Adams park is a very attractive place to watch football, but my recollections of Rovers playing there do not hold memories of good outcomes. We lost last time in 2017 and we did not play well as well as they did that day and I can also remember a Cup game which we were expected to win, but again we lost and not undeservedly.
We went into the last game as favourites and will do so again with the added advantage of Wycombe being on a run of 4 successive losses, but go a bit further back and they were winning consecutive home matches including against Barnsley and Peterborough. 2 or 3 of their loanees have also gone back to their parents since 2019 began too, so one way and another they are up against it.
The win at Preston exceeded what might have been expected - a draw at best I would have thought - and you would have thought that for once, what might be termed "true form" might be the decider tomorrow which points very strongly to a convincing win for us.
A factor more and more in point governing the level of perforamce is that of competition for places. Rowe vs Crawford vs Copps, Sadlier and Smith vs Marquis/May/Wilks, Lewis and Mason vs Blair, Wright vs Anderson, not to mention Lawlor vs Marosi. What Fegurson felt he did not have the resources to achieve, McCann has fairly effortlessly achieved in most positions on the pitch will, I hope, bring out the best in all of them.
So, I am going to be bold and say we will win and do so by 1 - 2 (Kane/Whiteman) with 5000 there.
PS. Watching Leeds v Derby on TV tonight with Leeds 2:0 it is apparent that Wilks has very stiff competition on Leeds' right wing in the shape of young Clark who a very different type of player, but has proviced crosses for both Leeds goals and put in several dangerous crosses.
PPS I have nothing against Mark Hees scoring the second incidentally. And on that subject we have an Earl of Doncaster, which is a real and subsidiary title of the Duke of Buccleugh ("Buckloo") so there is a vacant title for a Marquis in between.
DPL vs Wycombe
posted on 13/1/19
Donaldo,
I agree with most of what you said, especially on Crawford who had the worst game I’ve seen him play, and Kane who seems to have lost his mojo – except for beating a guy and going back to give him another chance!
The first half was pretty boring from both sides except for the chance Blair had. As there are no replays on iFollow I was not sure what happened – need to watch the highlights tomorrow. To me it seemed Blair delayed his shot too long and the defender managed to slightly deflect the shot – the GK’s action was out of line of sight.
The misses in the second half were bad (especially Wilks when I would have thought Marquis would have a go but he slipped it to Wilks in a better position and Wilks almost fell over the ball).
It was interesting the first real chance Marquis had he planted into the net, and he was instrumental in Rowe’s goal – as was Wilks.
Even when it went to 2-1 (thanks to a poor pass from Rowe who had just scored) I was confident we’d quickly make it 3-1 and many of us would have predicted the correct score.
The winning goal in added time was when may be Lawlor should have stayed on his line as he was caught in no-man’s land and their guy looped a header over him.
Very disappointing as after the last two games I was pretty confident of a top 6 finish, now I just love in hope.
posted on 13/1/19
"live in hope"!
posted on 13/1/19
It was Coppinger who supplied the ball to Marquis for the first goal.
posted on 13/1/19
Strange thing about the Crawford "assist", was that I thought I'd picked it up from the BBC "live text" (which was the only material I consulted before writing my report) and it did contradict my recollections, but having criticised Crawford I thought I had better acknowledge what was apparently his only good deed of the day. Thanks Hound. Copps did not do much obviously wrong, but then he just never seemed to get much involved at all. Like Kane he was probably marked out of it.
I have obviously read Micky's comments and will now look at all the other reports and see if there is any consensus.
posted on 13/1/19
Sometimes players have a big influence on games without being a standout player.
Just doing little things, the right ones, make things happen.
Your comment about Copps and Kane being marked out of the game could be a good observation though Don because over the last few weeks the pair of them have been attracting “special attention”.
Copps will be more used to it of course having had to contend with that over many years.
Kane will have to get used to it and find ways to overcome.
posted on 13/1/19
I think I was observant enough to notice what Herbie was doing before the spotlight fully illuminated his talent and in that phase of his development he was not a player who elaborated. He linked, he dodged, he unbalanced opponents and turned away from potential intervention and generally got on with it at pace. Copps on the other hand takes on players, drawn often more than one towards him, wrong-footed them and judges the right moment to put in a sensible pass or cross. I had not noticed Herbie doing this until recently; he generally moved the ball at speed with clever touches. If, as is possible, he has switched his approach to try to emulate Copps he certainly hasn't got the hang of it yet! In his younger days Copps himself was more of a mover than he can be now.
posted on 13/1/19
Don, as a point of interest, do you remember the recent away game when, late in the proceedings, Herbie did a back heel trick to beat a player, then did an outrageous back heel pass to Blair who hit a shot from the edge of the box.
It was probably the first real trick that Herbie had done whilst with us and since then we have seen all manner of things he can do.
On twitter after that game someone mentioned the two back heel tricks and he replied to the effect that it was down to training every day with @26coppinger.
I think that might answer the question towards the end of your last post.
To be fair to Kane, he does seem to be improving his all round awareness and showing more of his individual skills.
posted on 13/1/19
After a string of great results it was pleasing to see 26 return and make an immediate impact
posted on 14/1/19
I love reading all the comments. However, when I was saying Crawford was poor and Kane had no impact on this game, I was talking about this game and not earlier games.
Having watched the Blair chance in slow motion, I stick by my earlier comments.
Let's forget about this game and consider Burton - I thought that would be a much harder game, so let's hope it is not so!
posted on 17/1/19
Some weeks, between matches, I eagerly anticipate the following one; last week was one such. This week has been the opposite and looking at our 100% collective failure to contemplate even a division of the points at Wycombe I can imagine that we have all had some reservations about our ability to sustain our form. I referred to form in my Article and, with a degree of confidence, expressed the hope that we could actually do what our recent record suggested and Wycombe's recent record suggested they would be unable to prevent.
But they let us down; BVZ was right to suggest that we would catch them on the counter and, competently taken, the 4 goals he predicted could all have been forthcoming.
How often do we hear "lessons will be learned" and we shall see if this is visible on Saturday.
Wycombe W 3 : Rovers 2 (Marquis) 4747
………………..….Crowd Scorer Score Result Bonus Total Pts B/F Cumltve
Donaldo ………… 3 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 .… 3 … 98 …….. 101
PDXMickey ……. 1 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 1 … 108 …….. 109
Yorks Lad ……... 0 …….. 3 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 3 … 111 …….. 114
BVZ. ……..…….. 0 …….. 3 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 3 … 120 …….. 123
Crazy …….……… 0 …….. 3 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 3 … 124 …… ..127
Uthred …….…… 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 0 … 105 …….. 105
Mooligan …..…. 1 …….. 3 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 4 … 130 …….. 134
King Chmprr …. 1 …….. 3 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 4 … 79 …….... 83
Small Azza ……. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 0 …. 0 …….... 0
Stantonrover … 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 0 ..… 0 …….... 0
Azza ……..…..… 3 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 3 … 83 ……..... 86
Cheltenham …. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 0 ….. 0 ……..... 0
Nookie ……….… 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 0 … 109 …….. 109
Selby …….……… 1 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 1 …. 49 …….... 50
Lanza …….….…. 0 …….. 3 …….. 0 …….. 0 …….. 0 …. 3 … 76 ……..... 79
……………..……… 10 ……. 18 …….. 0 …… 0 …….. 0 .. 28 .. 1192 …….. 1220