24th January 2021 Middlesbrough Away 15:00

[Roverthechimp]

Crazy high kick aside i thought Branthwaite was decent - the ball through to AA was class

[neophox]

Warnock should be OLD enough to handle with these things...poor dude.

[yellowsubmarine]

Kaminski - immerse

Lenihan - one of his best game at the back so far this season

Gallagher - best sub today, came on and won quite a few headers, looked fresh and strong.

Dack - his awareness and technical skills never in doubt, just need to keep working on his fitness

Davenport - kept things simple throughout, hope his injury isnt serious.

The rest woke up after we scored. Much much better performance after that.

Still cant understand why we took so long to get up to speed with the game. Kaminski kept us in the game with a couple of important saves.

[rovers11]

Things you’d never thought you’d see: A good defensive performance from Rovers. 

Had a feeling it might be our day when they hit the post when it looked easier to score. 

Good win. 

[Exiled in Toronto]

Comfortable three points in the end. I thought the subs after the goal really worked well, negated Warnocks man-marking strategy against Elliott and Rothwell. 8th place after the run we have had and with 21games to go isn’t yet a wasted season

[neophox]

Best decision today was the bravery in taking Buckley off ... he was poor when he came on.

[jim mk2]

Well, you win promotion by winning ugly..... and that was ugly

[RevidgeBlue]

Extremely fortunate three points courtesy of the referee's decision not to award a stonewall penalty and award a red card to Branthwaite which would obviously have changed the game completely.

Six points off sixth, might have one or two more decent results then if we get within two or three points away from the play offs no doubt the next death spiral of one or two wins in ten will start again.

[Gutted]

A wins a win even though meaningless overall. Thought Dack looked sharp when he came on. Good to see Boro players thinking for themselves and not doing the knee nonsense. 

[OldEwoodBlue]

3 minutes ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

Mowbray is better than Warnock after all. Who knew? Chaddy knew.

 

stands to reason.

Coyle was a better candidate than Warnock and Mowbray is better than Coyle so of course...Mowbray better than Warnock.

[Waggy76]

2 minutes ago, Stuart said:

Thought you said you only watched the second half?

I did 

[Stuart]

2 minutes ago, neophox said:

Ugly scenes as Warnock lash it outs on Braithwaite...

That’s the bad side of Warnock and the reason he is called Neil. Still think he’ll finish above Mowbray.

He wants to win and is a bad loser. Meanwhile “Venkys only ask for progress and Mowbray is under no pressure”. Not my words but those of the Sky commentator - although I certainly don’t disagree.

[superniko]

We looked awful until the goal, not sure if it was the stuffing knocked out of them, or the subs we made. Should have been a red and a penalty.

The starting line up was completely wrong as was the Buckley sub. I just don’t understand what goes through his head at times.

Kaminski - Such a great signing. Another strong performance. MOTM for me 

Branthwaite - Should have been a red and penalty. Hopefully he puts it behind him and the clean sheet breeds confidence.

Buckley - Well off the pace, he should have been the 4th choice sub after Brereton (move Rothwell), Dack and Trybull.

Dack - Looked quality, embarrassing all the prematch doubt from Joe and Chaddy. Great through ball for Gallagher where Armstrong should have scored. He’s comfortably our best player alongside Elliott and needs to start

Armstrong - I thought he put in a decent shift today. Had some pretty good chances, 2 very good ones and fluffed them both completely. Never a £30m player but he’s good and easily our best striking option.

Douglas - Clearly has his flaws but he’s so much better than Bell. More comfortable on the ball and offers something going forward  (2 layoffs to Arma and a chance for himself today).

Brereton and Gallagher both played well coming on too. Not really sure what Davenport offers us, what style of midfielder he is - likely would have got some stick here if it wasn’t for Buckley. 

[Stuart]

1 minute ago, Waggy76 said:

I did 

We were as lucky as you were!

[Paul Mellelieu]

As bad as it's been until the goal.  After it, we never looked like conceding.  Getting Buckley off, and getting some shape and strength to the team (and Dack) showed up how bad a decision bringing on young John was.  Born were crap BTW.

[G Somerset Rover]

2 minutes ago, yellowsubmarine said:

Gallagher - best sub today, came on and won quite a few headers, looked fresh and strong.

Agree with this. He’s actually proving quite useful coming off the bench. 

[StevenSK]

3 minutes ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

Superb win - the result of the season to date.

Brilliant tactical set up and substitutions by Tony Mowbray outwitting Neil Warnock who embarassed himself with his rant after the game.

You have to be kidding?

[gumboots]

3 minutes ago, yellowsubmarine said:

Kaminski - immerse

 

I see your user name is submarine. Is that why you got this wrong?

[yellowsubmarine]

4 minutes ago, neophox said:

Best decision today was the bravery in taking Buckley off ... he was poor when he came on.

Shouldnt have come on in the first place. Wasted sub.

[den]

Well it turned out well. Much better second half and for once the subs made the difference. 
Boro should have had a pen, but there was still a lot of football to be played and they just weren’t good enough.

Defensively we did really well, but again Boro contributed to that with their continual high balls into the box which suited us.

Good day, move on.

 

[DE.]

Terrible first 70 minutes, then came to life after we scored. Boro looked shellshocked and were unable to recover. 

Obviously massively lucky not to concede a pen at best, play most of the match with ten men at worst. With that said I didn't see anything from Boro to suggest they'll finish any higher than us. We gave them the majority of the game to score and they didn't take it. 

Need to seriously consider sending Buckley somewhere to develop. Not ready yet. Douglas continues to look like an incredibly poor signing. Arma missed some key chances and spent most of the match isolated. Branthwaite at times looked good but at other times, especially in the first half, looked out of his depth. Par the course for a youngster though so not going to criticise him any more than that - I'll only say he was a lucky boy to still be on the pitch after that big boot. 

On the plus side it was Lenihan's first solid game in a while. Kaminski was incredible. Nyambe struggled at times but was a key part of our goal. Rothwell and Elliot similar. 

We still play most of the time like a team with no real identity or direction. I'm like a broken record at this point but get a good manager in and this team could go places. Under Mowbray this WDL overall season pattern won't change. Too much reliance on individual skill digging us out of holes, not enough team coherence. 

[superniko]

3 minutes ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

 

Brilliant tactical set up

What? 
We were shocking until the goal, set up was terrible and the Buckley sub was so bad he subbed him again. 
 

I’ll give you that the 3 subs of Dack, Gallagher and Brereton were good though. Looked more in control then - though could have been as Boro lost it after conceding. 

[matt83]

In a horrible position where I can’t take pleasure in defeats because we’ve lost and I can’t take pleasure in victories because Mowbray lumbers on. Suppose that’s life under Venkys rovers. 

[RevidgeBlue]

5 minutes ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

Superb win - the result of the season to date.

There aren't many to choose from, is that the first win against a team in the top half or the second?

[gumboots]

5 minutes ago, rovers11 said:

Things you’d never thought you’d see: A good defensive performance from Rovers. 

Had a feeling it might be our day when they hit the post when it looked easier to score. 

Good win. 

I said it was our Gus Poyet moment. Always remember him hitting the crossbar in the Worthington Cup final and my daughter saying 'We're going to win this now'