Out fought, out thought, out managed.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Dickos.

I know you're in that "arguing for arguing's sake" mode again, but why do you insist on ignoring the issue about whether the team having little possession against us was actually any good?

I'll come back to the Tranmere game.

They absolutely did not play a low block. They played a cavalier, in fact suicidal high press. They just weren't very good at winning the ball. So we had both a lot of possession AND open space.

Have a look at the rabble that they were in the play that led to the sending off.

https://youtu.be/Ek-9z395nGE?si=z87aCOf9wzV2NsbO

By no possible means is that a disciplined, organised lie block.

My point, as I'll state AGAIN, is that we struggle badly against sides that play an organised, disciplined defence then hit us hard and fast on the counter. It there for anyone to see in the numbers, the performances and the results.

PS. If you're going to argue facts, get your facts right. Otherwise it just looks like you're making stuff up.

Both home and away against Gillingham, they had more possession. We won both.

At home to Newport, they had more  possession. We won. Away, we had more possession and lost.

Away at Accrington they had far more possession and we won.

[BillyStubbsTears]

By the way. If you really think Tranmere played a low block against us, I'm really seeing why we have so many differences of opinion. Tranmere played an insanely wide open high press and we simply played through them and took them apart.

You’ve just explained low block as a team not wanting to have possession, we beat Tranmere with almost 60% possession so yes I would suggest by your definition they played a low block

Then I'm afraid you don't really understand the "low block" concept.

Tranmere were an absolute rabble. We were talking about it during the match after 10 minutes. We hadn't seen a side as badly mismanaged as that. They were playing an insanely high press when we had the ball at the back but never looked like actually pressuring us, and we simply played through them, combining possession AND space.  Plus, they had a player sent off after 54 minutes.

[Chris Black come back]

They are all shit. We beat them because they are shit. However they play, they are shit. Tranmere was the worst side we have played at home since the conference. Terrible.

[Alan Southstand]

Dickos, you keep missing a very relevant word out of BST’s analysis and that word is either disciplined or organised - take your pick. The better sides have much more of a coordinated approach to how they defend.

It’s not good enough to just ‘sit deep’, it’s got to be combined with organisation, discipline and very hard work. Take Saturday’s game, for example, after the final whistle. The Wimbledon players weren’t running around high fiving one another, half of them were flat on their backs gasping for air!

2 things made the difference in the end:

A - BS getting himself sent off, and
B - the referee chose to add only 7 minutes additional time (which should have been 10 minutes minimum).

Another thing that infuriates me is - I’ve just watched Tranmere’s 3 goals in their comeback v Accrington - all goals came from outside the 18 yard area! Why don’t we try it now and again?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Tranmere were horrific.

https://www.doncasterroversfc.co.uk/news/2024/december/22/highlights--rovers-3-tranmere-rovers-1/

Just on the extended highlights, there's three occasions where they tried to fly into high press challenges in our half, got nowhere near and left us acres to run into, before on two occasions bringing us down with desperation fouls (one leading to the first goal)

Then the lead up to the sending off was proper Keystone Cops defending.

Anyone calling that approach a disciplined, organised low block needs to put their phone down and get out for a walk.

[dickos1]

The only point that matters is nobody other than the top 2 have won more games than us and they’ve only won one more and we have a game in hand.
So we’re just as good as anyone at winning games regardless of how they set up, we must be better than others at beating other tactics or maybe everyone is shit at playing against teams that set up deep.
It’s all pretty irrelevant, the fact is win on Tuesday we go 2nd and the other fact is nobody has won more games than us if we win Tuesday

[Chris Black come back]

We are playing largely good sides in our remaining games. We haven’t been much cop against good sides. That’s the important point. Could change, but this season we’ve struggled to best good sides and we need wins, not draws.

[Ryaldinhio]

If we are all talking about form against top teams etc why not look at the revers fixtures of the ones we actually play?

Salford - Drew (Won in cup)
Tranmere - Won
Colchester - Drew
Bradford - Won
Notts C - Drew

So out of the 5 we play we have not been beaten.

You can apply stats and figures to back up any narrative you want.

I really don't get the negativity on here. It's L2 we aren't Real Madrid or Liverpool not sure what you all expect.

We have the opportunity to win the league or go up in autos and almost guaranteed playoffs as back up.

Out of all the clubs in L2 we are up there among the best whether you like what you see or not.

[dickos1]

We are playing largely good sides in our remaining games. We haven’t been much cop against good sides. That’s the important point. Could change, but this season we’ve struggled to best good sides and we need wins, not draws.

We’ve done more or less the same as everyone else around us against the good sides and most of them have to play two from the top 7 too

[selby]

  At professional level even quite low in the games pyramid teams have the ability to react to the way other teams set up.
  The opposition are no mugs, Robinson although a manager that has always had money backing him at the level he has managed at  has been poor at getting his teams the success their investment warranted.
  Like Jackson at Wimbledon he builds teams mainly in the perceived image of himself dour, disrupting play, technical and cynical, the way they both played Friday at Notts County and against us Saturday. Not the type of teams you want to be playing with a lot on the game.
  The good news is because of that they are inconsistent getting results as tems with more flair win more games over a season forever contenders rarely winning things.
  There are no half way houses we are in the position we have to go for it, and to be honest we are a better side doing so and all the clubs around us are in the same position it's that tight.  The team with the most confidence in themselves and willing to go the extra mile to achieve winning games will be the successors for automatic promotion.
  If we give our all and fail the last thing we as supporters should do if they give their all is criticize, giving their all like at Charlton is not failure, either by the management or the players.
  As a team over the season could we have done better? I think we can all agree yes luck also playing a part, but, we could also have done a lot worse, overall we have done ok.

[BillyStubbsTears]

We are playing largely good sides in our remaining games. We haven’t been much cop against good sides. That’s the important point. Could change, but this season we’ve struggled to best good sides and we need wins, not draws.

We’ve done more or less the same as everyone else around us against the good sides and most of them have to play two from the top 7 too

Ok, let's take in your argument on its own terms.

We have played 10 games against sides who are currently in the top 7.

4 of those games were in the first quarter of the season.

We beat PV, Grimsby and Bradford away, and drew against Notts C at home. 10 points from 4 games.

In several of those games, the opposition took us on and played a very attacking approach. And we matched or more than matched them. Because we are very, very good when we have space to get at defences.

But here's the thing.

Other teams are generally managed by sentient beings.

Anyone who watched us take Bradford apart and didn't think "Oh, wow! We really have to keep it tight when we play Donny!" shouldn't be a football manager.

So pretty much every good side we have played since, has played a deep, organised, massed defence, then sprung on us hard and fast when we lose the ball.

And we have struggled against that approach. There's no arguing that. We haven't been unlucky against that set up. We've looked blunt and vulnerable, by comparison to how easily we pick teams off when them come at us.

So, in the most recent 6 games against sides currently in the top 7, we've lost at Walsall and Wimbledon, at home to Grimsby and PV, and drawn at home to a shockingly out of form Walsall and a Wimbledon that played half the game a man short.

Do you see my concern?

[dickos1]

No I don’t!
We’ve done the same as everyone else in the top 7 other than port vale and Walsall.
Picking out the games where we’ve struggled when we’ve won more games than practically anyone else in the division is negative to the extreme