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Viking Chat => Viking Chat => Topic started by: Thorney on October 01, 2024, 09:54:20 pm

Title: Tonight
Post by: Thorney on October 01, 2024, 09:54:20 pm
Did what was needed in those awful conditions.
Was never going to be a spectacle in the piss pouring rain.
Think grant will be nore than happy.

3 points and a clean sheet against a play off contender who before kick off were 3 points above us. Job done.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Chris Black come back on October 01, 2024, 09:55:36 pm
Grimsby got an excellent win tonight away at top of table Gillingham.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Thorney on October 01, 2024, 09:59:34 pm
Bradford only drawing at lowley morcambe and a walsall being tonked at fleetwood.
Think results been good tonight
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: dknward2 on October 01, 2024, 10:01:34 pm
Other results mean we are still only 3 points behind top of the table after a poor run of form, hopefully tonight is the game that gets us back on track
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: roversdude on October 01, 2024, 10:01:57 pm
Bradford only drawing at lowley morcambe and a walsall being tonked at fleetwood.
Think results been good tonight

Sorry for being pedantic Walsall were at home so even better result for Fleetwood
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Thorney on October 01, 2024, 10:07:18 pm
Bradford only drawing at lowley morcambe and a walsall being tonked at fleetwood.
Think results been good tonight

Sorry for being pedantic Walsall were at home so even better result for Fleetwood

Yea just seen on ssn. Even better then
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Filo on October 01, 2024, 10:07:30 pm
Decent performance that in tricky conditions, apart from the 2 or 3 minute brain fart in the second half
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Guernsey Exile on October 01, 2024, 10:08:47 pm
Bradford only drawing at lowley morcambe and a walsall being tonked at fleetwood.
Think results been good tonight
First thing I thought too. A very good set of results for us tonight
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: sedwardsdrfc on October 01, 2024, 10:09:43 pm
Take that every day. Also for me stick with Olowu and McGarth from now on.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: steve@dcfd on October 01, 2024, 10:17:34 pm
Take that every day. Also for me stick with Olowu and McGarth from now on.
Bailey playing in the deep
Lying midfield role and dropping into a three when we had the ball made the difference.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: NickDRFC on October 01, 2024, 10:18:40 pm
Big win and delighted with that but think we still need big improvements. Biggest positives were the defence (this should be our first choice centre half pairing), the energy in central midfield, Gibson’s cameo (there’s a player there, just want to see more of it) and thought Bailey looked better when he was essentially playing at the back in the 2nd half. But overall thought we looked very low on quality in the first half (maybe the conditions played a part, but we look much more assured with Moly and probably Westbrooke in the team), I’m struggling to see what Sbarra adds (very lightweight but yet to see much quality on the ball either), Hurst still looks well off it and I really didn’t like the 10 minute spell in the 2nd half where we totally switched off and downed tools.

Really important to get the win, though, and despite some fine efforts at self-sabotage Barrow never really looked like scoring.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: jmt23 on October 01, 2024, 10:20:42 pm
McGrath needs to stop with wanting to Hollywood pass every ball, he is soooo hell-bent on doing it, when the easy pass was always on - mix it up lad for goodness sake. He had another decent game apart from this annoying habit, as did Joe.

Strange 5 min spell in the second where I thought we were trying to give them the game, most players in that 5 mins gave the ball away, or gave hospital passes to teammates. Grant was hopping mad on the sidelines.

Patrick Kelly was my MOTM by a mile - he was enjoying himself and he looked a level above the opposition. How poor were Barrow tonight though? I expected a much tougher game
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: roversdude on October 01, 2024, 10:23:17 pm
McGrath needs to stop with wanting to Hollywood pass every ball, he is soooo hell-bent on doing it, when the easy pass was always on - mix it up lad for goodness sake. He had another decent game apart from this annoying habit, as did Joe.

Strange 5 min spell in the second where I thought we were trying to give them the game, most players in that 5 mins gave the ball away, or gave hospital passes to teammates. Grant was hopping mad on the sidelines.

Patrick Kelly was my MOTM by a mile - he was enjoying himself and he looked a level above the opposition. How poor were Barrow tonight though? I expected a much tougher game

Unfortunately we lose him again after the Grimsby game
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: big fat yorkshire pudding on October 01, 2024, 10:23:52 pm
Point to note, Barrow are 4th in the table.  We've beaten 3 of the top 7 at home now without really clicking.  The only way we don't succeed is beating ourselves. We should have been 3 up easily tonight.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: scawsby steve on October 01, 2024, 10:32:46 pm
Point to note, Barrow are 4th in the table.  We've beaten 3 of the top 7 at home now without really clicking.  The only way we don't succeed is beating ourselves. We should have been 3 up easily tonight.

Sorry to be pedantic, BFYP, but we've beaten 2 of the top 7 at home, and 1 away.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: StocksArmy on October 01, 2024, 10:34:18 pm
Kelly, Clifton, Sharp, Olowu and McGrath were brilliant tonight. Played really well in parts and played woefully in parts in difficult conditions. Win on Saturday and we are back on track with big players coming back from injury.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Barmby Rover on October 01, 2024, 10:38:53 pm
Satisfactory, but could do better I think will be the McCann rating. Rovers didn't make dominance count enough with shots on goal, but you can't grumble at 3 points on an awful wet Tuesday night, when you're playing what was third place opposition.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: steve@dcfd on October 01, 2024, 10:41:29 pm
Kelly, Clifton, Sharp, Olowu and McGrath were brilliant tonight. Played really well in parts and played woefully in parts in difficult conditions. Win on Saturday and we are back on track with big players coming back from injury.
You’ve missed the player that made the difference for the first time this season Bailey played the deeper role. And dropped into a three when we had the ball he covered across the back. He allowed Kelly to try and get forward and Clifton playing forward he was the difference. Without Close there we were far better GM doesn’t make many mistakes but playing Close there was wrong
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: big fat yorkshire pudding on October 01, 2024, 10:44:54 pm
Point to note, Barrow are 4th in the table.  We've beaten 3 of the top 7 at home now without really clicking.  The only way we don't succeed is beating ourselves. We should have been 3 up easily tonight.

Sorry to be pedantic, BFYP, but we've beaten 2 of the top 7 at home, and 1 away.

That's true, you'd think I'd know given I was at all three.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: BillyStubbsTears on October 01, 2024, 10:48:56 pm
Alright that. We've made a team in the top 3 look clearly second best. Not Copacabana football, but enough.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: GazLaz on October 01, 2024, 11:03:59 pm
Alright that. We've made a team in the top 3 look clearly second best. Not Copacabana football, but enough.

Barrow were rancid and won’t finish anywhere near the top three.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: steve@dcfd on October 01, 2024, 11:09:57 pm
Alright that. We've made a team in the top 3 look clearly second best. Not Copacabana football, but enough.

Barrow were rancid and won’t finish anywhere near the top three.
They had several of their first eleven out injured this evening
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: ForsolongaRover on October 01, 2024, 11:26:08 pm
The statement that “The table doesn’t lie” is questionable at the moment.

Barrow were not even slightly impressive, yet they’d only conceded 3 goals before going to Gillingham and then Gillingham lose to Grimsby and Walsall get thrashed at home. Meanwhile, Chesterfield could only draw at Bromley conceding 2 goals in the process.

You might conclude that there is not much to choose between the best 12 or so of the clubs in L2.

 
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Campsall rover on October 01, 2024, 11:34:08 pm
Top 3 will be Rovers, Notts County and Chesterfield imo.
Play offs will be Gillingham, Port Vale, MK Dons and Bradford City imo.


The cream will come to the top over 46 games.
No way will Barrow or Walsall be in the mix at the end of the season.
Yes I could be wrong but I do think those 7 along with Wimbledon who are the only other team I think have a chance of top 7 but their back log of fixtures could be a hindrance to them.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: BillyStubbsTears on October 02, 2024, 01:07:39 am
Alright that. We've made a team in the top 3 look clearly second best. Not Copacabana football, but enough.

Barrow were rancid and won’t finish anywhere near the top three.

I didn't say they will finish top 3. I said they were a side in the top 3.
W5 D1 L2 before tonight suggests they aren't always as bad as they appeared tonight.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Chris Black come back on October 02, 2024, 06:47:01 am
McGrath needs to stop with wanting to Hollywood pass every ball, he is soooo hell-bent on doing it, when the easy pass was always on - mix it up lad for goodness sake. He had another decent game apart from this annoying habit, as did Joe.

Strange 5 min spell in the second where I thought we were trying to give them the game, most players in that 5 mins gave the ball away, or gave hospital passes to teammates. Grant was hopping mad on the sidelines.

Patrick Kelly was my MOTM by a mile - he was enjoying himself and he looked a level above the opposition. How poor were Barrow tonight though? I expected a much tougher game

Unfortunately we lose him again after the Grimsby game

After that, he doesn’t have another international spell until March.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: GazLaz on October 02, 2024, 08:03:03 am
Told everyone about Fleetwood a few weeks ago. They are good. I’m on Notts County as well. Port Vale, Donny, Fleetwood, Notts County. Put the rest in the bin.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: DonnyBazR0ver on October 02, 2024, 08:35:19 am
We're slightly behind where we want to be towards the target of 2 pts per game average but last night was a big step in approaching the game in the right way.

With the midfield better organised, we've more chance of restricting the opposition while improving our chances.

 It doesn't matter where teams lie in the table, you can only beat what's in front of you. We're not going to romp every game, We're going to have to do what we did last night by working hard as a team for the whole 90 mins. If we can make teams look  'rancid' rather than us, we'll be there or thereabouts.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Hickleton Rover on October 02, 2024, 08:48:03 am
I hope we and Barrow both finish well above Cooks Cheating Chesterfield olympic diving squad, it was a pleasure to see two teams trying to play football and not throwing themselves to the ground every time they felt someone at the back of them
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Pancho Regan on October 02, 2024, 09:16:16 am
I was surprised by how poor Barrow were last night. Even when we had a mad 10 minutes in the first half trying to gift them a goal, they couldn't take advantage.

There wasn't much to cheer up a dreadful night in that first half, other than Billy's brilliant flick which hit the bar and his superb cross after chasing a 'lost' ball to the by-line, only for Sbarra to put his header wide. Should have got that on target in my opinion.

So I felt at half time that we had seen two sides who didn't look like top-seven contenders, but then this is League 2 and the conditions were awful. 

The second half was much better from Rovers.
Olowu and McGrath made a very good CB pairing. Jay is going to be a really good player but as someone else mentioned, he needs to be a bit more careful with his tendency to try the spectacular pass. When they come off they are amazing, but his success rate last night was 3 out of 6, and handing possession to the other side 3 times could have been costly.
Having said that, you wouldn't want to stifle that out of him because the lad really has talent.

I thought Grant's substitutions worked brilliantly. Gibson looked like the player we saw at the beginning of the season and Kyle Hurst caused them problems which Sbarra hadn't, not least Kyle's work in the build-up to the goal (great cross by Sterry, that much-maligned player).

Yeboah did well I thought, but he and Sbarra didn't show enough to suggest they should start ahead of Hurst and Gibson, let alone Molyneaux when he's back.

All in all, an excellent and important win which puts us right back in the mix, helped by some good results elsewhere.
Let's hope we are back to winning ways and can push on again after our blips against Harrogate and Chesterfield.


Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: pib on October 02, 2024, 10:21:06 am
They were tough conditions to play in last night. Not really conducive to great football but thought we showed a good variation of tactics to overcome issues we've had in previous games that were starting to perhaps make us a bit predictable, and we created more than enough decent chances to win the game.

Thought Sbarra and Sharp were good, and were quite unlucky to see the stuff they tried not come off at times.

I thought we looked much better with Olowu at the back. He gives us that pace on the cover that we need and did a good job on the ball.

As for the crowd, was surprised it was so sparse as attendances have looked much better on the whole this season. I'm guessing that the weather and the amount of Champions League football on the TV put quite a few off.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: RoversInSpain on October 02, 2024, 02:25:34 pm
Last night epitomised what Grant has been saying regarding his 30% comment.
We had about 4 really slick moves, one of which resulted in Billy hitting the bar.
Quick passing, forward moving with almost an end product… triple up on that and we could go places. Most was due to the energy in midfield, thought Kelly had his best moments last night.
Sterry to me always seems to have forward intent, and Maxwell excels in this as well, so we need him back asap.
One of Gibson, Hurst or Yeboah have to start frightening the opponents, so their focus isn’t totally on stopping Moly.
Very good 3 points for a 30% performance.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Campsall rover on October 02, 2024, 02:36:05 pm
Last night epitomised what Grant has been saying regarding his 30% comment.
We had about 4 really slick moves, one of which resulted in Billy hitting the bar.
Quick passing, forward moving with almost an end product… triple up on that and we could go places. Most was due to the energy in midfield, thought Kelly had his best moments last night.
Sterry to me always seems to have forward intent, and Maxwell excels in this as well, so we need him back asap.
One of Gibson, Hurst or Yeboah have to start frightening the opponents, so their focus isn’t totally on stopping Moly.
Very good 3 points for a 30% performance.
I would give last night a 50% score. Lots more to come from this squad.

Still think we will win the league. I can see GM adding to the squad in January. Another striker will be one probably to give us insurance regarding any possible injuries to Joe or Billy.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Campsall rover on October 02, 2024, 02:56:19 pm
We are exactly where I would want to be after 8 games.
3 points off the top is perfect.
No need to be top at this stage. We go into a sprint from February.
It’s how we finish not start. Obviously we needed a decent start.
Everyone is beating each other at present. No one has started a sprint from the off.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: scawsby steve on October 02, 2024, 06:29:50 pm
We are exactly where I would want to be after 8 games.
3 points off the top is perfect.
No need to be top at this stage. We go into a sprint from February.
It’s how we finish not start. Obviously we needed a decent start.
Everyone is beating each other at present. No one has started a sprint from the off.

9 games.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Dutch Uncle on October 02, 2024, 06:54:43 pm
16 points from 9 games equates to 82 points over 46 games. Since 3 points per win was introduced in 1981-82 , the 46 games average points for 3rd place has been 82.1 and 4th has been 79.2, so on track-'ish'

Note for seasons with less than 46 games I have used ppg to come up with a 46 game extrapolated figure.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: ForsolongaRover on October 02, 2024, 07:01:40 pm
Last night epitomised what Grant has been saying regarding his 30% comment.
We had about 4 really slick moves, one of which resulted in Billy hitting the bar.
Quick passing, forward moving with almost an end product… triple up on that and we could go places. Most was due to the energy in midfield, thought Kelly had his best moments last night.
Sterry to me always seems to have forward intent, and Maxwell excels in this as well, so we need him back asap.
One of Gibson, Hurst or Yeboah have to start frightening the opponents, so their focus isn’t totally on stopping Moly.
Very good 3 points for a 30% performance.

I must pull you up for failing to mention Clifton whose essential goal was taken with Sharp-like finesse. Indeed you also mention energy in midfield without even mentioning him.
Title: Re: Tonight
Post by: Padge_DRFC on October 02, 2024, 08:01:41 pm
They were tough conditions to play in last night. Not really conducive to great football but thought we showed a good variation of tactics to overcome issues we've had in previous games that were starting to perhaps make us a bit predictable, and we created more than enough decent chances to win the game.

Thought Sbarra and Sharp were good, and were quite unlucky to see the stuff they tried not come off at times.

I thought we looked much better with Olowu at the back. He gives us that pace on the cover that we need and did a good job on the ball.

As for the crowd, was surprised it was so sparse as attendances have looked much better on the whole this season. I'm guessing that the weather and the amount of Champions League football on the TV put quite a few off.

Our game itself was on sky as well.