe" style comments. Anyone going to come out with "we're doomed to relegation for sure" comments?

We really must be the most fickle bunch of fans on the planet.

[Whyoy]

Are this team of ours frustrating or what?

Only saw the second half but that was enough.

McCarthy shows little if any interest. He needs a spell on the bench with another forward on the pitch in his place.

Midfield was non existent ( as was the case for most of the match at Chelsea). It's no wonder we're creating so little up front.

....and as for Warnock. Rubbish is too polite a word for his second half performance. Can't pass, can't cross, let's hiss man walk past him near the corner flag. Can't throw in and is often seen going walkabout. We must have another full back at the club that can play on the left side.

Too many players beginning to believe the hype that's been written about them being contenders for the Champions League placings in the Premiership.

I feel sorry for all those supporters that have travelled and spent their hard earned dosh to witness that performance.

[Whyoy]

Sorry posted twice in error

[frosty]

Oh dear. What a horrible performance, you'd have thought Larissa were the Premiership team and not a Greek team who came 10th in their league and only survived by a point.

Changes needed for Sunday, McCarthy is doing this season what he did in his final year at Porto. Derbs in v Portsmouth.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Take a look at Ronin and Rebelmswar avatars......just about sums it all up!

[LeChuck]

....and as for Warnock. Rubbish is too polite a word for his second half performance. Can't pass, can't cross, let's hiss man walk past him near the corner flag. Can't throw in and is often seen going walkabout. We must have another full back at the club that can play on the left side.

What utter nonsense. He may not have been able to cross etc. well today, but he's proven countless times before he can do all of those things you listed.

[JAL]

Come on you Dunny lovers justify that performance, centre of midfield might as well have played Ooijer in that position such was the lack ...the complete lack of influence,... authority,.... creativity,...end product.

It took Bentley until twenty minutes from the end to have or to do something in the centre of midfield, for seventy minutes what were the other two doing in fact make that ninety munutes plus ?

[thecomebackid]

Personally I'd prefer to win the League Cup over the UEFA Cup THIS season. Both are tin-pot cups in the big picture (how long did the euphoria of the Middlesboro fans last after they appeared in the final?), but the League Cup is prefereable THIS season for 2 reasons:

1. The League Cup final's at Wembley not City of Manchester stadium (no contest) &

2. League Cup victory will guarantee a European place for next season. I still think the tie is alive in any case, plus guaranteed T.V. interest 'cos there is something to play for in the 2nd leg.

[pksrover]

Shocking display by Rovers lucky not to be losing by 4 or 5 goals in the end!! Don't understand why Hughes didn't make any changes earlier. NONE of the players out there in the 1st half deserved to be starting the 2nd half, and I can understand why Roberts might be sulking. He should have come on at half time for Benni. Bentley should have been off at half time as well, absolutely useless for most of the game and ruined more than he created. This wasn't a game for Savage either, he didn't kno what to do out there..

And please not get me started about Emerton and Warnock Did they hit the bars along with Orvil & co last night??!

Nelsen looks like he's out for X weeks with hamstring again

...and btw...was the pitch they played on supposed to be a football pitch? Looked more like a rough which you find on a golf course

JAL: Seriously, for most of the game the defence did they best to play over the midfield. Good fun to be a playmaker in the middle of the pitch when that happens. Not that I'm saying that Dunn played well...

[Gav]

Average championship side at best, at burnleys level which puts things into perspective.

Absolutely shocking display and they should forfeit their wages and compensate the 200 fans that traveled.

Only Brad came out with any credit and Benni Mc should be put in the reserves until his attitude improves.

DISGUSTING

[Hasta]

That's the worst Rovers performance I can remember seeing for quite a while. It was absolutely awful. If we were 4 down we couldn't complain. It's OK the pitch excuse being used as a 'leveller' but it can't be used as an 'outclasser'.

It was that bad I'm going to give marks.

Friedel (8) - Deflected first goal. Let down by his defence for the second and made a couple of other crucial saves.

Emerton (4) - Poor holding the defensive line. Poor distribution. Caught in possession a few times and shocking, shocking back pass

Nelson (6) - Helped hold the centre of the defense against a tirade of not pressure but just opposition posession. We looked even more suspect when he went off

Ooijer (5) - Struggled at times. Looked slow and couldn't hold the defensive line

Warnock (2) - I like Warnock. Think he's a good English full back. But he was shocking. Every forward ball was lost. Every cross was to the keeper or out of play. He struggled at the back and seemed to lose discipline at times. Worst of all he kept getting caught in possesion. I know the pitch was bad but if it's still happening to you in the last 10minutes then your not learning very quickly are you.

Dunn (4) - Over-ran. Couldn't pass.

Savage (4) - Over-ran. Couldn't pass.

MGP (3) - Didn't get involved. Poor seaon continues.

Bentley (4) - Didn't get involved much. When he did too many fancy flicks when we needed to just do the basics. Booked for appealing for a corner after his one positive run. Poor season (compared to last year and the hype of the summer) continues.

Santa Cruz (4) - Wasted the one good chance we had. Poor.

Benni (4) -I paid special attention due to the recent thread on here. Didn't look like a 20 goal a season striker. Looked uninterested and lazy ( :ph34r: )

Subs -

Zurab (4) - First game back but struggled. Lucky not to give a penalty away after trying to shephard the ball out of play and then not to get sent off for petulantly kicking out. Managed to get their guy booked though.

Derbyshire (5) - Only on for half an hour. Not noticed.

Tugay (6) - Only on for a few minutes boy didn't he look old (as we all did watching this).

[Blackpool_Rover]

I cant believe some of the posts on here. Slating Warnock...hes never had a bad game for us before today....the mentality of some people on here is embarassing. FIRST DEFEAT IN 16 GAMES! Id rather it came today that the predictable end of the run away at Sunderland. We have 90 mins to sort this tie out. Im sure the players will be ready....i honestly dont know what goes through the head of some people on here.

At the end of the day if we dont turn it around at ewood we dont deserve to be in the competition any further and the players can blame themselves. We then have the league and 2 domestic cups. Now i have more important things to worry about because ive just seen a mouse run across my floor.

[Eddie]

Well, the only good news is that I still think we should beat them by 3 at home, whether we will or not is another question. To go out of the UEFA Cup at this stage would be a massive blow to our season. Only Friedel turned up, every other player on the team was pretty much equally to blame.

[AggyBlue]

MGP (3) - Didn't get involved. Poor seaon continues.

I think you've over marked him there Hasta

[modes98]

Nelsen looks like he's out for X weeks with hamstring again

and that could be the worse bit of the evening.

Benni and MGP both look way off form and have little desire to change that. I just hope we turn up against pompey or it could be a high scoring game.

[AggyBlue]

Well, the only good news is that I still think we should beat them by 3 at home, whether we will or not is another question.

We'll be lucky to get one.

We'll get a timewasting, diving, rolling around on the floor fest, an all round frustrating night against them at home. Arsenal or even Bolton will have nothing on these guys.

[thenodrog]

We used to have a manager that thought european competition was unimportant and treated the competition with no respect.......... now we have an entire team that do! Hughes will be blazing!

After the Lord Mayors show or what? Bigheads the lot of em. Bad pitch / high wind.... tough shitski, it's no excuse for total lack of effort. There were so few options to the man on the ball it was unbelievable!

Dare I say it but we look to be a one man team. The king pin in defence was missed sorely and any threat from corners and free kicks evaporated at Stamford Bridge last Sat. Samba needs to be a big lad cos it seems that he's carrying the rest.

[HairwayToSteven]

Shell shocked. We need to get behind the team now, and not gripe and moan. Every team can have a one off. I'm sure Rovers will come back with a vengeance for the pompey game. Maybe things have been running a bit too smoothly so far this season, and a right kick up the bum is needed to focus the players.

[The Harwood Yankee]

This result confirms a long-held belief Ive had that we're just not that good at taking the game to weaker opposition and dominating. We're much better at playing a stronger team, or someone equal to us on paper, and battling out a result. I know this must sound odd but the expectation from everyone was that we'd get a draw at least today then canter through a 1 or 2-0 at Ewood to go thru and hopefully draw someone more exciting next round. We've got players in our team who thrive on facing the big clubs but seem to make less of an effort when the opposition is less attractive. Im thinking of McCarthy & Pedersen firstly, but this mindset seems to run far too easily thru the rest of the team, with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions (Brad, Savage, & the sorely missed Samba). Ironically we mightve done better by fielding players with more to prove. Start Derbyshire and Roberts, give Tugay a game in midfield. Olssen at left back.

I know its easy to say this after the event & if Id been Hughes Id've fielded the same full-strength team he did, but on reflection it makes you wonder where the fight was, and why it was missing when we went to all the trouble of going thru the Intertoto just to play like they did today when theyve got the chance to play in the UEFA.

[frosty]

What was also frustrating is that we created no chances, we were never going to score. We haven't excactly been free scoring this season so far, either.

[Andy Kennedys Hairdo]

Todays performance wasn't bad - that term wouldn't do it justice - it was an embarrassment !!!! Fair enough, in light of recent performances and results it could probobaly be looked upon as a one-off because, by and large, Rovers have looked pretty good of late, however, I'm deeply concerned by the lack of heart shown by certain people, and that isn't a one-off ! They just looked like they were there for the jolly !

I just feel very, very sorry for the poor sods who've forked out to go over there and watch that. I just hope they've got some good weather.

[Dunnfc]

What a shower of ######! We looked unfit and slow and noone had passion. We were well beaten and i think we are out of europe all they will do in the next leg is park a bus of players on front of their goal. Ooijer is a waste of money, hes slow, he cant tackle and his positioning is very poor. Well done to the 150 fans who made the journey.

Friedel - brilliant, thank god we still have him. 7

Emerton - Normally solid but today he was all over the place, his backpass was a shocker. 3

Nelsen - An off day and a bad start to the season, where is nelsen from last year? 4

Ooijer - Liability and Zurab is a mile better. 3

Warnock - Tried to go forward but couldnt, caught out of position and caught in possession too many times. 3

Bentley - An off day given no help by Emerton, got booked when he dived. 4

Savage - Early shot and that was it. 4

Dunn - Tried but couldnt find a way through and looked off the pace. 5

Gamst - Came back to help Warnock but his delivery is very poor, needs a kick up the arse. 5

Santa Cruz - Must wonder why he joined us? No delivery to him but did his best with what he could. 6

Mccarthy - His performance was lacklustre and he has no pride or passion, it was like sticking two fingers up. 3