Pre-season games

I wonder whether the new manager has taken DF’s words about needing 2 players contesting for every position as a challenge both for him and every player on the staff. This is because he put out a team packed with young and inexperienced players against the strongest pre-season opposition we have yet faced.

In the third of their games at Solihull the opposition was Birmingham City and the result was a 1-0 loss. OK, City are not the greatest Championship side, but they managed to just stay up last season and will compare with top end League 1 teams. I have read several reports of the game and whereas the Blues opinion was that the victory was comfortable with Rovers confined to just 2 efforts requiring a save, we get a different view from our side. The first 20 minutes are acknowledged to fit with the City reports, but from then onwards we apparently held our own, even controlling possession for long periods and creating a number of chances, so that the goal unbalanced the result unfairly in what was actually a pretty even contest.

Whether it was as good as presented to our side or not though, there is not much doubt that the City side was the strongest they have and that is confirmed by Birmingham reporting. (They put out an U23 side with just 2 regular 1st teamers against Cheltenham the very next day and won 3-0.)

What is notable though from a Rovers viewpoint is that at Solihull they left out Andrew, Anderson, Mason, Butler, Marquis, Beestin, Crawford, not to mention Amos and Wilks, the new loanee from Leeds who were rested too, and in the second half it was Jones rather than Lawlor who took over from Marosi.

So, to come away losing by just the odd goal however we played seems an excellent outcome, but to perform as we did is very creditable and is surely evidence of great confidence and energy in the squad as a whole.

The new leader may well be on his way to proving his predecessor wrong.