v Norwich City (h) - 1/3/2025

[USABlue]

6 minutes ago, Penwortham Blue said:

Good post, I was pointing out exactly the same, at no stage was Duffy pressurised when in possession and we know that he can’t handle that. Gueye needs support closer to him, without Ohashi, I think Kargbo needed to be more central and closer to big Mak.

That would be the manager right?  He should have instructed the players.  Our press is so passive Big Mac especially they sort of just go through the motions without actually being aggressive enough. Sort of jogs to the player on the ball, comical really.

Dolan was total pants today as he was at Swansea.  He will be at Pride Park next season.

Edited Saturday at 16:34 by USABlue

[Penwortham Blue]

21 minutes ago, davulsukur said:

Full credit to Weimann coming off the bench and bagging the equaliser. He shows great movement in the final 3rd and makes some great runs.

Obviously we can't have him starting every week but as a player off the bench and starting the odd game, he's been great. 

Our leading scorer but the flip side of that is, he's our leading scorer with just 7 goals.

His legs have gone and he does get caught in possession but he knows where to be and is a goal threat. Like everyone at Swansea, he was poor but had two good first half chances and today, he had 3 chances in 25 minutes and don’t think we had a chance outside these.

[chaddyrovers]

 

 

[BankEnd Rover]

Just now, Cherry Blue said:

A typical Dolan game where he receives the ball, puts he's foot on it the its taken off him. Who does he think he his!

We didn't have a mid field so Norwich carved into us be thankfully didn.t have the finishers apart from their goal. Not sure about the second yellow, think the Norwich kid was always looking for it once Dennis had been booked earlier which is a shame because I think our loan main was causing a concern.

But what a finish to equalise from quality man Weimann. 

I think Dolan is the most frustrating player I've seen in a rovers shirt. His very few good games he's looks good but when he's off it, he's not even a 5 or a 6...He was absolutely honking today and not for the first time. 

[Waggy76]

13 minutes ago, arbitro said:

I disagree. He was lucky to get away with the first one in my view and incredibly silly to give the referee a decision to make. 

The Ohashi one looked like it was inside the penalty area.

That is how i saw it ,had a good view of the penalty..

He was very late for the first challenge , Norwich were looking for him to foul again.

[Penwortham Blue]

24 minutes ago, arbitro said:

It certainly feels like a win given the circumstances but in truth I thought we were second best for long, long periods of the game. It was in the main a carry over from the Swansea match as too many players were way off the pace. Fortunately our back four were all decent and certainly kept us in it with some good defending.

I really expected a high press given the way Norwich play and having read that it's what Ismael prefers but we didn't and let them play through midfield where they were dominant. In fact Norwich were high pressing and forcing us to go long at times. Ironically we had a good spell after the triple change and looked to be on the front foot as Norwich looked to be tiring. Dennis however gave them a huge lift with his stupid sending off and they certainly took advantage of this by scoring a well worked goal.

I honestly couldn't see a way back but the players showed great character to get the equaliser and send us home happy. It certainly looked from where I sit that the challenge on Ohashi was in the penalty area of at the worst on the line. Perhaps this helped us as we galvanised after this and got the leveller with the players taking credit for showing great character.

It was good to get Carter (our best player in my view) and Tronstad back and hopefully this week get them up to speed for the rest of the season.

Hopefully Ismael has learned that we can't play Cantwell and Dolan in the same team. We can just about cope with one player who gives the ball away so often but having two is footballing suicide.

We got a point when all looked lost but last week at Swansea and today, were two of the worse performances of the season. I hope I am wrong but if we don’t improve significantly from the last two, then I expect to get beaten at both Derby and Stoke.

[joey_big_nose]

I was surprised how differently we seemed to play already. Pushed all five forward  players very high and Travis dropped off to join the back four leaving a great big gap in the middle of the field, very unlike Eustace who always kept us compact. Actually took Hedges coming on to make us look a bit more joined up in the middle of the park. On top of that as others have said we didnt really press and we struggled to pass out of the back.

Obviously Ismael has only had a couple of days and its one game, but I didnt come away thinking we are going to build on what we have had before...

On the positive side we very rarely get anything from games when we go behind, so that we got a point back is to be respected. Kargbo looked good again, and Carter slotted straight back in

 

Edited Saturday at 16:49 by joey_big_nose

[Tom]

We are blessed with 3 very good left backs at the minute, 2 are due to leave in summer but I hope Ribeiro is secured longer term 

Brittain is playing really well on the right as well right now 

[Waggy76]

The owners will be after flogging him but then again it might be easier for them to run down his contract.

[roverblue]

Some shocking spells of passive play where we stood off Norwich and let them pass it wherever they wanted. Hoping that’s not come from Ismael as I was expecting pressing football.

A draw was fair as we had good spells in both half’s after the first 15 mins or so. Poor game from both sides with little quality.

Kargbo my man of the match did everything he could to make something happen and tracked back well with his pace.

 

[DaveyB]

I haven’t had chance to see them again, but from my seat in the JWL it looked like Dennis’ first challenge could easily have been a straight red, but then I think he’s very unlucky to get a second yellow for the second one - he has to be able to go for that ball and I think that’s a case (again) of a ref not understanding how to play the game.
Also what happened to warning players - the ref was happy to warn their number 26 in the first half when he committed two fouls either of which could very easily have been a yellow card, but then couldn’t get the cards out quickly enough when it came to Dennis. 

Anyway - overall I think we were very fortunate to come away with a point as we were second best for the majority of the match. Ironically we had just started to look like we could compete with them when the sending off came. 
I’ve said before, we give up possession far too easily and against teams that like to keep the ball, such as Norwich & Swansea, we struggle to do anything because they don’t give us the ball nearly as frequently as we give it to them. Fortunately next week we’re playing Derby, and no one can accuse them of keeping possession well, so I think (hope) we’ll look a bit better. 

[oldjamfan1]

1 hour ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Hyam was lucky but there was no malice in it - he was leaning in to stop the GK from taking it quickly and Gunn tried to con everyone. 

I'm glad we were too poor to buy Chrisene in the summer - what a non-entity of a player he is. 

There was plenty of malice in it. It was fucking cowardly in my view. Elbowing a player in the head/face area as you’re running past them? Nah, he should get a 3 match ban for that one.

[imy9]

2 hours ago, Tom said:

I was impressed with Kargbo today, couple of times he didn’t have the desired effect forward or back but he put the yards in and snuffed out danger a few times, exciting to see someone take on a man as well and get to the byline 

Dennis has played himself out of contention but with Gueye looking good and Ohashi coming back it’s nice to have options.

Sadly Cantwell looks like he’s not going to do it here

Could I also add that I am pretty certain AK and Gueye are fasting today- the energy levels are impressive when you take that into account too.

[BankEnd Rover]

3 minutes ago, imy9 said:

Could I also add that I am pretty certain AK and Gueye are fasting today- the energy levels are impressive when you take that into account too.

AK was blowing out his arse in some parts of the game...He does get about though! 

[wilsdenrover]

https://www.skysports.com/football/video/30998/13319255/blackburns-dominic-hyam-escapes-punishment-after-elbow-on-norwich-goalkeeper-angus-gunn

[arbitro]

10 minutes ago, oldjamfan1 said:

There was plenty of malice in it. It was fucking cowardly in my view. Elbowing a player in the head/face area as you’re running past them? Nah, he should get a 3 match ban for that one.

The game restarted with a free kick which indicates that the referee saw it and decided not to take and action. He also had a word with Hyam in the presence of Travis to reinforce this opinion. Had it not been seen then it could have been referred to the Unseen Panel who look retrospectively at incidents not seen by the officials.

So it appears that Hyam has got away with it as it's a clear act of Violent Conduct and should be a three match ban

[arbitro]

13 minutes ago, imy9 said:

Could I also add that I am pretty certain AK and Gueye are fasting today- the energy levels are impressive when you take that into account too.

I actually mentioned this as both looked devoid of energy in the second half. 

[Lancaster Rover]

The most frustrating aspect of today was the Norwich are crap, if the manager had anything about him he’d have pressed the life out of them and that’s the worrying thing. The instructions they’d been given did not match the opposition at all 

[chaddyrovers]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

Don’t disagree with a lot of this but how can you complain about the officials and not mention that we blatantly should have played most the game with 10 men and our goal was offside 

Objectively we favoured overall from them today 

Our goal wasn't offside, it was tight call having seen the goal backed from side on from recording the game Tom. 

most of the game with 10 men? I just seen it now via Wilsenden's post above, didn't see that incident given I sat in the BBE but I will concede, we got lucky there

Edited Saturday at 17:52 by chaddyrovers

[chaddyrovers]

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

Not like you to view all of the refereeing decisions 

Just ignoring the Hyam elbow completely? Debatable Dennis straight red?

Is the clear penalty the one on Ohashi? If so, im not even convinced that it was a foul. But if it was, your eyes must be great to see exactly where any contact happened.

The ref was shit but it wasnt purely in Norwich's favour.

what Elbow by Hyam? 

Dennis's first yellow a red? 

The Ohashi penalty incident, I thought it was clear pen first time given it straight in front me, I have seen the incident back also which also backed my view(through recording the game on Sky plus), plus Ismael's comments. 

The ref was utter dogshit, simple as. Ruined the game

[arbitro]

It appears that Ben Benson has taken a back seat as the set piece coach. Dean Whitehead was the prominent one in the Technical Area at every set piece.

[Tom]

9 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Our goal wasn't offside, it was tight call having seen the goal backed from side on from recording the game Tom. 

most of the game with 10 men? 

It was just about offside, tight but off I thought. 
 

You just ignoring the Hyam incident, literally not even a discussion as it’s a blatant red  

[briansol]

6 minutes ago, Lancaster Rover said:

The most frustrating aspect of today was the Norwich are crap, if the manager had anything about him he’d have pressed the life out of them and that’s the worrying thing. The instructions they’d been given did not match the opposition at all 

While I agree a high press would be the best tactics against Norwich, I really don't think we have a team that can execute that well. Certainly not the starting 11. You need a high defensive line and with Gueye, Cantwell and Forshaw lacking intensity in their press I fear Norwich would play through the press and open us up. Certainly not something you would be able to drill in one or two days in training.

[Exiled_Rover]

1 hour ago, arbitro said:

I disagree. He was lucky to get away with the first one in my view and incredibly silly to give the referee a decision to make. 

The Ohashi one looked like it was inside the penalty area.

I'm obviously not an ex-professional referee, but I'm never sending a player off for Dennis' first tackle and, if anything, I'm having a word with Chrisene for trying to get a fellow professional sent off for the second challenge. 

I'm yet to see a replay of the Ohashi foul - obviously all of the scuff marks on the pitch are in the box, but I don't know where the initial foul was made. 

[Exiled_Rover]

Just now, briansol said:

While I agree a high press would be the best tactics against Norwich, I really don't think we have a team that can execute that well. Certainly not the starting 11. You need a high defensive line and with Gueye, Cantwell and Forshaw lacking intensity in their press I fear Norwich would play through the press and open us up. Certainly not something you would be able to drill in one or two days in training.

You can't really high press a team with THAT much pace in their front 3. Get it wrong at any point and they're streaming towards your goal in numbers.