Luke Molyneux

[Avsuptem]

His run for our 2nd today was superb.

And I’d probably add….That’s possibly the biggest understatement of the year. It’s was out of this world, and it gets better every time I see it. If we signed Billy for £1m after he’d been decent at Scunny and not quite made it at Sheff U all those years ago, Molyneux is worth £3m.

It was like watching George Best in his prime.
Believe it or not, the Mols hater near where I sit was criticising him right the way through the game.

calm down now Hound you're getting a little giddy now George Best in his prime!

Haha, perhaps I was but for that one moment in time there was a look about him.

I agree.

[Donnyjim]

To top it off me and the lad got on the Gibson pic.

[scawsby steve]

To top it off me and the lad got on the Gibson pic.

You're better looking than me, Jim.

Mind you, so was Arthur Mullard.

[roversdude]

When is the EFL player of the season announced surely it has to be Luke

[DonnyBazR0ver]

These two think so too. A good listen.

https://youtu.be/DkE6qDOqhAY?si=QxOM_zkWf2DX2o6x

[monkeytennis]

What I really liked about that second goal was that Luke resisted the temptation to go for glory and played it to someone in a better position- the fact that it was Gibson made it even better because the criticism he has received from some, myself included, has been OTT. We are not up yet but playing like that the squad rebuild needed for L1 would not be as major as it has looked for a lot of the season.

Exactly what I said to my son. The run was great but the decision making was the cherry on top.

[Pancho Regan]

These two think so too. A good listen.

https://youtu.be/DkE6qDOqhAY?si=QxOM_zkWf2DX2o6x

A good listen indeed DBR, those two guys know their stuff.

[craigdrfc]

Anyone else think Luke might come in for some ‘rough house’ treatment against these on Saturday?

[Copps is Magic]

Most teams have doubled up on him this season. It's been a fairly effective tactic. Up to the other players to take responsibility.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Most teams have doubled up on him this season. It's been a fairly effective tactic. Up to the other players to take responsibility.

It was astonishing that neither Tranmere nor Colchester set out to neutralise Molyneux. You wonder whether some managers every research their opponents.

[idler]

Alexander says that they won’t target him as we have other good players to worry about.
Even in amateur level you pay more attention to the better players.
It might just be paper talk.

[Monkcaster_Rover]

Think we’ve got a job as fans to get on the referees back soon as Luke gets inevitably wired. Put some pressure on him to whip cards out.

[jmt23]

It would be the ideal game to continually switch Luke and Jordan to keep them thinking and move their players were they may not want to be.

[drfchound]

There is little doubt that Mols will,get the rough treatment from Bradford and they will be trying to intimidate him.

[Sprotyrover]

They need to intimidate a few more too!

[CJK]

Most teams have doubled up on him this season. It's been a fairly effective tactic. Up to the other players to take responsibility.

It was astonishing that neither Tranmere nor Colchester set out to neutralise Molyneux. You wonder whether some managers every research their opponents.

I couldn't believe they left him 1 v 1 a lot of the time. I thought Cowleys would have singled him out for an early hard challenge. Luckily, with our early goal  we didn't get to see the usual Cowley play book.

[les@donr]

Could be the same against Bradford.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

I think Luke has improved over time how he contributes. He's prepared to change things around with his positioning so if he's not getting much joy wide, he'll come inside. Either way if he has a relatively quiet game he'll do the mucky stuff for the team, tracking back etc. He's no longer the one trick pony he sometimes used to be.

More recently, with the advent of Street plus Sterry being more adventurous, we have more strings to our bow so shutting down Moly isn't as damaging to us as it was.

V Colchester we saw the unselfish Moly delivering his bast Cross of the season, then the cute lay off for Gibson. That's a player showing high intelligence.

I hope he continues with that and doesn't try too hard to force things when we have lost our composure at times.

Bradford can't double up in him all game as they have to think about their own game by pushing their full backs forward and hope they'll force Moly to defend more than attack.

Intriguing tactical battle ahead.

[Avsuptem]

Alexander says that they won’t target him as we have other good players to worry about.
Even in amateur level you pay more attention to the better players.
It might just be paper talk.

Exactly ! If you believe that Graham Alexander gobshite you would believe anything. They will target him early on, let's hope it leads to a Bradford City player being sent off.

[andyst79]

Alexander says that they won’t target him as we have other good players to worry about.
Even in amateur level you pay more attention to the better players.
It might just be paper talk.

Exactly ! If you believe that Graham Alexander gobshite you would believe anything. They will target him early on, let's hope it leads to a Bradford City player being sent off.

I'd spring a suprise and start him down the left for the 1st 10/15 minutes, Bradford will definitely have a game plan to try and deal with him so would cause a bit of confusion for them.

[Metalmicky]

I'd spring a suprise and start him down the left for the 1st 10/15 minutes, Bradford will definitely have a game plan to try and deal with him so would cause a bit of confusion for them.

That would pit him against Halliday...... which would be interesting.

[Ian Nimmo]

I’m sure Grant will be thinking of potential formations, so we could see a different start to the game.
It’s likely Bradford will have watched the start to the Colchester game, over and over in detail, because we did really create the win from the start.
My fear will be the way they will approach the start with what is likely to be a number of hefty challenges.
Let’s face we have seen it all before from this manager, still in my head are those horrendous challenges, seem to remember 3 or 4, at their place which put two of our players out for many months. I do believe it led to the demise early ending of Ben’s career with us. At that point Ben was playing really well and the young lad from Bolton had started to look promising.
Let’s just hope we have a very strong ref, rather than the majority of very weak ref we have experienced this season.

[andyst79]

I'd spring a suprise and start him down the left for the 1st 10/15 minutes, Bradford will definitely have a game plan to try and deal with him so would cause a bit of confusion for them.

That would pit him against Halliday...... which would be interesting.

Hurst had plenty of joy down that side at Valley Parade this season, don't think Halliday started the game though.

[les@donr]

Ross Joyce from Middlesbrough is the ref., Bradford fans say he favours them. The stats say he has referred more wins for us than for Bradford. We shall know not too long now.

[GazLaz]

What is peoples perspective of value for Molyneux now?

[roversdude]

Definitely don’t think he’s become a bad player but is very much a confidence player

[Spud]

Didn't he suffer a dip in form for a while last season too? He'll bounce back again.

[Fal]

Didn't he suffer a dip in form for a while last season too? He'll bounce back again.

Yes, roughly around the same time too

[mpc123]

Didn't he suffer a dip in form for a while last season too? He'll bounce back again.

Yes, roughly around the same time too

Yes he did and will bounce back. Just needs support to do so. None of these are bad players. Its a collective issue at the moment, GM will sort and we will be back on track again. Because we are around mid table to dream of poss play offs, there will be more dips and more losses. LM is a very good player on top form. Keep behind him, keep supporting him amd he will come out of it

[German Rover]

I'm trying to think of any other season in all my time watching the Rovers where one individual has been so key to our fortunes. And I'm not coming up with anything.

I get the argument for McIndoe in 03/04, but he was the final piece in the jigsaw. He turned a side that had bags of potential into absolute dominators. There were goals all through that side even without him. Blundell, Fortune-West, Brown, Akinfenwa and Green between them scored over 50 league goals in about 120 starts.

Take Molyneux out of this side and I'm struggling to see us having options for hurting opponents.

Rob Jones, 2012/13.?

Yeah, the team was built in his image. But he was the Capo di Tutti Capi Mester in a team full of Mesters.

Jones scored a last minute winner away at Stevenage in his typical style - barnstorming his way to head home.

Still tell my kids about this goal. possibly my favourite Rovrs goal of all time.