Bristol Rovers match report part one

This was an easy one for me to get to, being just an hour from home. I had booked tickets to sit with the Rovers fans, so it would be another ‘sitting on hands’ job, but they were a very good-humoured lot, so that was not an issue at all.

When I had booked, it looked as though this game could have a load of issues riding on it – would we make automatic promotion in the last game of the season? Would we have to settle for play-offs? In the event, the only issue to be resolved would be whether we could better Luton’s result and go up as champions. Sadly not, but you can’t begrudge the Hatters that honour after the season they have had.

At the strangely late-afternoon time of 5.30 pm (thank you, Sky), the following well-known team took to the beautifully manicured Memorial Stadium pitch:

Davies

Jordan Williams Pinnock Lindsay Pinillos

Bahre McGeehan Mowatt Thiam

Woodrow Moore

So, a first full start for Kieffer Moore after his injury in place of the injured Jacob Brown. Otherwise no changes – hardly surprising.

We were attacking the away end Thatchers Terrace in the first half. For the first ten minutes, it looked as though the lads were sweating out the remains of the alcohol, as we weren’t really in it and Rovers put together some good moves. However, with one of our first attacks, we scored and the balance of the game changed for the first time. It was a good ball from McGeehan, which gave Thiam a chance, but the ball fell nicely for Moore to head home his first goal since the injury. From then on the balance tilted significantly our way and we started to retain and use possession better, showing a good measure of the quick, slick passing, which has been a hall-mark of the season. It is to be regretted, though, that we didn’t create too many clear-cut chances in this spell of dominance and that would cost us at the end.

Liam Lindsay was booked for pulling back Rodman. It would have been a fast break and it was a professional foul, ‘taking one for the team,’ which was correct by the referee. Sadly, Lindsay then repeated the trick just before half-time in very similar circumstances and rightly was shown a second yellow and, therefore, his marching orders, although he did seem to have a problem working out which way the changing room was.

Stendel restructured for the remaining few minutes to half time by pushing McGeehan back alongside Pinnock, which held the lead until the break, so serving its purpose.

I was fully expecting Jackson to come on to remake the back four and was surprised, therefore, when the two half-time substitutions were Cavare and Fryers. Initially, it looked as though Cavare was to play alongside Pinnock and I can’t believe that wasn’t the plan, but as the half progressed, Cavare seemed to appear as an additional right-back. It seemed to me that this particular switch was never going to work and I do think that it was a factor in our ultimately losing the game. It wasn’t that Cavare played badly – he didn’t – but he just isn’t a central defender and went walk-about into right back/wing back mode too often. As for Fryers, he seemed to go into an advanced left wing position in place of Thiam. I would have thought that he would have been better going to central defence of the two players brought on, but he played in front of Pinillos as a sort of winger. The change in system was sensible – 442 to 441 – but why not just bring Jackson on? A strange one and one which, I think, ultimately cost us the game. However, Stendel has been masterful in his tactical judgement this season, so I am not going to be over-critical. There may have been factors and reasons why it was Cavare and Fryers.

The fact was that we seemed to hand possession over to Rovers too easily in the second half. You can’t just put this down to going to ten men. It was the structure and cohesion of the team which just wasn’t right, unlike the ten-man job at Southend earlier in the season. I commented after the first fifteen minutes of the second half that Rovers could go on and win this and so it proved. Whether it was that the players knew the score-line from Luton, I don’t know, but they suddenly looked as though they just wanted the game to end as quickly as possible, so they could get on the beach. Rovers created some good chances, the best of which landed on top of Davies’ net and Davies made a couple of trade-mark double saves, but the balance had shifted Rovers’ way and it wasn’t now going to come back again. They scored a deserved equaliser and the winner, which always looked possible, came in added time.

So the party atmosphere was somewhat dampened, but not entirely, as the celebrations were still going on amongst the Reds’ faithful right to the end.