[Archived] Chelsea At Ewood

[Tom]

I'm pleased with the point but I have to say I feel lucky considering how rubbish we were. We have absolutely no commitment to playing football and I thought we were particularly bad today. It's just lucky we caught Chelsea at the start of their title collapse.

[brian_gallagher85]

Where did this Phil Jones come from?!

Class.

His Mum (sorry)

I just hope he isn't Smallings teammate in a year or so though

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

Hope Sam doesnt throw Jones in too often at the minute. All it would take is a bad game and it would take him back two or three steps. Great debut today though, so much promise. To keep Drogba and Anelka quiet throughout the second half is no mean feat.

Nzonzi's distribution was poor today, perhaps needs a rest ahead of the dingles.

Dunn looked very sharp in the first half, apparently he was taken off as a precaution so hopefully is nothing serious.

[broadsword]

Phil Jones! Have some of that!

Loved his attitude, can't get enough of that/

.

[Anti-Dingle-Brigade]

Jones, Samba and Salgado made it into NUmpty Crook's Team of the Week with Jones making the first 11. Defensive display obviously stood out.

The Burnley teddy & shirt was ace, surprised nobody set it aflame.

[grizfoot]

I'm pleased with the point but I have to say I feel lucky considering how rubbish we were. We have absolutely no commitment to playing football and I thought we were particularly bad today. It's just lucky we caught Chelsea at the start of their title collapse.

I don't know what counts as commitment in your eyes, but various brave defending and "body-on-the line" blocks especially towards the end of the game showed there was plenty of commitment in my opinion. Samba got a knock on the head due to commitment of getting to the ball first and Nzonzi was flat out by the end of the game because of the sheer amount of work he went through. What about Jones' three tackles in quick succession that got the corwd and ultimately the team going? Just because all our players don't run around like Paul Dickov for the enitre match doesn't mean that they are not committed. Like I mentioned earlier we are set out to get people behind the ball and be hard to break down and that means players holding their position and not pressing the play continously. Whether you believe that's the way to play or not you can't question the players commitment due the tactics/style of play they've been told to adopt.

[Darwen Rover]

Come on, admit you were wrong and Sam was right...

Special mention number 1, Phil Jones was utterly brilliant. He got the team going, the fans going and the tackles and pressing going.

Special mention number 2, Diouf went completely missing in the first half for their goal and Andrews sprinted across to cover him when he should have been in front of Anelka. Anelka just stopped and pulled the ball back making Andrews look silly. I said to my wife that Diouf is always involved in one way or another, good or bad and so it proved. He was in the right place with a superb finish to equalise. He was excellent in the second half but was somewhat the opposite in the first... Contrasting but what a player he genuinely is.

Special mention number 3, Samba was excellent. He did exactly what was needed from a captain and a key defender with a youngster alongside him. Excellent performance.

Special mention number 4, Andrews and his throwing himself in front of shots. He truly put his body on the line. He might not be the most talented but give him credit for working incredibly hard and never stopping running. He also seems to have picked up at least a yard of pace!

Special mention number 5, Big Sam and his subs. He brought on Emerton and the team looked so much more balanced and it gave Salgado someone to work with. Salgado throw to Emo, Emo pass back, Salgado cross pinpoint onto to Diouf's head. Superb goal. Big Sam got this one spot on.

The team performed superbly in the second half and most of the first barring the first 6 minutes.

Think this post summarises my feelings exactly...

One point I would add, Sam has blooded more young Rovers than Hughes did in his time, both via the youth set up as well as recruiting the likes of Nzonzi etc.

[HemelRover]

I said that's what I thought "pre match" On paper that looked, to me, a very poor team.

However, just as a matter of interest, you must have a worse starting eleven in mind, or you couldn't have said what you did..

Heres one for you.........

Friedel

Gray

Amoruso

Short

Matteo

De Pedro

Gresko

Ferguson

Emerton

Yorke

Stead

Bench:

Johansson

Gallagher

Dickov

Tugay

Enckelman

Rovers 1 -1 West Brom - 14th August 2004

Only one player i would put in todays line up. Big Brad.

Still havent figured out where the hell Matteo actually played that game.

[Barrymaffia]

Chorley I believe.

Believe he's a Leyland Boy

Fantastic debut

[RibbleValleyRover]

Gobsmacked, Hansen raving about Jones! "Unbelievable performance".

[Tango]

Heres one for you.........

Friedel

Gray

Amoruso

Short

Matteo

De Pedro

Gresko

Ferguson

Emerton

Yorke

Stead

Bench:

Johansson

Gallagher

Dickov

Tugay

Enckelman

Rovers 1 -1 West Brom - 14th August 2004

Only one player i would put in todays line up. Big Brad.

Still havent figured out where the hell Matteo actually played that game.

Ahhhh the team of left-backs, that was a dark day.

Unlike today's, which was full of grit and determination - typified by the quite outstanding Samba and Jones. Not many defences can claim to have nulified Malouda-Anelka-Drogba so completely. Thrilled with a point, especially given our injury worries.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Phil Jones for England

[BlueWhiteDynamite]

with regards to the goal. A short throw was taken, allowing a cross to diouf to head it in. ( I think he scored a similar goal against someone else this season at home). Anyway, i firmly believe we dont use short throws often enough. sometimes you need to mix it up, and although MGPs throws are long they rarely create many chances. on MOTD you could see him coming over to take the throw, luckily it was taken before he got there. I hope that will help people at the club see that a long throw isn't alwasy the best option.

[beerwins]

with regards to the goal. A short throw was taken, allowing a cross to diouf to head it in. ( I think he scored a similar goal against someone else this season at home). Anyway, i firmly believe we dont use short throws often enough. sometimes you need to mix it up, and although MGPs throws are long they rarely create many chances. on MOTD you could see him coming over to take the throw, luckily it was taken before he got there. I hope that will help people at the club see that a long throw isn't alwasy the best option.

The reason it worked was exactly the point you make, nobody closed Salgado down fast enough becasue they had lined up expecting the long throw, the same happened a few times from Browns distibution, he decided to throw the ball out a few times which resulted in us keeping possesion a bit longer obviously Chelsea were instructed that the ball would be hoofed downfield every time Brown got it.

[broadsword]

Can't rave about Jones enough, a performance of outstanding maturity and awareness, he showed fantastic determination. I hope he infects the whole dressing room with his attitude.

Best Rovers debut for quite some time.

[den]

Heres one for you.........

Friedel

Gray

Amoruso

Short

Matteo

De Pedro

Gresko

Ferguson

Emerton

Yorke

Stead

Bench:

Johansson

Gallagher

Dickov

Tugay

Enckelman

Rovers 1 -1 West Brom - 14th August 2004

Blimey, West Brom must have been bad.

Just to clarify - those were my thoughts making my way down LBR. I didn't "really" compare with all the other sides going back fifteen seasons. Based on our defence which included Brown, Salgado [who got the runaround the game before] and a yound 17 yr old lad in the centre of defence. I expected Chelsea to bag a hat full.

Thankfully it didn't work out that way. The boys were excellent.

[RIML]

Best Rovers debut for quite some time.

League debut

[BlueWhiteDynamite]

MOTD are on to Keith Andrews and his pointing !!!

[beerwins]

MOTD are on to Keith Andrews and his pointing !!!

Uh oh MOTD have rumbled the Keef point, gameplan change needed

[modes98]

Can't rave about Jones enough, a performance of outstanding maturity and awareness, he showed fantastic determination. I hope he infects the whole dressing room with his attitude.

After his performance in the cup a few months back I pushed for him to get a start and was shot down by those who had seen him at youth/reserve level. I know he is miles off being a first team fixture but it just shows the difference being in the first team can make. Cracking performance by Jones.

First half was all about them, second half it was all about us. They were always going to have chances but we did enough to get a deserved point. Hopefully enough to push us on into the next 2 games.

[jonv]

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Phil-Jones/110447358966753?v=wall

[Blue n White Rover]

with regards to the goal. A short throw was taken, allowing a cross to diouf to head it in. ( I think he scored a similar goal against someone else this season at home).

T'was VS Sunderland if I remember correctly. Pedersen needs to do what Diouf does more often, and that is to attack their full back when a cross has been put in. He did that very often in his first season and reaped the rewards, but now he seems to hug the touchline with not much of an impact. At least he didn't pussy out of any challenges today.

[broadsword]

Salgado cleans Phil Jones boots for him ... and likes it.

[beerwins]

T'was VS Sunderland if I remember correctly. Pedersen needs to do what Diouf does more often, and that is to attack their full back when a cross has been put in. He did that very often in his first season and reaped the rewards, but now he seems to hug the touchline with not much of an impact. At least he didn't pussy out of any challenges today.

Pederson made a killing of doing this when we had Bentley whipping them in from the right, he kinda lost his way when asked to track back more which made it very hard for him to be such an attacking force he is more than capable of scoring with his head, unlike Brett (toblerone head) Emerton.

[Hughesy]

One large portion of humble pie?!

Pleased to see someone omitting Salgado. How could anyone play him at right-back after last week's disaster?

possibility of a slaughtering. keep them below 4 goals would be a result. christmas come early for drogba and his golden boot aspirations with the worst defensive 5 i can ever remember us fielding, including the peacock days and amoruso days.

BFS out.

This man is taking the pi$$ out of our club. Salgdo, Andrews, Pedersen and Diouf will never be Premiership quality, let alone do the job vs Chelsea.

i predict the away team to have a minimum of 70% possession and in excess of 20 attempts on goal, we are so predictable against the big teams we do our level best to make the oppo's star players shine and i'm dreading this.

BROWN-OLLSSON-SALGADO-JONES-SAMBA VS DROGBA.......never seen anything so one sided

may as well sub samba, dunn, and kalinic now this games over, avoid injuries and reds.

its so easy for them................we are so poor

I made the right choice then. We're going to get dicked on.

As I have said a million times, Ollson is @#/? at left back. He is only good as a midfielder. Diouf is also complete @#/?. I'd love to see his pass completion when the ball is passed forward, I imagine it'd be around 20%, if that.

Sam you are a ###### idiot. Have you been watching the game?!?!? get ###### Andrews off. Sky think we are booing the decision to bring Roberts on, we aren't it's bring Niko off.