Poor form on my part on predictions lately. Other than Olham. I hope I turn the corner and not the Chairmakers. So its 4-1 to Rovers, Blair or Mark Hees
5726

Hi Don.
You know what mate, I went to Preston with the thought that there was no reason we couldn’t have won the game.
We have been in great form of late and with players like Copps, Kane, Marquis, Wilks,Crawford and Whiteman we have the means to turn a game in an instant.
I am very confident that we can mount a serious promotion challenge and can barely wait for each game to come along.
The point you make about having players competing for a shirt is a very good one.
No player can think he is unreplaceable and that usually makes them produce something like their best on a regular basis.
At the start of the season McCann said that he had saved some of his playing budget for January so that he could assess what he had available to him.
There were people had a pop at him for that but he has proved that he was right and appears to have made some good additions to the squad with the money he had saved.
I saw the other day that we are the third highest scorers in all four divisions, behind a Man City and Spurs and the difference between watching us this season after what we had to put up with last season is remarkable.
I think we are in for an exciting ride.

Good times at the moment long may it continue with a 3-0 win may if starts if not marquis crowd 5308

Rovers to win 4-1 Crawford if starts marquis if not, crowd 5257

3-1 to Rovers. Marquis. 5845

0-2 to rovers - may with first - 5197 crowd

3-1 Rovers Crawford 5000

0 2.
Marquis butler legend

Wycombe 1-2 Rovers
Marquis to score
Crowd 5,225

3-0 Rovers
Marquis
5187

A bleary eyed Good Morning from the Left Coast. Wycombe 1 Rovers 3; Coppinger; 5205.

Could be a tight game, or after 4 defeats they could play into our hands by trying to attack us and get caught on the counter.
So I'm going 4 nil victory Marquis 2 Wilks, Crawford.

Closely marked, our midfield and forwards cannot function. Wilks was suppressed, Copps was somehow absent from the action and Marquis did not perform effectively. In the midfield, Crawford could neither beat his man, nor deliver a pass – I am tempted to say a “not deliver a single pass for 45 minutes” because that’s how it seemed and Kane seemed to go unnoticed. When they got the ball they were dispossessed by good defenders. So, in the first half our defenders, looking forwards to find someone who might be able to take delivery of the ball, saw them all well marked and decided instead to move it around amongst themselves, going nowhere. After 10 or 15 minutes, with no shots on goal to half a dozen from WW, someone shot from distance and missed the target. They then decided that their best option was to lump the ball over the WW defence and Blair broke free one on one and managed to fire at the target but at a nice height for the WW goalkeeper – corner. Odd similar opportunities came along, but were squandered.

WW managed some dangerous attacks with Tyson drawing a good save from Lawlor but perhaps Rovers felt they had the home side fairly well contained and could just bide their time.

I fully expected Crawford to be subbed at half time and possibly Copps too, but it did not happen. More dynamism was evident from 46 minutes on. Dynamism is something we do have and whilst the attack-building process continued to be essentially the long ball there was more determination in evidence. Wilks and Marquis ran more enthusiastically, but the several breakaways with good scoring chances were largely squandered, but at least Wilks was beginning to force his way past his marker. The WW fans around us marvelled at their good fortune at all the missed chances

Crawford, whose day it was not, did manage to supply the pass which gave Marquis his goal, the first, but was quite rightly replaced by Rowe who scored the second, another good goal. At that point I was thinking I will report a poor performance with points saved by taking two of our chances despite missing 3 or 4 rather more straightforward ones.

So, with the win looking secure, WW, having largely been contained to then, began to find their range and accuracy. And despite no bad defensive failures they got 2 good goals - unfortunately I was distracted as they scored the third.

Kane twisted and turned at times, but his contribution was small; Andrew, Anderson, Butler and Whiteman seemed to be the better players for most of the game, but closer analysis of the goals may reveal some fault. Having said that, the WW goals seemed well taken, although I did not see the third. Being amongst the opposition fans, full of self congratulation going home full of joy is painful.

Altogether, an exhibition of our weaknesses and not encouraging of our promotion hopes.

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.

"live in hope"!

It was Coppinger who supplied the ball to Marquis for the first goal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

After a string of great results it was pleasing to see 26 return and make an immediate impact

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!

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