Bristol City v Rovers. Wed 9th Dec. 7.45pm

[AllRoverAsia]

1 minute ago, Paul Mellelieu said:

What a load of cry-babies.

 

We could have won this game, but we played a good side who have a far more settled team than us and they nicked it near the end.

 

What other fans slag off the league's top scorer?  

Bristol missed much easier chances that we did.

Bristol deserved it

[Bigdoggsteel]

I think there is plenty to be positive about. Should have at least drawn that. Williams a bit rusty on the turn for their goal. Armstrong is just outrageous really, I hope he knows it's unacceptable to shoot that may times and miss when passing would have been a better option 

[SBlue]

1 minute ago, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

Eh? Beat Norwich (which we won’t as they’re a top half team) and it’d be 4 points from 9. How’s that a very good week?

Brentford, Bristol and Norwich - two of which away.

Its a good week on the back of a good run.

Sky falling in again after 1 loss in 8?

[booth]

3 minutes ago, Butty said:

Well as always, when a win would put us into the top six we don’t get the job done, gutting. Wouldn’t be to harsh on the team or the manager though, I don’t think we played badly at all but when you don’t take your chances there’s always a risk that you can get sucker punched. Gutted.

Our league position mirrors the way we play - forwards forwards forwards, back back back back. We play like Mowbray comes across, very laid back and like we've all the time in the world.

[BigBar]

Ayala has to bury that header. If he does it's a different story and we are probably all very happy. Bit of a pity party but feel like if he is playing for Boro against Rovers he buries it. 

 

Point being, bury the header from 6 yards out!

[joey_big_nose]

Well we played pretty well, generated loads of chances, a few decent ones. Looked pretty solid at the back, aside a couple of poor defensive moments including one that led to the goal.

But also we never really looked incisive against a back 3 and packed midfield. Our big opportunity was to score on the break when Bristol threw people forward but we didn't tend to counterattack quick enough and the chance would dissipate.

Frustrating. No one really had a poor game except Douglas who did not look convincing defensively or offensively, we would have got a lot more out of Bell imo, and Armstrong who should have got at least one goal.

The big theme I would take away is we need a plan B against a back 3.  Maybe consider a 442.

[Stuart]

2 minutes ago, superniko said:

I’m sickened by this. Stinking night for Arma and Mowbray. 
Arma - nothing more needs to be said but he was awful tonight, doesn’t have a brain, not fit to lace Rhodes’ boots  

Mowbray - Playing Johnson for a full 90? Pulling Rothwell off? 

Can’t have Douglas either, he’s not good enough. I don’t rate Bell but I’m not sure he’s even an upgrade. 

I think we still have the quality to finish in the top 6 but we can kiss goodbye to automatics by not winning these games. 

Agree about Armstrong. He just gets his head down and shoots. It either goes in or it’s another wasted opportunity. He needs to get his head up and recognise that he has team mates. It’s like he is playing for himself. He’s scored a lot of goals this season but he’s no Dack.

Andy Cole got pelters for needing five chances to score one - and that was in the PL.

[Kie_BRFC]

Where is this coming from that we played really well tonight? Sky were it and a few on here acting hard done to. Thought we were toothless all night, not helped by Armstrong shooting from stupid positions all night. They had the much better chances

[superniko]

4 minutes ago, 1864roverite said:

Oh my seeds of despair because we lost first game in 8! Grow some. Take the defeat, learn from it and move on. We go again Saturday!

Where have those previous 7 games got us? 9 points off the top and 5 off the playoffs. We can go on unbeaten runs but we’re not making a dent in the top half of the league because we can’t beat anyone above us

[matt83]

2 minutes ago, Paul Mellelieu said:

What a load of cry-babies.

 

We could have won this game, but we played a good side who have a far more settled team than us and they nicked it near the end.

 

What other fans slag off the league's top scorer?  

We had one decent chance the Ayala header not sure there was much evidence to say we could have won the game.

No player is immune from criticism especially after a performance like that. 

[CambridgeRover]

4 minutes ago, Paul Mellelieu said:

What a load of cry-babies.

 

We could have won this game, but we played a good side who have a far more settled team than us and they nicked it near the end.

 

What other fans slag off the league's top scorer?  

Just because he is scoring goals doesn't mean he is immune to criticism. God Jordan Rhodes used to be slaughtered every other match

He played like shit and was completely selfish 

Edited December 9, 2020 by CambridgeRover

[chaddyrovers]

7 minutes ago, Hasta said:

A lot of tippy tappy stuff again that failed to materialise into any clear chances. Bristol city probably had the best 3 chances / situations in the game with the exceptin of the Ayala header.

We were never 'in the mix' for the play offs last year and I fear it will be the same again. 

Armstrong 1st half chance when one on one with keeper

[Exiled_Rover]

How bad do you have to be for me to turn to my dad and say "I'd bring Bell on".

Hang your head in shame, Douglas. Also, hand over a weeks wages for that ridiculous right foot volley you tried from 25 yards in the 91st minute. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

1 minute ago, DE. said:

If you count Arma's chance when Elliott put him through then there's two, but that's it. Bristol had us sussed fairly early on and took their chance when it came, as all the better teams in the division do. 

This team is grossly overestimated because we play some nice football, in the same way fans underestimated some of our past teams because we played attritional football but got results. 

10th is about right and more or less where we'll be come the end of the season, unless Dack and Trav return and have a major, major impact. 

Very tight margins though. Very little in tonight's game. Harsh to not draw, but that's how it goes sometimes

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

8 minutes ago, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

And also, can nobody please say ‘we dominated - look at the stats’. I’m sat here struggling to think of one effort we had in the box outside of Ayala’s free header. 95% of them at least must have been from 25 yards+. 

Armstrong clean through ?

[darrenrover]

12 minutes ago, S8 & Blue said:

Not too disheartened. It happens. We played well and looked the better side against a team that will be in and around it.

All four defenders switched off for the goal.

Win on Saturday (as I expect us to) and it’s been a very good week.

I was about to say similar, get your chins off the deck boys FFS.

It was a fair performance tonight against a top 6 side. We weren't clinical enough in the final third and switched off for their goal. That for me is a summation.

In the final analysis, we should really have won but looking at some comments you'd have thought we'd been well and truly dicked, which wasn't the case at all.

We've lost, probably deserved at least a point but that's football. We move on and hopefully stuff the Canaries on Saturday.

At least I've got some faith and belief at last because for the past 10 years until now, I had neither.

Edited December 9, 2020 by darrenrover

[Doug]

Undefeated in previous 7 games, still fancy us for top 6. Need to get Rothy further forward. 

Still plenty of games left this season, Dack and Travis to come back, don't panic, don't panic 👍🏻

[roversfan99]

A case of de ja vu, a predictable and inevitable defeat when we can get into the top 6 and v a top half side. I dont even think it is us "bottling it" we just dont have the consistent ability to pick up points at a top 6 level.

I dont see how anyones minds can focus on the positives when the blow is repeated again and again. It goes against logic to expect anything to change. We keep "unluckily" being edged out by the better teams. When it keeps happening you start to suspect it isnt coincedence.

For all the talk about deserving to lose or not deserving, we didnt create much in the way of serious chances and theres not many if any chances where I think we were really unlucky, most of the chances were speculative at best.

The subs were totally bizarre at the end, taking off Gallagher when we started to go more direct. Felt like he felt obliged to make them.

[chaddyrovers]

4 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Nyambe the pick for me

At fault for goal. Poor defending 

[DE.]

Just now, Exiled_Rover said:

How bad do you have to be for me to turn to my dad and say "I'd bring Bell on".

Hang your head in shame, Douglas. Also, hand over a weeks wages for that ridiculous right foot volley you tried from 25 yards in the 91st minute. 

He was passing to someone at the corner flag wasn't he?

[Mercer]

8 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Another failure against a top 6 team. Until we start beating them we haven't a hope of making the play-offs

Never mind top 6, have we beat a top half side this season?

Dreadfully disappointing.

Couldn't see City scoring.  Sloppy defending!

Douglas the most overrated left back in our history!

[Ossydave]

Didn't deserve to lose that, 1 goal was always going to win it though I'm afraid and wasn't to be.

Actually defended pretty well for the most part and Williams didn't look like he was short of match practice to be fair.

Could be worse, we could have got panned 3-0 off PNE like Boro.

A few players looked shattered tonight and it'll be a relief to have a home game at weekend and let Norwich face the long trip, they won't just come and defend either.

Really do think we could have done with Big Ben tonight, he's not even training again yet though so assume the injury might be a bit worse than they first thought?

We really need to sort the corners out, wtf were THEY tonight? It looked like they'd been practicing of a sort, not sure what they were doing though apart from a shit effort at a conga. Remember Mulgrew banging a corner in against this lot in the early ko on a Sunday a few years ago, I don't think we've ever replaced his corners have we?

[West Yorks Rover]

4 minutes ago, Paul Mellelieu said:

What a load of cry-babies.

 

We could have won this game, but we played a good side who have a far more settled team than us and they nicked it near the end.

 

What other fans slag off the league's top scorer?  

Bristol's home record before tonight  W 3 D 2 L 3

Not that good are they?

[Tormund]

To be fair Douglas hasn’t got much match fitness plus he’s had a few niggles. Just doesn’t look fit to me, hopefully he’ll improve.

[DE.]

Just now, Bigdoggsteel said:

Very tight margins though. Very little in tonight's game. Harsh to not draw, but that's how it goes sometimes

Bristol opened us up a few times, so it wasn't a surprise to me when they scored. They had two golden opportunities in the first half. Less in the second, but with our defence you just knew we were going to gift them at least one chance to score.