Let's talk about the Forest Green Rovers game

[ravenrover]

That's not the point. Our defence is absolutely dreadful. Some weeks, like this one, we'll get lucky. But most weeks we won't. With the defence playing as badly as it is, it's difficult to see much long term improvement in results. Lucky 96th minute winners notwithstanding.

.
But it's the whole point, we weren't 4-0 down,
The only score that matters is 1-2
Coulda, shoulda, woulda
We coulda got points in other games when we played well , we shoulda got points against other teams when we havem't played well over 90mins, we woulda got points if we had converted chances onto goals in some games but we didn't.
By all acccounts we were 2nd best most of the game against a team whose results have been as bad as ours but came away with 3 points, I'll take that

[drfchound]

Over a season things balance themselves out.  Apparently we should have won at MKDons, but didn’t.

[ravenrover]

Over a season things balance themselves out.  Apparently we should have won at MKDons, but didn’t.

My point exactly Hound

[LincolnDonny]

We can't cross a ball to save our friggin lives, is that why they prat about with stupid little passes when taking corners?

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm not sure how anyone concludes that we "should" have won against MK Dons when the horror show of our defending early on meant we had to score three to win - something we haven't done in 2023.

I agree with Hound that things even out over a season. My point is that today's win shouldn't cover up the fact that our defence is still horrific. And if it doesn't improve, we will concede a lot more than we did today. We got very lucky today. On average we won't.

[drfchound]

We can't cross a ball to save our friggin lives, is that why they prat about with stupid little passes when taking corners?

We scored against Everton after prattling about with little passes on a corner.

[turnbull for england]

The miss of theirs at 1 all was bad enough to give Ronnie Rosenthal a giggle

[roversdude]

Jones can walk away from today pleased. Solid return.

Still needs to work on his distribution and place kicking. But yes, played well.

Scared me to death at times not coming off his line but made a few excellent saves

[Donnywolf]

The miss of theirs at 1 all was bad enough to give Ronnie Rosenthal a giggle

I'm still wondering why / how he missed that. Was sure when it went 1-1 that we would concede again and was sure that would be  the time , but he blew it

[Colin C No.3]

Let’s not kid ourselves with our first win of the season today even albeit away. We could easily have been 3-1 down at half time.

Our defence is not a solid ‘unit’ & that’s being kind. Olowu always appears to be an accident waiting to happen, I don’t understand GM’s seeming reluctance to play Faulkner alongside Anderson. Anderson has more experience in that central defensive role & again today was comfortable in bringing the ball out of defence to the half way line & laying it off to Molyneaux, but Bobby is well capable of sitting in there to allow Tom to do that. Plus, we know he can win heading battles & can bring the ball out of defence & pick a pass.

Joe struggles with all of that in my honest opinion.

We nicked a win today against a very poor team.

I’ll take that if GM can convince the players it is a turning point.

I’ll keep my powder dry.

[Rovers91]

I'm not sure how anyone concludes that we "should" have won against MK Dons when the horror show of our defending early on meant we had to score three to win - something we haven't done in 2023.

I agree with Hound that things even out over a season. My point is that today's win shouldn't cover up the fact that our defence is still horrific. And if it doesn't improve, we will concede a lot more than we did today. We got very lucky today. On average we won't.

Did you go MK Dons?

[DonnyOsmond]

We can't cross a ball to save our friggin lives, is that why they prat about with stupid little passes when taking corners?

You clearly don't understand football.

[Alan Southstand]

Molyneux is NOT a left back, that’s for sure. They had 20 odd shots today - that is not all down to the defence!

[Colin C No.3]

They had 26 shots, 3 on target. We had 15 shots 7 on target according to BBC stats.

[roversdude]

Anderson was left woefully exposed today, Molyneux is a good player but not so good defensively

[DonnyBazR0ver]

Well, Lukes been tasked with doing a job for the team, and each time he's done so, he's not sulked, he's got on with it. He may not be a match winner every week or as often as we would like but I don't think we can fault his attitude and effort.

[colincramb]

I'm not sure how anyone concludes that we "should" have won against MK Dons when the horror show of our defending early on meant we had to score three to win - something we haven't done in 2023.

I agree with Hound that things even out over a season. My point is that today's win shouldn't cover up the fact that our defence is still horrific. And if it doesn't improve, we will concede a lot more than we did today. We got very lucky today. On average we won't.

Did you go MK Dons?

Whether he went or not is irrelevant. He’s factually correct. You don’t win many games from the position we put ourselves in, regardless of how well you might play second half.

Bottom line is we are a mess defensively. We allowed one of worst teams in the league based on current form 26 attempts at our goal. Don’t you think the better teams will capitalise on that?

Glad for the win, but Christ it’s a slog

[dickos1]

I'm not sure how anyone concludes that we "should" have won against MK Dons when the horror show of our defending early on meant we had to score three to win - something we haven't done in 2023.

I agree with Hound that things even out over a season. My point is that today's win shouldn't cover up the fact that our defence is still horrific. And if it doesn't improve, we will concede a lot more than we did today. We got very lucky today. On average we won't.

Did you go MK Dons?

Whether he went or not is irrelevant. He’s factually correct. You don’t win many games from the position we put ourselves in, regardless of how well you might play second half.

Bottom line is we are a mess defensively. We allowed one of worst teams in the league based on current form 26 attempts at our goal. Don’t you think the better teams will capitalise on that?

Glad for the win, but Christ it’s a slog

We’ve played the better teams and they haven’t had that many shots.
Forest green were shooting from everywhere, we had more shots on target

[Arsenal Of The North]

Let’s not kid ourselves with our first win of the season today even albeit away. We could easily have been 3-1 down at half time.

Our defence is not a solid ‘unit’ & that’s being kind. Olowu always appears to be an accident waiting to happen, I don’t understand GM’s seeming reluctance to play Faulkner alongside Anderson. Anderson has more experience in that central defensive role & again today was comfortable in bringing the ball out of defence to the half way line & laying it off to Molyneaux, but Bobby is well capable of sitting in there to allow Tom to do that. Plus, we know he can win heading battles & can bring the ball out of defence & pick a pass.

Joe struggles with all of that in my honest opinion.

We nicked a win today against a very poor team.

I’ll take that if GM can convince the players it is a turning point.

I’ll keep my powder dry.

We were on about Faulkner in the trip down, the only reason I can see him for not getting a shot over olowu is probably down to a contract stand off? I can’t remember if his contract is up this season but I would suspect they don’t want to put him in the shop window and lose him for next to nothing in the summer when I believe his contract is up?

Only logical option in my eyes

Beyond that, we rode our luck yesterday (about time) the lads aren’t the finished item, I think deep down we all knew this season would be a season of building to ramp up for next season, a wins a win, we’ve broken the taboo now this season and we did it with 2 really good goals

Put it behind us and look at the next challenge. As of next week I think we’ve faced 6 of the top 9 in the league so easier times may be ahead

[NickDRFC]

That's not the point. Our defence is absolutely dreadful. Some weeks, like this one, we'll get lucky. But most weeks we won't. With the defence playing as badly as it is, it's difficult to see much long term improvement in results. Lucky 96th minute winners notwithstanding.

.
But it's the whole point, we weren't 4-0 down,
The only score that matters is 1-2
Coulda, shoulda, woulda
We coulda got points in other games when we played well , we shoulda got points against other teams when we havem't played well over 90mins, we woulda got points if we had converted chances onto goals in some games but we didn't.
By all acccounts we were 2nd best most of the game against a team whose results have been as bad as ours but came away with 3 points, I'll take that

I really hope the management don’t see it like that. They should see it as we could have conceded a lot more because our defending was so poor, so what can we do to fix it? It’s absolutely true that we deserve a bit of luck but we can’t ignore the inadequacies that continue to plague us just because we won.

[Rovers91]

I'm not sure how anyone concludes that we "should" have won against MK Dons when the horror show of our defending early on meant we had to score three to win - something we haven't done in 2023.

I agree with Hound that things even out over a season. My point is that today's win shouldn't cover up the fact that our defence is still horrific. And if it doesn't improve, we will concede a lot more than we did today. We got very lucky today. On average we won't.

Did you go MK Dons?

Whether he went or not is irrelevant. He’s factually correct. You don’t win many games from the position we put ourselves in, regardless of how well you might play second half.

Bottom line is we are a mess defensively. We allowed one of worst teams in the league based on current form 26 attempts at our goal. Don’t you think the better teams will capitalise on that?

Glad for the win, but Christ it’s a slog

But your giving the defence a hammering for the 2 goals at MK Dons what about the glaring chance we missed at 0-0 in the opening minutes. That has nothing to do with the defence.
Also the first goal GM should take part of the the blame for putting Deji at right wing back who has no defensive awareness who was at fault for not tracking the runner. He was then pulled off at half time and I don't think has played that position since.

[Chris Black come back]

Our defence and especially the centre of the defence is not good.

Only Sutton United (20) has conceded more in League Two than our 15. Although interestingly plenty of sides much further up the table have also conceded 15, including Wrexham (4th), Crawley Town (6th) and Newport County (12th).

Only Harrogate Town (5) and Bradford City and Forest Green Rovers (6) have scored fewer than our 7 goals, which oddly is the same number that the very efficient top of the table Gillingham has scored.

Basically we concede far too many and score far too irregularly to be any higher than where we are.

[Campsall rover]

Surprised GM didn’t change it to a flat back 4 after 20 mins if not earlier.
Molyneux and Nixon playing as wing backs were pushing well forward and in particular Molyneux was leaving a lot of space behind him when Forest Green had the ball.
He is not a natural defender that’s obvious. Being asked to do a job that Senior or Maxwell should be doing but both presumably injured.

We did get lucky yesterday. Could have been 3/4 nil down before we scored.
Why did we not go for the jugular in the 2nd half. If we had got that 2nd goal I think FGR might have folded and we might have gone on to win 3 nil.
We sat back and inevitably conceded.
Ben Close to the rescue with goal of the season. Yes I do think he was crossing the ball. But who cares it went in the top corner and we got the 3 points.
Yes we got lucky but let’s face it we deserved some luck. We had none in our previous games.
We are now up and running let’s hope that kick starts our season.

The big worry is all the injuries. What happened to Senior, Maxwell, and Hurst this week?

[steve@dcfd]

In the latest report from Grant Hurst felt his thigh when he came against Wrexham had a scan but not same injury so should be back soon. Senior again not sure but should be back soon. Maxwell knee in training may have an operation so if that’s the case your talking Christmas

[ForsolongaRover]

Jones can walk away from today pleased. Solid return.

Still needs to work on his distribution and place kicking. But yes, played well.

Scared me to death at times not coming off his line but made a few excellent saves

Both Lawlor and Jones are goal-line keepers. Like Shilton, so was Sullivan and if you are, you need extra-quick reactions. Lawlor is pretty good now, but Jones never has been, with the sight of him motionless, just watching the ball go past him leading to people believing that he had no chance. An illustration of this was the shot from around the penalty spot on the first half which hit the bar just a couple of yards from where he was positioned which was only feet away from him. He made no movement towards it, just watched it go by.

[turnbull for england]

And yet the last minute reaction save goes unnoticed?

[selby]

FLR, brilliant judgment not wasting energy, he did the calculations in record time and knew it was going to hit the bar.

[Chris Black come back]

Hurst apparently had a build up of lactic acid in his thigh, which Grant reckons will be short term.

[graingrover]

Did you seen the misspelt name on Nixon’s team shirt yesterday …amazing !

[wilts rover]

Possibly a reaction to the announcer saying when the teams ran out that Forest Green were playing Morecambe!