Bristol Rovers (a) match thread 17/08/16

[Bijou Bob]

Meh, corners are one of those things that always look like your team is crap at. For all the talk about "beating the first man, there's a reason v few people (Palace, a team of giants aside) just chip it into the box. It's easier to score if it's got pace and whip on it. It's much harder to beat the first man if you're aiming for six inches above his head with pace and whip. It also comes and goes. You can be hitting them bob-on one week and miles off the next.

What?? We're talking about blokes on 15 to 20 grand a week. If they can't put a decent ball in consistently, there's something badly wrong. If Spearing isn't getting it right, he's not practising enough. Thankfully, he's spending time practising his free kicks at the moment, so I can forgive him.

[thebish]

And Holden..

What a fantastic start. I expected 6/7 - Ecstatic with 9.

If we beat Fleetwood, we equal last seasons total of league wins!

Nice to see Sparky delivering and hopefully being in a winning team with a bit of confidence will show people exactly what he's capable of.

I'm liking Proctor more and more and he seems realy lively and a handy link up player,w ithout looking much of a goal getter (yet). We've got goals in the team and whilst a 20 goal a season striker is great, it's not absolutely critical if we stay organised and share the goals around our talented team

ha! he did break clear in the box up our end towards the end of the game - and you could almost see his lips mouth in slo-mo "now what the feck do I do??" (he lost it in his feet and the threat was gone..)

[BWFC_Insane]

And Holden..

What a fantastic start. I expected 6/7 - Ecstatic with 9.

If we beat Fleetwood, we equal last seasons total of league wins!

Nice to see Sparky delivering and hopefully being in a winning team with a bit of confidence will show people exactly what he's capable of.

I'm liking Proctor more and more and he seems realy lively and a handy link up player,w ithout looking much of a goal getter (yet). We've got goals in the team and whilst a 20 goal a season striker is great, it's not absolutely critical if we stay organised and share the goals around our talented team

Agreed, and I meant Holden.

Still need something out wide and a different sort of striker. We won't win this league IMO playing 4 CMs every week. We'll eventually be found out without some different options to change it up.

The lack of real width will be why we're playing 2 strikers. That seems to be working for us. As long as Proctor charges the lines (which he does) and the FB's help out, it's ok.

I actually prefer letting a striker do the wing work and letting midfielders make deep runs. Unsettles them more and brings defenders out of position. I think proper wingers only really work if you have a good one. The good ones are out of our range

Yeah I don't necessarily mean a traditional winger, someone who can play across the front line but has pace can offer out wide and give different options would be great. We just need to be able to change things more. I think this is do-able perhaps not a starter every week quality but someone better than what we've got on the bench I'd hope.

Also someone with real consistent delivery would be nice but probably unrealistic.

[Harry Genshaw]

It all sounds really promising. Got to agree with the Bish re Spearings corners. They were no threat at all at Wimbledon but as BB says. If his free kicks are going in who gives a stuff? Reminds me that we had 20 corners at Bristol Rovers once with Paul Comstive chipping each one nicely into the keepers arms in a tactics more akin to WWI trench warfare.

Great start. All we need is someone to start a Fleetwood match thread with a fishy reference and we're fecked

[KeyserSoze]

highlights

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

highlights

FYP

[KeyserSoze]

oops! ta

[Burnden Paddock]

Bish - the two games I've seen this season our corner delivery was good in when Spearing played and awful when he didn't.

So the worry would be if he's reverted to poor delivery we seemingly haven't a better option.

Nice to hear we look organised we certainly did against Sheffield United and I think that will be key. If we can add some pace and threat out wide then this could be very good....still think we don't carry quite enough attacking threat to really keep this going....

Indeed his early days his set piece delivery was streets ahead of anyone else then inexplicably went to shit. Looked good against Sheff Utd. Beevers can cause real problems from set pieces so let's hope spearing can deliver regularly. I think Clayton takes them as well. The long throw-beevers flick on has looked useful too.

Have a worry that Clayton will never really be fit again....got all the signs so far.

fecking hell. Remind me never to make you my power of attorney!

[Dr Hotdog]

Shirley that '3rd' kit is more marketable at our fanbase than the silky, sky blue 2nd strip? Reminds me of the glory days of the early 90s when yellow was our second colour for at least half a decade.

[bobo the clown]

Bish - the two games I've seen this season our corner delivery was good in when Spearing played and awful when he didn't.

So the worry would be if he's reverted to poor delivery we seemingly haven't a better option.

Nice to hear we look organised we certainly did against Sheffield United and I think that will be key. If we can add some pace and threat out wide then this could be very good....still think we don't carry quite enough attacking threat to really keep this going....

Indeed his early days his set piece delivery was streets ahead of anyone else then inexplicably went to shit. Looked good against Sheff Utd. Beevers can cause real problems from set pieces so let's hope spearing can deliver regularly. I think Clayton takes them as well. The long throw-beevers flick on has looked useful too.

Have a worry that Clayton will never really be fit again....got all the signs so far.

fecking hell. Remind me never to make you my power of attorney!

He's worried .... again.

Jeez Insane. Don't ever do anything stressful ffs.

[Prufrock]

Meh, corners are one of those things that always look like your team is crap at. For all the talk about "beating the first man, there's a reason v few people (Palace, a team of giants aside) just chip it into the box. It's easier to score if it's got pace and whip on it. It's much harder to beat the first man if you're aiming for six inches above his head with pace and whip. It also comes and goes. You can be hitting them bob-on one week and miles off the next.

What?? We're talking about blokes on 15 to 20 grand a week. If they can't put a decent ball in consistently, there's something badly wrong. If Spearing isn't getting it right, he's not practising enough. Thankfully, he's spending time practising his free kicks at the moment, so I can forgive him.

Unfortunately the blokes he's playing against are also getting paid to play football. So it has to be a little better than "decent".

[TonyDomingos]

And Holden..

What a fantastic start. I expected 6/7 - Ecstatic with 9.

If we beat Fleetwood, we equal last seasons total of league wins!

Nice to see Sparky delivering and hopefully being in a winning team with a bit of confidence will show people exactly what he's capable of.

I'm liking Proctor more and more and he seems realy lively and a handy link up player,w ithout looking much of a goal getter (yet). We've got goals in the team and whilst a 20 goal a season striker is great, it's not absolutely critical if we stay organised and share the goals around our talented team

Would also be the first time we've won four league games at the start of the season since 1934 according to Iles!

Didn't we win a grand total of five league games last season?

[boltonboris]

And Holden..

What a fantastic start. I expected 6/7 - Ecstatic with 9.

If we beat Fleetwood, we equal last seasons total of league wins!

Nice to see Sparky delivering and hopefully being in a winning team with a bit of confidence will show people exactly what he's capable of.

I'm liking Proctor more and more and he seems realy lively and a handy link up player,w ithout looking much of a goal getter (yet). We've got goals in the team and whilst a 20 goal a season striker is great, it's not absolutely critical if we stay organised and share the goals around our talented team

Would also be the first time we've won four league games at the start of the season since 1934 according to Iles!

Didn't we win a grand total of five league games last season?

I thought it was 4...

[boltonboris]

But I haven't checked

Edit: Now I have and indeed it was 5.

[LeverEnd]

Was 5 after we memorably tamed the tigers late season.

[TonyDomingos]

So we're only 60% of the way towards matching last season's total number of wins? Boo! Parky out! Feckin' pub manager!

[LeverEnd]

So we're only 60% of the way towards matching last season's total number of wins? Boo! Parky out! Feckin' pub manager!

[thebish]

Meh, corners are one of those things that always look like your team is crap at. For all the talk about "beating the first man, there's a reason v few people (Palace, a team of giants aside) just chip it into the box. It's easier to score if it's got pace and whip on it. It's much harder to beat the first man if you're aiming for six inches above his head with pace and whip. It also comes and goes. You can be hitting them bob-on one week and miles off the next.

What?? We're talking about blokes on 15 to 20 grand a week. If they can't put a decent ball in consistently, there's something badly wrong. If Spearing isn't getting it right, he's not practising enough. Thankfully, he's spending time practising his free kicks at the moment, so I can forgive him.

Unfortunately the blokes he's playing against are also getting paid to play football. So it has to be a little better than "decent".

if it is decent enough to clear the head of the first defender and put it in range of our motley crew of big lads - then it doesn't matter how good that first defender is at football - it's higher than he can jump! "decent" would be a very good start!

[bobo the clown]

Rioch, using McGinley perfected a style & we scored oodles from it.

Whether score or not there is no ... fckg no ... excuse for routinely not beating the first man. Nor, im(nv)ho for making what you're wanting to so utterly obvious. Having 7 players lined up at the rear edge of the 18 yard line is a bit of a give away.

[LeverEnd]

The Tony Kelly near post flick on was useful too.