[Archived] Chelsea Vs ROVERS

[jim mk2]

At least that'll probably guarantee Samba stays with us. He'll never play for a top team because he can't rid himself of those mistakes, meaning that the only interested clubs will be a sideways step, and I don't think that's what he is after.

Grass is always greener to some players.

Someone should point out to Samba what happened to the careers of Bellamy, Bentley, Santa Cruz et al after they left Rovers.

[Gav]

Grass is always greener to some players.

Someone should point out to Samba what happened to the careers of Bellamy, Bentley, Santa Cruz et al after they left Rovers.

Not many have left us and gone on to better things, although bank balances will have improved significantly.

[Stuart]

I didn't get to follow the game much today apart from checking SSN score centre but did we really line up our midfield like this? Seems a strange one.

[bluefred]

Certainly encouraging. Until they scored, I felt we were comfortable and could still hit them on the break. Felt we fell away after their goal but with a bit more bite in midfield (J Jones?) we can have a decent run till May

All the above is said as a defender of Sam, no agendas here, I just see the perfomances as they are.

NEWSFLASH

SAMS GONE AND AINT COMMING BACK,GET OVER IT .if kenny was still manager we whould have got a point at least today bla bla bla.

leave the past in the past lets put all our support behind kean,he"s only been in the job two minuets and we

are already back to playing football.who knows once this transfer window is over we minght have a team that could

be challenging for a european place,so com on climb aboard the venky express.......................

Certainly encouraging. Until they scored, I felt we were comfortable and could still hit them on the break. Felt we fell away after their goal but with a bit more bite in midfield (J Jones?) we can have a decent run till May

All the above is said as a defender of Sam, no agendas here, I just see the perfomances as they are.

NEWSFLASH

SAMS GONE AND AINT COMMING BACK,GET OVER IT .if kenny was still manager we whould have got a point at least today bla bla bla.

leave the past in the past lets put all our support behind kean,he"s only been in the job two minuets and we

are already back to playing football.who knows once this transfer window is over we minght have a team that could

be challenging for a european place,so com on climb aboard the venky express.......................

[Bazrakats]

Are you saying we should target winnable games ? That was Sam's strategy yet he was lambasted for it.

Did I say that? I dont think I did. I was stating that losing at Chelsea has no shame in it since they are league champions.

Why do you insist on bringing up Big Sam. He isn't our manager or going to be our manager again.

Fair enough if you didn't agree with his sacking but its happened move on and give the team the support they need.

[JoeBlueWhite]

I think Jim mk2 is one of those rare breed. The 'fan' who wants his own to team to fail to prove his own point. Its pretty disgusting. He was probably celebrating every Chelsea goal today.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

We gave a good account of ourselves,we cant ask for any more against a Chelsea side......

MOVE ON!

[Mattyblue]

NEWSFLASH

SAMS GONE AND AINT COMMING BACK,GET OVER IT .if kenny was still manager we whould have got a point at least today bla bla bla.

leave the past in the past lets put all our support behind kean,he"s only been in the job two minuets and we

are already back to playing football.who knows once this transfer window is over we minght have a team that could

be challenging for a european place,so com on climb aboard the venky express.......................

NEWSFLASH

SAMS GONE AND AINT COMMING BACK,GET OVER IT .if kenny was still manager we whould have got a point at least today bla bla bla.

leave the past in the past lets put all our support behind kean,he"s only been in the job two minuets and we

are already back to playing football.who knows once this transfer window is over we minght have a team that could

be challenging for a european place,so com on climb aboard the venky express.......................

Err I am over it, that was pretty much the jist of my post...

[bluefred]

Err I am over it, that was pretty much the jist of my post...

sorry mate i wasnt having a go at you.

[BRFC1995]

Thought Givet was excellent today but Kalinic,diouf,Pedersen and Olsson were absent,Lowe has good technique but has no upper body strength,we need a essien type player that drags the game by the scruff.essien was immense today.Roque should start next game and i'd drop olsson and play peds left wing.with dunny injured maybe we will stick a bid in for adam.

utterly baffled as to why kalinic started he was never going to affect their defenders and he never did.

i imagine on 90k a week santa starts every week until he gets injured now. I would love to see us play 4 or 5 games with pedersen on the bench i swear the ball is lost more and moves break down when he gets involved, hopefully jones is no basturk/vogel and is fit enough to play because right now i'd prefer him alongside andrews over pedersen.

[booth]

So does Jim think we would have done better with Sam in charge then?

[Eddie]

I don't think we played that badly. We didn't really threaten, apart from once, but for the most part we kept them contained. Again, with the number of players that we have out and how weak our midfield is, it really isn't a bad effort to go to Stamford Bridge and limit them to two goals and only 5/6 chances.

[LeChuck]

I didn't get to follow the game much today apart from checking SSN score centre but did we really line up our midfield like this? Seems a strange one.

We were nothing like that! Makes you wonder how someone can get a job doing that sort of thing when they know nothing about football. I bet almost everyone here could look at the line-ups of every other game today and not be that far out when guessing the formation.

It was a sort of lopsided 4-4-1-1. Hoilett was behind Kalinic (who was fairly isolated), with Diouf on the right of midfield, Olsson on the left (but deeper than Diouf), with Dunn and Pedersen in the middle.

[Teacup]

I didn't get to follow the game much today apart from checking SSN score centre but did we really line up our midfield like this? Seems a strange one.

From what I could tell it was like this:

---------Kalanic----Mama

--Hoilet--Pedersen--Dunn--Ollson

Then when Hoilet went off it went to something like this:

-------Roque----Mama

----------Roberts

Pedersen----Lowe----Ollson

Although Ollson appeared more up the field, Lowe back in defence and Pedersen skirting around on the left giving the ball away.

[JAL]

Playing young Lowe.

Hes not and will not be, of the quality to be a premiership footballer FFS.

How as an experienced footballer playing against the current champions, can you draw strength in playing with an out of his depth player in your team and expect to win. The evidence was there for all to see.

2-0 flattered Rovers end of.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

Playing young Lowe.

Hes not and will not be, of the quality to be a premiership footballer FFS.

How as an experienced footballer playing against the current champions, can you draw strength in playing with an out of his depth player in your team and expect to win. The evidence was there for all to see.

2-0 flattered Rovers end of.

He was a substitute... Who would you have played in Centre Midfield when Dunn got injured??? Out of his depth? On the basis of what exactly?

[JAL]

He was a substitute... Who would you have played in Centre Midfield when Dunn got injured??? Out of his depth? On the basis of what exactly?

Watching the bloody game thats what, and with two perfectly good eyes.

[Teacup]

Playing young Lowe.

Hes not and will not be, of the quality to be a premiership footballer FFS.

I think the biggest issue he had today was not controlling the other midfielders alongside him. I think Dunn did a better job before he went off, they held together a lot better and actually found space and moved as a team. Although Lowe did look bright in the first half after coming on, in the second half the centre seemed in disarray with Ollson and Pedersen switching and Mama being so far upfield that placing a pass to him was impossible. It was a rather strange match in the second half to be honest.

Roberts coming on didn't make it much better as Hoilett was making runs, attacking football, coming in deep to pick up the ball, etc... Whereas Roberts seems to permanently play with his back to the oppositions net and basically be marked all the time, just sits there waits for the ball, loses it and looks around dumbfounded.

[gumboots]

Kean should be giving his press conference round about now - will be interesting to hear his excuses, sorry explanation, for the defeat.

To be fair to our manager, I've not actually heard him make excuses so far. I haven't watched or heard any of the match apart from the woeful Ian Abrahams on Talksport, so I'm not commenting on it, but on the manager, you are so biased against him you couldn't see his good points if they jumped up and bit you. I didn't like Allardyce, but I said very little to criticise him once I accepted that he was our manager for the foreseeable future. How about you just give Mr Kean a chance? He just may surprise you.

[JAL]

I think the biggest issue he had today was not controlling the other midfielders alongside him. I think Dunn did a better job before he went off, they held together a lot better and actually found space and moved as a team. Although Lowe did look bright in the first half after coming on, in the second half the centre seemed in disarray with Ollson and Pedersen switching and Mama being so far upfield that placing a pass to him was impossible. It was a rather strange match in the second half to be honest.

Roberts coming on didn't make it much better as Hoilett was making runs, attacking football, coming in deep to pick up the ball, etc... Whereas Roberts seems to permanently play with his back to the oppositions net and basically be marked all the time, just sits there waits for the ball, loses it and looks around dumbfounded.

When you talk about movement re Roberts what about Cruz and Diouf as they all looked a little static. As for young Lowe he didnt know when to create the angle to receive a pass from whichever defender had the ball willing to play it out to, this can not be ignored, basic coaching that the manager is supposedly supposed to be good at.

[BRFC1995]

I think the biggest issue he had today was not controlling the other midfielders alongside him. I think Dunn did a better job before he went off, they held together a lot better and actually found space and moved as a team. Although Lowe did look bright in the first half after coming on, in the second half the centre seemed in disarray with Ollson and Pedersen switching and Mama being so far upfield that placing a pass to him was impossible. It was a rather strange match in the second half to be honest.Roberts coming on didn't make it much better as Hoilett was making runs, attacking football, coming in deep to pick up the ball, etc... Whereas Roberts seems to permanently play with his back to the oppositions net and basically be marked all the time, just sits there waits for the ball, loses it and looks around dumbfounded.

agree totally, just seemed a non event for us i don't think chelsea were at the races totally but we just never looked to even try and really attack and get back into it way too many passengers in our team today roque,peds,lowe,and samba just never up to speed

[JAL]

He was a substitute... Who would you have played in Centre Midfield when Dunn got injured??? Out of his depth? On the basis of what exactly?

After the QPR game I stated that Linganzi is a better player than Lowe yet hes been loaned out to Preston.

So hopefully G.I.Jones from Germany will be able to do the business.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

After the QPR game I stated that Linganzi is a better player than Lowe yet hes been loaned out to Preston.

So hopefully G.I.Jones from Germany will be able to do the business.

Linganzi is as equally inexperienced as Lowe. Im not arguing which is better as I havent seen much of either but considering our options I dont think you can blame Kean for throwing Lowe in because quite simply, we had no other option. Jones sounds like he's the player we've been missing for the past 2/3 seasons in cm.

[Teacup]

Mama was static, way to far ahead of the actual game most of the time. I guess Roque was also static, although to be fair, the midfield should be playing the ball in front of him or to him. I can understand him waiting for a killer pass. They shouldn't need him to make his own opportunities which I am sure he will do when he realises how useless the midfield is.

You are right though, Lowe wasn't exactly getting himself into situations where he wanted the ball, he seemed to be more concentrating on defending, even when we had the ball.

In the first half it wasn't as bad because Hoilett seemed to be pushing it a lot more, but every time Kalanic got a hold of the ball he basically just fizzled out. If Roque had started with Mama upfront, and we had Ollson and Hoilett on the wings with Dunn and Lowe in the centre it could have been an interesting game.

That would mean dropping MGP, but to be honest, he was a bit awful today.

[m1st]

So does Jim think we would have done better with Sam in charge then?

As an old fogey, I'm not that much into Message Boards and their etiquette; but on the only other one I've ever really visited [some years ago], there seemed to be a general principle that if a member regularly posted what appeared to be deliberately controversial posts, they had the right to do so.

But they, and what they posted, were best ignored.

Isn't it called "Don't feed the troll"?