[Archived] Northampton

[rossyrover]

Northampton are a team who seem to know every trick in the book to frustrate and we had a Referee who was so poor I cannot find words I could put into print to describe his performance also they fielded some of the tallest players I have ever seen on a football field number 22 must have been over 6ft 6in yet we persisted in playing high balls which their tall players easily delt with why we could not have kept the ball on the floor is a mystery to me. 

[Al]

2 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Did you watch it? Going off twitter he was our best player 

He wasn't up to his usual standard. I assume you didn't go to the match.

[Cherry Blue]

1 minute ago, Mike E said:

My gut instinct tells me we just need to keep doing as we do. We went from 8th-2nd on current form. We can get back up there and stay there if we just keep buggering on.

The last 7 games we won 3 drawn 4 = 13 points. The previous 7 games we won 6 and drawn 1 = 19 points.

That's a dip in form.

[had.e.nuff]

2 hours ago, benhben said:

Nyambe and Bell were our best outlets. Dack and Graham were crowded out in a centre on giant defenders and defensive midfielders. 

Conway tries had but can't do anything and just gives the ball away. Samuel didn't show much interest. 

On another day we would have won comfortably with the chances we had. They had 1 shot on target and scored. 

I've never seen a team time waste from the first minute and come with the sole intention of disrupting the game. Their keeper must have wasted 20 mins by himself. 

I agree they had a plan to waste time from early in the first half i don't know if the ref forgot his equipment today no line spray and it appeared he had no cards, or these refs getting worse or is it just me, cant believe second game running and we did not concede a corner this must be the plan to stop us conceding at corners.

[Bbrovers2288]

We can’t exactly fault Northampton for playing like they did, Christ it’s what we attempted every game last year. Newcastle games?

Something about today before kick off that made me think we might struggle today, we seem to gift opposition at least one goal every week. 

Mowbray to me, is failing, far too many draws and despite some wins, we have rarely dominated 90 mins this year. We always seem to struggle whereas Wigan breeze through games, in my opinion, we should be the team Wigan have been this year. We were better with a god awful team and manager last season so why have they developed so much more than us. Fault lies at Tony’s door for me, even if he gets us up I don’t think he is the man to take us high up the champ. I’d honestly nab hurst from shrews, derail them and we get a cracking manager 

[Bigdoggsteel]

6 minutes ago, Al said:

He wasn't up to his usual standard. I assume you didn't go to the match.

No. That's why I said according to twitter. If I was at it I would have had first hand information. 

[47er]

We've always done it the hard way at Rovers. we even nearly threw the Premiership away! It'll be a nail-biting season right through to the end I imagine. 2 points from 2 games against Northampton is poor stuff though.

I won't be taking anything for granted.

[K-Hod]

Basically, we were rubbish today in the main. Northampton must have thought it was their birthday when they scored and had something to protect.

The way they wasted time was quite something today and went unpunished, despite the referee letting their keeper get away with taking an eternity each time they had a goal kick.

Bell looks very good on today’s evidence.

Hopefully today was just a minor setback and that the injury to Mulgrew isn’t too serious. That said, I felt Williams did okay in the centre.

[JAL]

14 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

Basically, we were rubbish today in the main. Northampton must have thought it was their birthday when they scored and had something to protect.

The way they wasted time was quite something today and went unpunished, despite the referee letting their keeper get away with taking an eternity each time they had a goal kick.

Bell looks very good on today’s evidence.

Hopefully today was just a minor setback and that the injury to Mulgrew isn’t too serious. That said, I felt Williams did okay in the centre.

How did Payne and Armstrong play see they both had over half an hours action.

[K-Hod]

Just now, JAL said:

How did Payne and Armstrong play see they both had over half an hours action.

Armstrong not as good as the first time I saw him on his debut, Payne looked good in parts. We just weren’t at it today.

[bazza]

28 minutes ago, Cherry Blue said:

The last 7 games we won 3 drawn 4 = 13 points. The previous 7 games we won 6 and drawn 1 = 19 points.

That's a dip in form.

We have exactly 2 points per game which is what we all wanted before the season started.

Let's keep it that way with a slight increase on Tuesday night. 3 more points please.

[JAL]

Just now, K-Hod said:

Armstrong not as good as the first time I saw him on his debut, Payne looked good in parts. We just weren’t at it today.

Complacency or lack of preperation ?

[Tom]

On reflection I think today was just one of those days we could have played 3 hours and not won, surprised we came out with a point in honesty many a time that ends in a more frustrating 0-1!

Need to pick ourself up and move on and batter Walsall

[JHRover]

Another setback. Another couple of points relinquished against a poor side at home. I'm not really seeing much evidence of this progression others keep referring to. To me we're making the same mistakes and inconsistent performances we've been doing all season. Too much playing in fits and bursts of 20 minutes here and there but then it stops. Fleetwood, despite being dominant in the first half, we managed to shoot ourselves in the foot and give them a goal and were a shadow of ourselves in the 2nd half. Yes we won it late on to our joy but it was a dreadful 2nd half. We're not losing games, which is nice, but wins are the crucial factor here. We could draw our next 18 and make it 35 unbeaten and we wouldn't even get in the play offs. So whilst its nice to be on an unbeaten run the concern with regards to the top 2 is the number of draws we're registering. 

We can equip ourselves with all the attacking talent League One has to offer but if we can't keep the back door closed on a regular basis we're going to face more and more difficulties.

Anyone pinning their hopes on Shrewsbury collapsing have had a wake up call today with their superb result - another clean sheet - away at Portsmouth - they aren't going anywhere because they are built on the basics - getting the defence right in most games - giving nothing away. Contrast to us who have conceded really poor and soft goals vs Scunthorpe, Rotherham, Northampton x2, Fleetwood - all in the last few weeks. 2 clean sheets in 9 games needs dealing with. 

We've got a knack of giving goals away and its happening far too often. Its hard enough overcoming defensive stubborn teams at 0-0 but to give allow them a lead with their first and only attempt makes life doubly difficult for ourselves. The reason we have spent just 6 days in the top 2 all season long is because Shrewsbury and Wigan don't often give sloppy avoidable goals away.

Back to square one again today after 2 superb wins had finally got us where we've been striving to be. Only consolation really was that Bradford and Scunthorpe both lost.

[JAL]

Just seen their goal .......Ryan Nyambe .......defending against their goalscorer. 

WTF !

[Butty]

4 minutes ago, JAL said:

Just seen their goal .......Ryan Nyambe .......defending against their goalscorer. 

WTF !

JAL fancying a bit of late night fishing as per . Nyambe was actually one of our better players today as he has shown recently. Just one of them days today, they came to frustrate us, time waste and sit back and defend. Was always going to be hard after they scored an early goal as they had even more reason to sit back. Need to bounce back Tuesday.

[Hasta]

4 minutes ago, JAL said:

Just seen their goal .......Ryan Nyambe .......defending against their goalscorer. 

WTF !

I'd need to see the goal again from earlier in the move because minutes earlier Nyambe was forced to go across and close the ball player down with Bennett dropping to centre half as Northampton hit us on the break from our own attack. As the goal stemmed from our corner everyone was out of position so I have no idea why Nyambe was outside the box as the cross was about to come in.

However you hardly watch that goal and think Nyambe has made a massive balls up.

[bazza]

16 minutes ago, Tom said:

On reflection I think today was just one of those days we could have played 3 hours and not won, surprised we came out with a point in honesty many a time that ends in a more frustrating 0-1!

Need to pick ourself up and move on and batter Walsall

Batter Walsall?  Our current squad couldn't batter a fish in a chippy.

[blueboy3333]

23 minutes ago, JAL said:

How did Payne and Armstrong play see they both had over half an hours action.

Not as well as Nyambe.

[JHRover]

We're not going to batter anyone any time soon unless we get an almighty rub of the green and good fortune. The reason for that is because we don't play for 90 minutes. If we get ahead we take the foot off the gas and sit back. We often have loads of possession but create minimal goalscoring opportunities from it.

[blueboy3333]

15 minutes ago, Tom said:

On reflection I think today was just one of those days we could have played 3 hours and not won, surprised we came out with a point in honesty many a time that ends in a more frustrating 0-1!

Need to pick ourself up and move on and batter Walsall

Have we really battered anyone at home this season?

[K-Hod]

23 minutes ago, JAL said:

Just seen their goal .......Ryan Nyambe .......defending against their goalscorer. 

WTF !

Can you stop trolling now please?

[K-Hod]

28 minutes ago, JAL said:

Complacency or lack of preperation ?

I couldn’t possibly say tbh, just a poor performance.

[Hasta]

Just now, blueboy3333 said:

Have we really battered anyone at home this season?

Funnily enough, only possibly Shrewsbury !

[Paul]

Good grief - someone find me a cliff to jump off. 

If we don’t win 19-0 this place goes in to meltdown. We had a bad first half, second half despite lots of pressure the ball never dropped our way, Northampton were as cynical as they come and the referee appalling. 17 games unbeaten.

None of this means the team or manager are rubbish. 

Move on, Walsall next.