[Archived] Larissa (home)

[blue phil]

Dunny was signalling to come off . He looked knackered and had playing only in spurts throughout the match - a couple of decent runs every 20 minutes with little else in between .

Tugay and Mokeona were playing too far back and Bentley and Derbs were all over the place except were they were both needed most . This system should have been changed after half an hour at the very most .

Very impressed with their fans I have to say . Made the Blackburn End look pretty forlorn and their one song was ....err ....one more than we had to offer

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Whatever formation we were supposed to be playing that first half seemed to have our players totally baffled ...our strikers were totally starved of any service,we looked so devoid of creativity and idea.

A bridge too far I'm afraid and the game was lost is Greece in all reality.

Fair play to the 20,000+ Rovers fans who attended and well done Larissa,you deserved to progress.

[revolutionrock!]

Wrong Formation to start with, Mokena!! No way, Derbs is not a winger , should of played 4-4-2.

Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda.

Larissa are no mugs, good little team and Cleiton impressed me alot.

Good effort from them also, good following. In the end they deserved to win.

Should of pushed on from S Warnock's goal but did'nt.

But on a postative how good is Roque , he is out of this world.He shows Mcarthy for the lazy selfish ###### he is,and i think that is why Benni is sulking, he has serious competition.

[Fife Rover]

Bring on Shearer, Sutton, Jansen, Grabbi...absolutely anyone who can kick a ball.

You missed out Tommy Briggs.

[trueblue]

Fair play to Larissa, they came and did a job... our lot were devoid of any ideas, no penetration, and what looked to me - no ambition !

Thank goodness the ticket was only a fiver, if I'd have had to pay more to witness that performance I would have been well cheesed off!

Ah well, means we concenrate on the league I suppose.

[Beta Ray Bill]

That will teach me not to be optimistic.

Congrats to Larissa, they played well over the two legs, we played badly in the first match and had the wrong tactics for 45 mins tonight.

We should have had crosses flying in from the start and players running with the ball into the box. I said to friends before the game, we'll get goals from such an approach as we're likely to get freekicks and connect with a good number of crosses. Where did the goals come from? A player running into the box, and a whipped in cross. Hughes out, Beta Ray in!

Anyhow, here's to the league. We will qualify for Europe again. Keep the faith! Errr, perhaps I shouldn't be saying that....

[dj54nna]

Seriously??? I thought it was one of the worst displays he's put in in a long while. Caught in possision too often, the 'extravagent' passess didn't come off and a lot of the little short pointless 5 yard passes went astray too. I was amazed Dunn came off instead of him.

Agreed. I'm gutted to have to say that he's past it and we shouldn't be renewing his contract this season, as much as we all love him.

I also agree with whoever it was above who said Mokoena shouldn't start a game in which we need to score goals. He made one forward pass all night. Should've started with Savage and put the Axe in once (if) we'd reached our target. It was a bit like watching us against Portsmouth - stopping at the half way line and waiting for them to all get behind the ball.

Derbyshire doesn't suit this formation at all, he was useless in the first half. Should've straight swapped for Pedersen, who, in all fairness, was mostly anonymous after his initial free kick.

Samba however, was amazing yet again, he had every right to stomp off down the tunnel at the end, he was the only one who gave 110%. He was playing in defence and up front simultaneously towards the end.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

I think we have to say - fair play to the greeks. Even in the days of Shearer and Sutton we struggled to break-down well organised continental defences - so I wouldn't blame the current team too much.

A few observations -

1. If we are to play Bentley just behind Santa Cruz - we need a new right winger - because Derbs looked totally at sea.

2. Having Tugay continually take the ball off the centre-half is a total waste of talent - he needed to further up the pitch - there was no way he was ever going to be able to thread the ball through a packed defence like they had

3. As mentioned by others - though loyality is admireable - MH needs to pick teams for certain matches - even if the starting 11 had won the previous 2 matches (Ray Harford learnt the error of being too loyal to players the season after we won the PL)

4. We saw flashes of the old Dunny - but he has lost the bit of pace he once had to pull away from players. He will only now really be effective on the edge of the area.

5. Axe is excellent for away matches - but Dunny would have been far more effective more centrally - especially considering we needed to score goals.

6. As with Pompey - I feel yet another team has effectively out-muscled and out-fought us. I am not criticising the effort of the players - but the Greeks put in some real effort, every Rovers player was immediately surrounded by at least two players - and we couldn't cope. There was also some "iffy" challenges in both legs - that on a different day would have connected with Rovers players and seen some of their guys sent off. Over the two legs, I didn't feel we got much protection from the referees.

Though the squad is the best we have had for some time - we still lack a little variety in our play. However - the right player in the New Year Transfer window (and hopefully the return of a fully fit Reid) will make all the difference.

Don't know why Rovers always seem to do it - decent crowd, with a fair few floating fans attending - and we blow it - typical Rovers really

[yorkblues]

451 what a joke

well played larissa and good luck

[roversmum]

Gutted. As expected I suppose.

We've started the back passing nonsense again. It was a favourite with Souness's squads; muck about with the ball at the back, wait until all the opposition's eleven players get in and around the box then start punting it forward. Oh look, back it comes again

Sorry, Toogs, you are a legend but this was not your night and should not have been your game.

Wrong formation. Was so looking forward to a couple of European trips this season. Oh dear. Woe.

Well done Larissa and Mr Donis.

[eddiewac]

Shocking, to say the least, 4-5-1 when we are chasing a game needing at least 2 goals to draw and then keeping 4-5-1 when we need to score 4?? what the hell???? Its ok saying stick to a winning formula but in all honesty, I was at the Sunderland game and we looked poor there, we only won because they were even worse than we were, failed to create many chances there and today we never looked like scoring! We had maybe a 10minute spell just after half time when the players seemed to realise that we actually needed another 3 goals, apart from that they were just playing as if it was them that needed to score another 3, disappointing, travelled over 3hours for that lacklustre performance, lets hope we never play that formation again, awful but fair play to Larissa, they deserved to go through but only because we failed to turn up once again

[eddiewac]

deleted

[rog of the rovers]

Cant really say I'm overly gutted, we had a good run last year so want a better league campaign this time round!

On the plus side we'll see more Saturday 3pm kick offs!!! The Portsmouth game was depressing without the defeat, I just don't think Sundays come anywhere close to the Saturday buzz.

Lets congratulate Larrisa, and move on.

[colin]

Oh well, another season and another exit from a Cup.

I've been around long enough to realise that if you don't win any of them then you get knocked out sooner or later.

I suppose it was a dead one as soon as they scored their goal tonight. Getting four past them was always going to be near impossible.

Good luck to them, I'll keep an eye on how they progress.

New crowd tonight, lots of new people, I hope they come back for more games, apart from the young man next to me who was unable to string a phrase together without using "f**k" "c**t" "t**t" and "b***k b*****d.

Maybe I'm getting old.

Roll on Sunday

[awhom111]

For a slight light moment...

What was going through that linesman's head when he saw Samba charge up to him? He was seriously angry. I would have thrown the flag up and run away as fast as possible...

Bentley, please fix the hair, it's downright ridiculous right now.

[Hypo-Luxa]

, apart from the young man next to me who was unable to string a phrase together without using "f**k" "c**t" "t**t" and "b***k b*****d.

Abbey was there?

Roll on Sunday

Aye Colin, Roll on Sunday...In the grand scheme of things that is more important..

[RevidgeBlue]

Typical Rovers, as those have been watching them in the long term will testify, the public give them a chance and turn up in droves, but we fail to deliver.

As much as I love Mark Hughes as manager he got the tactics horribly wrong tonight imo.

Once we unexpectedly went 3-0 down early on we needed drastic action. Should have swapped Bentley and Derbyshire round, should have brought Savage on for Tugay, dragged a defender off and put McCarthy on behind the front two. Might as well have been hung for a sheep as a lamb.

Tugay had an absolute mare all game and it's amazing he stayed on the pitch for 90 minutes. With both him and Mokoena sitting so deep we allowed Larissa the run of the midfield in the first half. We needed three goals initially and it was 43 minutes before we even managed a (weak) shot on target!

We only got a glimmer of a sniff due to a ridiculous penalty award in our favour. Second half we briefly threatened after Warnock's superb strike but that soon petered out as well. We never looked like scoring after that.

Well done to Larissa, by far the better side over the two legs. Desperate stuff from our point of view. Why should new or existing fans be encouraged to attend on that basis?

[philipl]

Well done Larissa. Probably got the piece of luck their industry and organisation deserved and our lack of form opened up for them.

If you watch their goal, Cleyton's shot was covered by Friedel until it takes a deflection from an attempted block.

Any views on the penalty hand ball not given right at the start of the second half?

[Paul]

I didn't see the first leg but most agree we were awful, tonight Sparky had the wrong formation with 4-5-1 and we wasted the whole of the first half, in the second we played for 15-20 minutes. No team is going to win under those circumstances. Larissa turned out to be far better than some had suggested. Their fans gets full marks for great support, as Tris said at HT, if you've been on a bus for three days you need to jump about a bit!!

We can only blame ourselves for this defeat, the team, apparently, in the first leg and the management decisions in the second. I cannot understand why we would want to start any home game playing 4-5-1.

Mo need for a poll den - the man will get it again

[Rover Down Under]

Gutted, but lets look on the positive side - we have 6 less games to play before December than the teams still in Europe. We should capitalise on this and concentrate on the league, that should be the impetus for the players to bounce back and show everyone WHAT WE ARE CAPABLE OF! We have a few big games in November/December when the likes of Liverpool, Man U & Chelsea will be tired and we need to take points from these games to be challenging the top 5. I honestly think we would progress further in the Champions League than the UEFA Cup. So Hughes made a bad tactical decision, so what? He's a relatively new manager and has done a far better job than any of his counterparts - Keane, Bruce etc. We still have one of the best managers in the league and he will learn from his mistakes and can only improve. As for the players, well they should have learnt that one bad performance can have disasterous consequences. We really need to push on in the league and finish in the top 4 if we want to hold onto the likes of Samba, Bents and RSC, this is a great opportunity for us and we must take it.

[Alan75]

Gut reaction before the game, --- wrong team selection if you need to score 3 goals.

Gut reaction during the game .......where are the goals going to come from.

Gut reaction after the game ....... unprintable.

Gut reaction this morning ........... disappointed, last nights display and tactics were a step backwards, time to write an editorial, with no punches pulled.

ps. Well done to the 20,000 home fans that turned up.

[Mr Maureen]

Tonight is probably the best result we'll get all season....

No more annoying home defeats on a Sunday afternoon due to a game against FC Cantpronounce in the most worthless competition of the lot.

I agree,roll on Sunday.

[Roar of the Rover]

Everyone's going on about conceding the 2 goals away from home but what about the one we conceded Yesterday, that shouldn't have happend and if i didn't we could've gone into extra - time, with the team we've got we could've easily scored another in extra - time

[Rob of the Rovers]

Last night was easily Hughes' worst team selection in his Rovers career. I can understand the logic of sticking with the same players who have won the last two games, but why leave just one up front? It was crying out for Derbs to be pushed right up front with Santa Cruz and as soon as this happened, at the start of the second half, we scored!

It also wasn't a game for the Axe and Tugay to be standing 10 yards in front of our centre halves, Savage should have been on from the start.

[Roar of the Rover]

I think he put the Axe on so he can break Larissa's attack down just in case we got caught whilst going forward. He should've took him off earlier and should'nt have put Dunny in the wide area's.