[Archived] Rovers 2 Newcastle 2

[joey_big_nose]

Check out the stats:-

Rovers: 11 shots, 1 Goal

Newcastle: 2 shots, 2 Goals

Typical.....

[jim mk2]

Andy Todd 2-2

[Duffers]

And they've brought Bramble on

[Flopsy]

2-2 another point

[jim mk2]

Opportunity missed.

Weak Newcastle team, other results went our way and three points would have put daylight between us and the rest.

[Eddie]

Still a good result Jim

[Lathund]

Very dissapointed. Newcastle are a poor team, with maybe the worst defense in the league. According to the audio commentary we were by far the better team and should have scored a third. Still, it's better than a loss. However all it takes for us to get back into the relegation zone is two out of Crystal Palace, Southampton and Norwich to win while we lose.

[jim mk2]

Still a good result Jim

Victory is a good result; a draw is not.

[Radagast]

Opportunity missed.

Weak Newcastle team, other results went our way and three points would have put daylight between us and the rest.

How often have we been saying that in recent weeks?

Edited December 26, 2004 by Radagast

[greggyk]

Opportunity missed.

Weak Newcastle team, other results went our way and three points would have put daylight between us and the rest.

Weak Newcastle team, as well as a weak rovers team according to you. If results went on how good or not teams are according to you, rovers should be happy with a point.

[Rovermatt]

We need to get a striker in January. Our rivals down the bottom will not always be so accomodating.

Edited December 26, 2004 by Rovermatt

[rover6]

We really need to start winning matches. However, improvement is self-evident in the performances and that is really encouraging...

The MGP enigma continues unabated as Hughes chooses to replace Reid with Thompson rather than a natural winger in the Norwegian.

[G Somerset Rover]

The MGP enigma continues unabated as Hughes chooses to replace Reid with Thompson rather than a natural winger in the Norwegian.

Apparently Thommo was the major factor in us getting back into the game! Not a bad result, but draws aren't getting us out of danger and believe it or not, S'hampton and co will start to win a few soon-so must we.

[philipl]

What a curious non-football day. Went happily down to the five screens Ryans Bar to watch the game to be told the the bar manager had not bothered to renew the Arab TV subscription so there was only a choice of the Mancs or Everton. Back to the appartment and got stuck in the lift! Fortunately the engineer came- eventually. Even my stepson who is in London at the moment decided to take in Mansfield v Cambridge (he refuses to say why!) but that got iced off.

To the game-

Laurent Robert's name features prominently in both goals, shame Souey was not sufficiently angry to completely freeze the transfer-wanting Frenchman out of the bar codes' squad.

According to the BBC, Newcastle had 55% of the possession- unusual for the Rovers to conceed so much at Ewood.

An even stranger statistic is that Rovers had over 20 shots to Newcastle's 5. (what do they do in training? as Bob F would ask)

...and it seems that Flitty's lifelong weakness for getting his head up where it shouldn't be when shooting saw an excellent 88th minute chance fizz into Row Z... again...

The draw is not a bad result- another point further away from a relegation position and the odd goal or two goal difference detereoration for three of the four fellow travellers in trouble (hopefully Liverpool will continue to do the biz at the Hawthorns- they are leading 0-1)

Finally great to see a 29,000+ crowd. Hope they all enjoyed the game.

Edited December 26, 2004 by philipl

[1864roverite]

There really is some crud written on these pages.

Rovers fully deserved the point and could easily have lost that if Bellamy had gotten a little mor eluck right at the death.

Rovers played very well, both defensively and in the middle, the only problems were with the goalkeeper YES the KEPPER and young Stead.

Friedel was clearly at fault for goal number 2 and I have to question his postioning on goal number 1.

All in all a good point following the other positive results in our favour.

match summary to follow when guests have gone homne to the NEAST

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Rovers played very well, both defensively and in the middle,

mmmmmmm,

Everybody to there owm mate but I had to close my eyes everytime Newcastle came forward....a lot of panic still evident when opposing sides apply the pressure.

All in all a fair result from an enjoyable game,good crowd too.

We MUST start to turn these draws into wins somehow.

[Quack]

It will be interesting to see if Dyer was onside and I think Brad could have done better with the free kick.

Official web site reporting Bothroyd injured yesterday and Reidy doubtful for Tuesday with an ankle injury - cue MGP ??!

Brad - 5 has played better

Neil - 6 solid game

Todd - 7 kept PK quiet, likewise Ameobi in the second half and scored!

Nissa - 7 good performance - Bellamy was certainly ineffective all afternoon

Emerton - 6 still an enigma - very reluctant to try and take on his marker

Reid - 6 some decent runs early on

Flitcroft - 6 battled away but went AWOL on occasions - also needs to practice shooting - too many Row Z specials

Ferguson - 8 - my MOM, looked comfortable, great free kick to Dickov for a change

Dickov - 7 irritating and niggling as always, good finishing for the goal

Stead - 5 will it will work out for Jon? - a couple of decent efforts in the first half , tried hard but faded badly

Thommo - 7 brought some impetus and urgency to midfield, managed to avoid being booked

Gally - not on long enough to impress

Shame to see Souness being booed every time he entered the technical area and no Shearer.

Messias replacement by Mr Rennie took far longer than the allocated extra time.

Will a point be enough ? - time will tell.

Good crowd of 29,000+ Bring on the Breezeblock - about time to convert 1 point into 3.

[ABBEY]

could have won should of won....not seen any pics but the 1st goal seemed to be miles offside?

why was bellamy not sent off for trying to push the linesman over at half time?

[grizfoot]

The first goal did look offside but it was hard to tell won't be able to tell proper tilll i see it on telly tonight. Rovers first goal was a bit of quick thinking.

Then up steps Laurent Robert from about 80yards out and smashes it in. (the wall was more of a hazard than a help and i'm sure if it hadn't been there Brad would of saved it.

Second Half rovers began quickly and where all over the barcodes for the first 15mins of the second half. Brett should of really scored but it was saved by Given. And it was just typical that Todd would get the equalizer against Souness's Barcodes

And as for the ref, what the heck was he doing he must have spent about 10mins off the pitch talking to the managers and then he was subbed. But only 3mins where added on

Overall a good point because no one around us picked up any points. Looking foward to the match at the breezeblock hopefully three points there since Bolton are on a slide at the moment.

Match Ratings

Brad 6, Matteo 6, Todd 8, Nissa 6, Neill 7, Reid 6, Ferguson 8, Flitty 7, Emerton 6, Dickov 7, Stead 6.

Thommo 7, Gally 5

Edited December 26, 2004 by grizfoot

[frosty]

Pleased with draw, but we could have snatched the 3 points.

We need to start turning these draws into wins.

[Manchester Blue]

Asked the ref why he only added 3 minutes at the end and he just laughed. Despite him spending around 5/6 minutes off the pitch in total, Second time becuase Rennie didn't have boots on. 1 goal and 3 subs on top of indicating he was adding time on for Given timewasting. 10 minutes would not have been enough never mind 3.

Bit teed off we didn't win as we played the better stuff and created some good chances. However we were also pretty shabby at times so can't complain too much. Friedel appeared at fault on a free kick again. Some good performances and most of the results went our way. At present we have to accept that and just hope we can push on with a few new players.

[Martin]

Pleased with a draw and if there was another half hour to go there was only one winnner.

Slowly but surely we are making progress. We are hard to beat, we are very organised and have started to play abit too. Hughes is doing a good job. Somebody very soon is going to get walloped for 5 or 6.

Newcastle looked threatening for the first 10 minutes with their pace but after that they really were poor and looked about as good as their league position suggests. I think Mr. Souness may well be out of a job soon. The geordie faithful did little to support him whilst we booed him , only a half hearted rendition of Souness, Souness could be heard.

Very nice to see Ewood nearly full. A good day, but on another day it could have been perfect.

[Darwen Rover]

Correct me if I'm wrong but my thoughts where that we seemed to loose our impetous each time we levelled as tho consciously we thought a draw was OK???

A draw is NOT OK!!!

As has been said we need to convert to wins, I think we are deffo heading in the right direction and speaking to some geordies on the way out, "we have the best manager"... still dissapointed to see Souness get bood tho...

[Scotty]

I'd been looking forward to this one for a while. I don't like Newcastle. Never have. I hate the way they think they're such a huge club (despite winning nothing) and the way they think they've got "the best fans in the world" (despite having next to no fans 15 years ago). And now they've got Souness. I was looking forward to this.

We started badly. We seemed too eager to get involved initially and gave away lots of soft free-kicks. This gave Newcastle the impetus early on and they started to press. A well worked move saw a cracking ball find a brilliant run from Dyer. His pace beat our pathetic attempt at off-side and, one-on-one against Friedel, he finished expertly. You simply can't play off-side when there's no pressure on the player playing the ball. I learnt that at junior school.

Newcastle's confidence returned and they started to play some good stuff. They kept possession in midfield and attacked with menace and it took all our resolve to keep them from running away with the game. But make no mistake, our team has got real heart. Back we came thanks to a great free-kick from Ferguson.

We won a free-kick about 30 yards out. Ferguson slotted it quickly to an unmarked Dickov who instictively turned and shot past the on-rushing Given. These are the type of goals Dickov scores - instictive finishes where he doesn't have time to think about what he has to do.

We didn't push on though and Newcastle deservedly regained the lead. This time they won a free-kick 30 yards out but the angle was against Robert. No matter, he curled a fantastic shot around the wall and into the near post side of the net. I came on here with the intention of giving Friedel a slating for his positioning but, seeing the goal on tv, I'm not sure Friedel could have done much about it. It was a great strike from Robert - sometimes you've just got to clap the opposition.

So, 2-1 down at half-time and that probably refelcted the first half play.

We were fantastic at the start of the second half. Thompson replaced the injured Reid at half time and he added some extra creativity to our play. Within 10 seconds of the restart Emerton was played through but his left foot shot was too weak to beat Given.

Thompson and Ferguson both had real chances to score before we finally got the equaliser. Ferguson was given the freedom of Ewood to fire a low shot at Newcastle's goal, Given saved but couldn't keep hold of the ball, and Todd (yes, Todd) knock in the rebound. I say knocked in, his finish was less than convincing (I think it bounced three times before it crossed the line - this from 4 yards out) but they all count.

For the next 10 minutes there was only one winner. We murdered Newcastle but we just couldn't turn our pressure into goals. Either the finish was off target or our final ball let us down. And, as always in football, we started to pay for our profligacy.

Newcastle slowly clawed their way back into the game and, for the next 10 minutes, they got on top. Our defence struggled to cope with the pace of Bellamy and the sub Ameobi and Newcastle started to carve open some real openings. Fortunately, a combination of good luck and good defending kept them out.

In the last ten minutes, in a game that ebbed and flowed throughout, we got on top again. We built up a real head of steam and once again it looked like there was only going to be one winner. But the substitution of the ref seemed to count against us as the delay halted us in our tracks, just when we looked like winning the game. Both teams broke against each other at the death but the game ended in a draw and perhaps that was a fair result in the end.

It was a strange game to judge really. We defended well yet we conceded two soft goals. Friedel could be faulted for the free-kick, and I'm sure he will be in some quarters, but I thought it was fantastically struck and would have beaten most keepers. Perhaps the wall could have been better.

Todd and Nissa were solid, Neill played well again, in fact only Matteo let the back four down. He was the one playing Dyer on-side for Newcastle's first and I thought he looked poor defensively throughout.

In midfield Ferguson was absolutely superb. A majestic performance. I've slagged him off in the past, quite rightly I feel, but today he was behind everything we did that was good. His quick thinking led to the first goal, his shot led to the second, but his general play was outstanding throughout the whole game. Man of the match by a mile. Would it be churlish of me to mention though that Newcastle's midfield might not have been the most competitive in the world?

The rest of the midfield did well and outplayed Newcastle's. Flitcroft protected the defence well, got stuck in, ballsed up possession from time to time, but overall was easily the most competitive midfielder on view today. Emerton looked class at times but his final balls were not always met with the finish they deserved. Reid played well before his injury and Thompson gave us something extra in the second half.

Our forwards weren't good enough. Dickov did a lot of things well, he took his goal superbly and frequently held the ball up and laid it off dangerously, but he also wasted possession a lot and never, never, linked up with his strike partner. It didn't help that his strike partner was crap. Stead was awful today. I've defended him in the past, and I still think he's going to be a top player, but the lad's so lacking in confidence it's untrue. He was just poor today and he should have been subbed long before he was.

Another thing I must mention today was the amount of stoppage time we were(n't) allowed at the end. The ref had to be subbed due to an injury. This must have taken at least 3 minutes to sort out. Add to that the ref's first stoppage for treatment and the 4 sub's then I'd have thought that there should have been at least 6 or 7 minutes of stoppage time. When the board came up with 3 minutes the whole ground couldn't believe it. And make no mistake, Newcastle were more grateful for the lack of time than we were.

Summing up todays game is difficult. We're a tough team to beat, the way we fought back today after going behind twice was excellent and shows the spirit and fight we've got in the side, but we've got to stop going behind. If we can get the first goal and then show the same spirit then we'll win games. We need better forwards to do that though. Dickov plays well most of the time but rarely links up with his partner. The rest of our forwards are inconsistent. We need a forward who can give us more options and someone who has a proven goal scoring record. Dare I say Hartson may be the answer!

For the first time this season I genuinely think we're too good to go down. We've just got to start proving it.

Edited December 26, 2004 by Scotty

[Alan75]

Well Newcastle are getting in to the Deano school of schoolboy defending.

The space Dickov was given for his goal, I could have driven a tractor and trailer through it.