ROVERS v Millwall Dec 29th 2013.

Lanza - i waited for you to comment today and guess what - it was more or less how i saw it.
The pen shout on Peterson was in the first minute so no chance of the ref giving it.
If it had happened outside of the box he may have given a free kick, i say may have because he forgot to give us free kicks on several occasions when the Millwall players obviously fouled our boys.
The foul on Robinson late on when he appeared to be pulled back after he looked like getting clean through on goal was a blatant one, probably even worth a red card had a free kick been given.
Wellens was superb again today and was my man of the match too.
I was pleased to see that PD took my advice and switched Quinny to centre back, he too was very good today.
However, apart from Duffy's free kick and the shot from the Italian that hit the post we struggled to make a scoring chance, oh and of course the missed sitter of a header late on - i see that it may have been Wakefiedl but couldnt tell from where i was sitting.
Looking at the league table tonight it is my guesss that the bottom six now will be the same at the end of the season, i hope we can finish in the top half of that mini league.
My only consoling thought today is that we were very much under strength whereas Millwall fielded almost what they would consider to be their best team and we got a point against them.
When we get our more influntial players back and hopefully a few new faces if TB decides to back the manager then perhaps we can gather enough points to stay up.
The biggest need is for someone up front with an eye for goal, but then we all know that.

hound our new love fest continues.
is 26 really inj, or is it possible both him n paynter are being offloaded and hence not played to avoid injury.sceptical me?Also ref should have had a word with the millwall keeper early doors re timewasting.
I think the ref wanted an easy non confontential day.

Forgot to say WELL DONE FOREST.

DPL......QPR Game
I may be without internet so can some nice kind person put me down for a 2 nil defeat please.
Happy New Year to you all.
RTID

I have just endured almost all of the first half replay and feel dejected. Oh for some tippy-tappy football where we retain the ball rather than knock it backwards for someone to lump it forwards as far as they can in the hope that someone up the field will be able to control it and make some kind of attack.

Sadly very few of the mighty speculalive kicks upfield found our relatively diminutive forward players and even when they did they lacked the skill to control the ball, let alone beat the defender.

I know we have injuries, but the majority of this eleven were out of their depth at this level. Televised Championship games show that we cannot ever expect to rise anywhere near the standard to match even the lower half teams. Millwall were pretty bad, but they did seem to get some pentration around the goal.

There is no evidence of a plan, no tactics to build up attacking moves gradually and many of the players have no skill to control the ball or make tackles or even in many cases to muster the speed and agility to get anywhere near the opponents. The players who PD has brought in from the reserves seem out of their depth. For example Wakefield passed the ball backwards almost every time and I cannot recall him making any successful tackles.

Dickov and his coaches are failing badly and it is depressing to witness such a shambles.

Re "Televised Championship games show that we cannot ever expect to rise anywhere near the standard to match even the lower half teams"

Call me picky, since the Leicester City (four point clear top) game wasn't a live broadcast, but how come we deservedly beat them?

Marc: The observation was based on a comparison of the first half of the last game with recent Champoinship matches which have been televised. No more. Yes we beat Leicester and I was at the QPR game which we won and played well, passing the ball and looking well organised and confident on the ball which we passed efficiently.

Perhaps I should have attempted to relate what they seemed capable of then with the obvious decline, but they looked like a completely different team, confidence lost, skill largely disappeared from most of the players and no drive or determination to compensate for the loss of form.

I don't know why they have become so bad, but if I were in charge I'd feel responsible. How we beat Leicester and QPR is probably the question that management need to be examining.

Donaldo, don't throw yourself off the bridge yet pal.
The team that we put out for the last two games is probably the weakest that we could have put together from our full squad, brought about by our current injury crisis of course.
To put a positive spin on it, Millwall had their strongest team out with the the exception of the suspended Shittu and we managed to get a point.
If our third choice team can draw with their best team then there is hope for us against our relegation rivals when our better players return.
We have played well in quite a few games this season and with a better rub of the green, could have had five or six more points.
Blackpool,Wigan,Birmingham,Watford and even Leeds are all games which could have been more rewarding for us as well as the abandoned Charlton game of course.
This would indicate that when we have the regular players available then we can compete with most of the teams in the Championship.
I have read PD's comments on the DROS about the directors backing his request to bring players in.
The way I read it causes me to worry that it may indicate that they will only be renewing the loan periods of our current loanee players.
PD also seems keen to confirm the extension of Macheda's time with us.
Of course we don't know what is going to happen but I doubt very much whether TB will dig deep enough to get us the natural finisher that we certainly need.

It was pretty depressing, that first half against Millwall; it reminded me of junior school football on a wet blustery day on the Town Fields with that huge leather ball. When the ball came to you, you just booted it up the field and hoped for the best.

If we are going to rely on the long ball we have to have forwards who can bring it down and control it; otherwise it has to worked up the field via short passes. This is surely a fundamental coaching principle.

I see that we arer competing with Sheff U and Posh to sign 36-goal striker Leon Mettam from Worksop. As neither are in our league and cannot be certain of getting here next season we might stand a chance...

As you imply Hound, the teams around us are not looking very good either, so we might be able to pull away if we could find someone to convert the opportunities.

Yes it was a poor first half (the second wasn't great to watch either) but you have to give Millwall some credit for that. Reacting to the loss of a manager they closed us down very quickly in midfield and at the back. This forced us to hit it long and without Chris Brown it was ineffective. The longer the game went the more chances we had to play the ball through the midfield, as the Millwall players tired.
I'm a bit surprised that some who were at the game thought it was an improved team performance over the Ipswich game. I thought it was more that Millwall weren't as good.