[Archived] Brighton Away 22Nd August

[tomphil]

Tom yes thats more plausible than ..hey lads im dropping you lets pretend youre ill so no one will shout at me and lets go a player light on the bench and hope no one notices .....i ll get less stick for that than for dropping you ..

If that was realllyyyyy the case no wonder he was "sacked" last evening ..

I do think people are reading too much into some things ...

Rather dramatic response, you want to talk to some ex players some very strange things go on all the time in football. The old he's had a knock in training or he's ill covers a multitude of things believe me. It's daft that no one reallllyyy believes the illness line but that's were we are at these days.

Maybe it's a new thing we're trying? Poison those players who haven't been selected to play on a Friday night so as not to upset them, just blame it on the Curry or a bad pint. No one will fall out with the manager and the players will feel genuinely sick to miss out on playing.

Yeah but what happens when the players start poisoning the manager.....

[BlooBoy]

A rather dramatic theory Tom ..

[tomphil]

A rather dramatic theory Tom ..

Hardly a theory more of a possible scenario but your right, I mean football is a world full of honesty, purity and clarity. Fallings out, lies and cover ups never happen I must have it confused with another sport

[joey_big_nose]

Watched the whole game back on Rovers Player (which is much improved on the Android app this year - high definition).

We started pretty well, played some good stuff first half, the midfield looked very decent and Koita and Delfy were a handful up front. We should have been one or two up. But we couldn't put it away.

The Brighton scored against the run of play, and came more into the game after that. By the second half it was an even affair, and by the sixtieth minute we had really run out of ideas. It was pretty tough to watch even in your bed with a nice cup of tea... Terrible stuff eventually reduced to Duffy being stuck up front.

One thing that really got on my wick was we were without threat in the last third of the match, so logically bring Barrow on,great. But then we play him on the wing? WTF? There was loads of space behind the Brighton line, Lawrence was knackered, but for some reason we left Barrow on his own our right (and never passed to him...) .Whereas if he was up top we could have looked for him in behind... Frustrating.

Technically Koita, Delfy, Lawrence and Barrow look tidy players but I don't think they will be scoring many goals. This is very worrying.

[Rover_Shaun]

I find it fishy that there were no pics of the alleged playet drinking episode. People take pics of all sorts of pointless shitte and upload it these days. Not even factoring in a Brighton fan can recognise a random opposition player. I give the rumour 0/10

[savage90]

What are your opinions on Raya for their goal? I've just seen the highlights and as Lua Lua shoots, there's no way he should score to that side.

Although at the same time a keeper shouldn't be left that exposed.

[DE.]

Think he was just wrong-footed by Hanley's deflection. Difficult to blame a goalie when a sharp deflection is involved.

[RevidgeBlue]

As regards allegations of pre match drinking, I suspect people are placing way too much weight on a tweet by a Brighton fan alleging he's seen some of our players.

There is however a startling coincidence out there and we won't know whether all is well in the camp (apart from results) and whether the Club's official explanation of Lowe and Henley "falling ill" is the correct one until we see whether or not they are available for selection next Friday night. If they are then that official explanation is probably correct (although it would be most interesting to learn what caused them to fall ill) and we can probably discount the vast majority of off the pitch rumours circulating concerning the weekend.

Extremely poor that we didn't make a few extra players travel to cover all eventualities though.

[adsfortheblues]

Bolton only sold 1000 tickets for this game

[Blueandwhitemike]

If you read the thread on the forum about Rovers players drinking you'd see it sounded like nothing much and was dismissed by most of the Brighton fans.

Andy Bayes, I think, tweeted that many teams only take 18 on some away trips, not uncommon... Not defending it but if it's common practice can't be too critical.

[DE.]

It's just a bit strange that this rumour appeared and then suddenly two of our players were mysteriously ill. It could just be coincidence, but unusual nonetheless.

[Daremz]

Came over to England to watch this one in a super-hot Amex away-end. As I don’t see a full Rovers match live very often, it’s always a good moment to see the progression or degression compared to the previous season. FYI, last season I visited our away-matches at Fulham & Charlton, which we both won and especially at The Valley, played really good.

In general, with exception of the first 25 minutes, I thought we were pretty poor, especially in going forward. Defensively, I didn’t expect much but have to say that both Hanley and Duffy were our better players on the day. They can’t start a normal attack (long ball only), but in my opinion that’s because we don’t have a midfielder who goes and collect the ball and is the starting point of our attacks (like Cairney was when played in a central position). Guthrie did that in the first 25 minutes and then we dominated and created chances, but after that period he went AWOL and we didn’t had a clue what to do anymore, with exception of long balls towards our forwards. Still we could’ve won or at least draw if we took our chances and this exactly demonstrated the missing of a goal-scorer like Jordan Rhodes. If he would’ve came in the position of Conway (1^st half) or Delfouneso (2^nd half), we would’ve certainly got 1, maybe even 2 goals. People who say Rhodes doesn’t contribute anything else: that doesn’t matter, Delfouneso didn’t contribute anything else neither against Brighton.

A player-by-player analysis from my point of view:

Raya: Good, although his kicking is horrible. One amazing save in the second half and safe hands in a few occasions.

Marshall: Brighton didn’t play every ball to Lualua for no reason: Marshall had a very difficult game, which you can’t blame him for. Couldn’t contribute in going forward and tried his best, but wasn’t good enough at RB. I think playing Olsson at RB would’ve been a better idea.

Hanley: Decent in defence, that’s all that can be said.

Duffy: I dislike the fact he seems to SCREAM and point to every team mate when things don’t go his way, but I think he put in a very good performance and even was one of our biggest threats in attack.

Spurr: His throws look dangerous, but didn’t create us any real chances.

Lawrence: Invisible and too light. But I guess you can’t expect/judge after just one match.

Guthrie: Ran the show in the opening stages, but disappeared afterwards. Real shame, because it looked like he was able to pull the strings in midfield. Brightons number 7 showed him how to do that afterwards.

Akpan: Decent defensive midfielder. Not too good with the ball at his feet.

Conway: Energetic, trying his very best, running tirelessly. Not too good with his deliveries, but can’t blame him for anything.

Delfouneso: Not good enough on the day. Had one or two half chances, but needed too much time. Should've scored the chance he got in the second half, no excuses; shot straight at their keeper?! His pace is undoubted, but never ever wants the ball in his feet to hold up the ball for the midfield to come and joint the attack, which is a missing factor in this team.

Koita: A poor mans Kanu, that’s what he is. And that could be very useful for us, but only if he is settled in the squad and starts making intelligent runs next to Jordan Rhodes.

Concerning the subs Barrow showed some technique and pace, but didn’t made a really big impact.

Overall we deserved a point because of the chances we created, but in general Brighton were the better team, especially when they had the ball. Their passing and movement was way better than ours, without them having more quality than we do. If we create these chances every week and score at least 2 in the process, I think we’ll be fine in the end. If we don’t, we’re in real trouble, because we can’t score 1 goal and dominate a match by keeping long spells of possession in defense/midfield.

[PAFELL]

As regards allegations of pre match drinking, I suspect people are placing way too much weight on a tweet by a Brighton fan alleging he's seen some of our players.

There is however a startling coincidence out there and we won't know whether all is well in the camp (apart from results) and whether the Club's official explanation of Lowe and Henley "falling ill" is the correct one until we see whether or not they are available for selection next Friday night. If they are then that official explanation is probably correct (although it would be most interesting to learn what caused them to fall ill) and we can probably discount the vast majority of off the pitch rumours circulating concerning the weekend.

Extremely poor that we didn't make a few extra players travel to cover all eventualities though.

I heard these rumours on Friday 'afternoon'. But what I heard first was that two players or two supporters (2nd hand rumours) had said, "It would be nice to go on the @#/? around here as some good places in Brighton". By the evening it had changed to "2 players from rovers were seen on the @#/? today". Some of my club members had told me that evening, they had heard both accounts in and around the pubs in Brighton.

[DE.]

Two players you say...

[broadsword]

Don't listen to it, it's just verbal diarrhoea.