We are going to have to score a lot of goals!!

[Regiment]

last season at northampton (i think), at half time, Danny attempted to thunder one into the empty net during his half time warm up, but missed the target and almost took some poor blokes head off as he was happily making his way down the steps en route to the coffee bar.

it was truly one of the funniest things i've EVER seen, in fact i'm smiling about it now as i type. if only danny could fire in crosses onto someone's head like that, we'd be onto a winner.

(apologies if the person hit by the ball is one of our members on here - but it was f**kin' funny )

[royalgull]

Nothing like 1 match to throw a massive generalisation that we are toilet at the back. Even though in pre season our 'first team' barely conceeded a goal.

As with anything you can't make decisions until a real minimum of 10 games. That goes for individual players and collective performance.

I'd like to see a couple of little changes for tomorrow though. LRT in and Macklin in, maybe Atieno as well. Lets try the pacey game and see if that works.

[Lloyder5]

Nothing like 1 match to throw a massive generalisation that we are toilet at the back. Even though in pre season our 'first team' barely conceeded a goal.

As with anything you can't make decisions until a real minimum of 10 games. That goes for individual players and collective performance.

I'd like to see a couple of little changes for tomorrow though. LRT in and Macklin in, maybe Atieno as well. Lets try the pacey game and see if that works.

Totally agree. I didn't see the match, haven't seen any of the PSFs but aftermany years of watching and playing foorball itsfar too early to make comments about how the season will develop. What we do know is that we were 0-2 down and found a way back to 2-2 and learnt a bit about strengths and weaknessess, both of which will serve us well.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I don't think myself and many others are saying we are crap at the back royalgull, just that we looked out of sorts with communication and positioning the major issues. We all know what Robbo, Nico and to some extent Oastler can do but many of us were concerned about the performance of Saah. You are right to point out that we will know more about the development and cohesion of the defence after 10 games when they have had the opportunity to bed themselves in and get used to each other in competetive games. I am a bit concerned about the quality of Saah but its only 1 game and i'm not reading too much into it. It is likely that if we had gone on to win the game (which we could have done), the frailties of the defending would not have been so highlighted.

[royalgull]

I'd heard Saah had a decent pre season? Hopefully saturday was just a bad day for him. Happens, especially at our level!

We'll know more once we are 10-15 games in.

I was more going by the sensational headline of the thread to be honest more than individual posters and their views. For me, our squad is a midtable squad and mid table sides tend to blow a bit hot and cold both offensively and defensively. I imagine we'll do that this season.

[ferrarilover]

Hmmm, ok, couple of days to reflect, and ensure that my initial thoughts are indeed definitely what I believe, and I'm almost certain they are.

Give the team some time, no-one looked good Saturday, all mighty Rovers struggled past relegation fodder Wimbledon despite being gifted all three goals be shockingly bad defending, and managed to concede two goals in the process. Burton were totally devoid of any creativity at all. Their ONE and ONLY trick was to hoof the ball as long as they could in the hope that Richards could get on the end of one.
Nothing JOastler could do for the first one. If he makes any kind of tackle, Richards goes down and JOastler is off. Add to this the idea that he is also fecking huge and looks as if he could pull a reluctant hippo up a steep slope, and happens to be a better than average finisher and it was always likely to happen at some stage.
The second goal, well, yes, the marking went AWOL and their winger had the freedom of the bay, but his cross was simply shocking and Robbo (?) can consider himself almost unbelievably unlucky that the ball ricocheted off his foot, straight onto the head of that man Richards. Give him another 100,000 goes at that, and he couldn't do it again.

I wait with anticipation to see what happens when this defence comes up against an actual football team, rather than the rubbish of Burton Albion. Perhaps, against sides who try to pass their way through, rather than blast their way over, a defence, we will have more luck.

Also, as an aside, I liked the ref. Aside from missing what I'm told was a fairly blatant handball for their goal (and another one where the BAFC guy actually reached above his head with both hands and batted down the ball, no more than 10 yards from the official) I think he did well, and showed some bottle to send off their guy AND add on 5 or 6 minutes for all their shenanigans.

Matt.

[Chris B]

I wait with anticipation to see what happens when this defence comes up against an actual football team, rather than the rubbish of Burton Albion. Perhaps, against sides who try to pass their way through, rather than blast their way over, a defence, we will have more luck.

We may well come up against a footballing side tonight, but my experience of League 2 football tells me we're going to face far more sides who'll go long like Burton, than those wanting to pass it through us. Our inability to deal with it on Saturday (and at Old Trafford) is unlikely to dissuade the more direct approach against us. Part of me wonders whether our defensive line was just too advanced.

In any case, it's a no-brainer to put Robbo against Harrold on Saturday, given Saah's inability to win a header last weekend. I'd like to think Brian's mobility will be suited against the likes of McGleish.

[royalgull]

Funnily enough I've always thought the opposite. Sides that boot it long haven't really had massive success against us, especially when Branston was here. Him and robertson could deal with that all day long. We didn't turn up as an attacking foce against stevenage but before that we'd never lost to them, Shrewsbury went long to Harrold and he didn't win anything against our lads in 180 minutes of play off football. When teams had some pace and mobility was when we struggled a bit, Nicholson, Robertson and Branston not the most athletic players.

I don't think we quite have that rugged strength that we had with BRanston marshalling the back line. Robertson is a big lad but has always struck me as a gentle giant, he's quite a timid guy and needs his arse kicked every now and then, Saah by all accounts is a bit more of a footballer and with Oastler at full back now I don't think he's quite as fiery as Mansell. I'm hoping Saturday was just a one off, but this is a big year for Robbo. He needs to be the leader and the bruiser in the back 4 this season. He needs to do Branston's job of kicking anything that moves and more importantly heading absolutely everything.

[Southampton Gull]

If you don't think Oastler is quite as fiery as Mansell you're in for a pleasant surprise Ian, by all accounts he's a nasty little basket in training and on the pitch

[royalgull]

Only from the games i've seen mate, bit more culture about him. Whilst he's put the tackles in as well, Mansell to me is that fiery leader that will dish out the bollockings when needed as well as the challenges. Oastler is a young player and may take a bit of time to develop those kind of personal attributes.

[Chris B]

You're spot on about Harrold in the play-offs. I've never seen a decent football side like Shrewsbury resort so persistently to an increasingly futile long-ball game. Robbo has dominated such battles plenty of times, most impressively as a 20 year-old against Fortune-West at Shrewbury in 2007. The forearm smashes he dished out in the Conference play-offs at Histon and Wembley also showed he can up the aggression!

Hopefully it was just a blip, but on Saturday we missed Branston as much as he seemingly missed us. As I said in my last post, considering the number of balls that sailed over Saah's head, maybe our defence was simply guilty of pushing up too far.