[Archived] Rovers v Wigan

[Sparks Rover]

4 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

 

Yes, Wigan looked ready made for the Championship - big, strong, well organised. Should do well. Rovers look like dilettantes by comparison and are certainly not in the image of Mowbray who was a hard as nails defender in his playing days 

Rubbish. 

A commanding brave goalie and it would have been a easy win. Wigan were lucky

[RoverCanada]

56 minutes ago, JAL said:

Pointed out several times that one of Nyambe's weaknesses is his inability to get up and compete for headers it just isnt in his nature.

Please remind us of your opinion of Nyambe?

[chaddyrovers]

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

The most obvious potential error led to our second goal. The referee was just bad in general, as they are nearly every game so lets cut out the conspiracy biased nonsense shall we.

The thing is, you sometimes have to weigh up, is he making too many mistakes to allow us to develop him as number 1 without it costing us points on a regular basis? Id suggest its on the brink either way. Im all for developing our youngsters but not at the expense of the team. Lenihan and Nyambe are in the team and arent making regular mistakes that cost us. Whereas I dont like Nuttall playing at the moment as he looks a bit out of his depth, but i acknowledge that he has talent. Goalkeeper is a particularly harsh position to play, hes probably got 15 years left in him, if we get in an experienced number 1 in next year, loan Raya to a league 1 club (Stanley if they go up?) allow him to learn more and get more game time elsewhere and the year after we get a keeper with another year to cut his teeth.

Thats it, hes cost us more points than any other player so naturally hed be the first player you upgrade, everyone acknowledges his talent and we can assume that with age his mistakes will hopefully reduce.

Dont loan Raya out and keep him here as our number 1 keeper next season..

Nuttall hasnt played much and isnt a target man striker either. 

Refs at this level are very poor and making mistakes every games

1 hour ago, JAL said:

How was Nuttall when he came on was he upto it.

Did you not see the game?

[Paul]

1 hour ago, JAL said:

How was Nuttall when he came on was he upto it.

Nuttall simply isn’t good enough to be on the bench. Can’t hold the ball up, poor first touch, gets out muscled in the air. 

He may be able to do it for the U23s, I’ve never seen them, but he’s not good enough for the first team.

[joey_big_nose]

Thought we played very well first half. Second half we got it tatically wrong with the subs and sat too deep. Nuttall was isolated, Antonsson ineffective, Payne came on very late.

All in hindsight etc but the change we needed second half was to go two up front. We couldn't get on the front foot,  I think it would have actually helped us to go for Armstrong's pace up there with a few long balls over the top. Instead our midfield five got pinned and Nuttall couldn't hold anything up.

 

[Tom]

31 minutes ago, rog of the rovers said:

When Morsy hacked at Dack, but he stayed on his feet, was a crucial moment.

If he goes down, Morsy is off, picked the right pass, but the chance was wasted, a 3 v 2.

Dare I say it, 3-1 it’s game over, 11 v 10 it’s game over.

On the balance a draw the right result.

I thought the same it was a blatant yellow and the ref played advantage, should have pulled him back and sent him off after Williams fluffed the attack 

On Raya he really does worry me other than his shot stopping, at one point today he read the game quite well and came out of his box to clear a ball, any keeper who's been trained right smashes it into the top tier of the stand. Instead Raya - who is running towards the touchlines plays it across himself at knee height towards the centre circle to a Wigan man, very lucky not to get punished for that. Nonsensical stuff.

Anyway Rich Sharpe made a good point, we say if Shrewsbury win their two they go above us but the reality is it will be weeks before they play those games, it would be surprising if we have identical records until that point 

[roversfan99]

51 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Dont loan Raya out and keep him here as our number 1 keeper next season..

Nuttall hasnt played much and isnt a target man striker either. 

Refs at this level are very poor and making mistakes every games

Did you not see the game?

Never said Nuttall was a target man, either way looks out of his depth.

My point is, you initially inferred that the ref was biased, when in fact as you say here he was just poor in general and incompetent. Did neither side any favours.

[Sparks Rover]

53 minutes ago, Tom said:

On Raya he really does worry me other than his shot stopping, at one point today he read the game quite well and came out of his box to clear a ball, any keeper who's been trained right smashes it into the top tier of the stand. Instead Raya - who is running towards the touchlines plays it across himself at knee height towards the centre circle to a Wigan man

Yes i noticed.  He came out too quick and misjudged the ball. His kicking at Walsall was iffy at times plus his flapping at crosses....we can do better. 

[gumboots]

I stayed off this thread for a while to give the over reaction time to die down. But obviously not long enough. 

Can I say first that I was very disappointed to see us let a 2 goal advantage slip and that I was desperately hoping we'd get a 3rd even before they equalised because we know that Wigan have been at the top all season and always have 2nd half goals in them. 

However, to say we won't now get automatic promotion and have blown our chances totally is a huge exaggeration and exactly what we should not be thinking. If the players let that idea into their heads for even a minute chances are it will be self fulfilling. If fans really start thinking that and communicate it to the players on the field it can become self fulfilling. We have to think we can make it and keep on thinking it till its mathematically impossible. Fixture pile up can go both ways. It can wear you down, especially if you get a few injuries, a few losses and tiredness and doubts creep in. It can also be good for you if you stay injury free and get into a run of wins. So we can't predict how it will go for the teams around us. We just need to do what we can do. If that's not enough then it's not. We're virtually guaranteed playoffs and, while we don't want to do it, it's better than nothing. 

[K-Hod]

I suspect this won’t be a popular opinion, but allow it...

I don’t think we actually played that well today, but first half we were simply ruthless and scored our first two chances.

I think that we’ve wanted a stopper of a midfielder for so long that Smallwood has been over-rated and that he’s been terrible for a while now. 

Teams have come to notice that if you stop Dack, you stop Rovers. We often rely on the quality of him, Graham or Mulgrew to get us out of jail and to be fair, it has been working all season. I’m just praying that this approach gets us automatic promotion as we won’t go up through the play offs IMO. We don’t relish a physical battle and it really shows that Mulgrew and Lenihan are converted midfielders playing at centre half a lot of the time. For all Mulgrew’s goals, I would love him to be more of a dirty bastard! 

If a team adopts the physical approach, we really struggle to cope and it’s been an issue for a while in my view. Like I’ve said, I just hope we can get over the line doing as we do. 

[RevidgeBlue]

Lot of criticism of Raya flying about, I haven't seen the goals again on the box yet but my initial reaction was he dropped a real clanger with the second goal and this match of all matches was not the one in which to make a glaring mistake.

That said, overall I think he is a really good keeper who just needs a few rough edges knocking off with more experience. Whilst he tends to make minor errors I don't think he has actually cost us many points or goals apart from one other earlier in the season when he tried to be too clever dribbling it out. Neither is it all one way, he's saved us a number of times this season with outstanding stops and it's only two games ago he won us the three points with a brilliant one on one block late on against Walsall. However these instances rarely seem to get mentioned, only his mistakes. We have far more pressing problems than Raya imo, the main one being that we only seem able to perform for 45 minutes at the moment meaning that our goal is under constant pressure for the other half.

[chaddyrovers]

3 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Never said Nuttall was a target man, either way looks out of his depth.

My point is, you initially inferred that the ref was biased, when in fact as you say here he was just poor in general and incompetent. Did neither side any favours.

Give Nuttall a proper chance before writing him off 

Ref gave Wigan alot of dodgy decisions that werent at all. Give them more than us. Miss Dack penalty claim. 

So you could say he was Biased or just poor or both. Or it just be typical league 1 football. 

Did neither any favours? Are you winding me or something? Gave them most decisions 

[Stuart]

10 hours ago, aletheia said:

What a cracking game and atmosphere.

 

2 brilliant, creative goals from us. Lovely ball from Dack after a great tackle from Lenihan for the first. And for the second, a lovely reverse ball from Dack after an intelligent overlap from Bennett who then calmly slotted it from a difficult angle. Quality.

 

And then of course 2 soft ones to concede. The second was particularly annoying

 

Wigan have shown why they are top. Never created much, never played any real free flowing football and yet showed great will, desire energy, staying power and grit. That desire definitely boils over at times. Cook and Morsey are arses. Had that game gone on another 15 mins there would have only been one winner as we wilted a little for the last 10. I don’t see that our subs added a great deal but their subs added energy and grit.

 

But what an awesome first half from us. Stood toe to toe, particularly Lenihan and thankfully didn’t lose it. All credit to the lads.

 

The ref? Nothing that directly caused a goal but definitely weak. Plenty of stuff gong ion which he either didn’t see or let go. Powell was niggling all game and got away with murder –stamping on Mulgrew’s toes in our box from a corner in the second half. But then Dack could easily have been pulled up for that 2^nd goal. The penalty shout? Nope, got the ball. 

 

The issues? Defending, game management, late match wilting, subs who add little? Armstrong who had a great game but had the ball in the second half up on his own, surrounded but tried to plough on thus losing the ball instead of a simple pass to 2 available players behind which would take the heat off a beleaguered defence. Downing I think crossing straight into their keeper’s arms to set up another attack. Nyambe’s pointless foul followed by a non-existent shirt pull.

“The penalty shout” was the blatant push (before the ball even arrived) in the second half. Unless you are thinking of another incident that’s an astonishing comment.

Downing?

[Tom]

3 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Give Nuttall a proper chance before writing him off 

Ref gave Wigan alot of dodgy decisions that werent at all. Give them more than us. Miss Dack penalty claim. 

So you could say he was Biased or just poor or both. Or it just be typical league 1 football. 

Did neither any favours? Are you winding me or something? Gave them most decisions 

If you were chaddyathletic you'd be livid about the second goal and Evans not being sent off, they were going mad at him first half.

Watching the highlights I'm not convinced about the penalty claim however he was giving those fouls every other time so should have pointed to the spot.

One decision I couldn't work out was a free kick and booking Nyambe after some brilliant strength and awareness and simply easing their man off the ball fairly 

[Paul]

1 hour ago, Stuart said:

“The penalty shout” was the blatant push (before the ball even arrived) in the second half. Unless you are thinking of another incident that’s an astonishing comment.

Downing?

Stuart are you talking about the two handed push in Dack’s back on the left side, as you face goal, of the penalty area?

This is the only penalty shout I saw and for me it was 100% nailed on penalty. Probably the clearest at Ewood this season. 

[Paul]

8 hours ago, gumboots said:

I stayed off this thread for a while to give the over reaction time to die down. But obviously not long enough. 

Can I say first that I was very disappointed to see us let a 2 goal advantage slip and that I was desperately hoping we'd get a 3rd even before they equalised because we know that Wigan have been at the top all season and always have 2nd half goals in them. 

However, to say we won't now get automatic promotion and have blown our chances totally is a huge exaggeration and exactly what we should not be thinking. If the players let that idea into their heads for even a minute chances are it will be self fulfilling. If fans really start thinking that and communicate it to the players on the field it can become self fulfilling. We have to think we can make it and keep on thinking it till its mathematically impossible. Fixture pile up can go both ways. It can wear you down, especially if you get a few injuries, a few losses and tiredness and doubts creep in. It can also be good for you if you stay injury free and get into a run of wins. So we can't predict how it will go for the teams around us. We just need to do what we can do. If that's not enough then it's not. We're virtually guaranteed playoffs and, while we don't want to do it, it's better than nothing. 

gumboots you should know by now the sky always falls in about five minutes after final whistle. One thing that surprises is even Charlie is now a questionable performer in a few posts. 

The reality is Rovers are top of the league. Before the game some, including myself, felt a draw wouldn’t be a disaster. It isn’t. What we saw was a typical Rovers performance. Like most at 2-0 I felt we needed 3, that’s OUR team at the moment. Yes I’m very disappointed but it doesn’t enter my thinking that we won’t go up. Let’s leave that one for a while.

My biggest concern is we often appear confused at 2-0 and get caught between defending and attacking. The players seem very uncertain at this point in a match.

I believe the intensity of Wigan’s run in is their biggest threat. Playing approximately every three days for two months will take its toll. There could be a domino effect if they lose one. 

[AllRoverAsia]

9 hours ago, Sparks Rover said:

Rubbish. 

A commanding brave goalie and it would have been a easy win. Wigan were lucky

Raya has had a charmed career so far. He emerged as a contender when we had Steele as first choice and now he no no serious competition for a starting place.

He is weak in many of the attributes you liik for in a keeper. Yes he is decent at reaction stops, not much else.

It can be no fun being in defence knowing he is manning the last chance saloon.

And some are saying he does not need a specialist coach. Pure bunkum.

Anyway he is what we have so good luck to him.

On my youtube wanderings yesterday, pre match, came across footage of Pat Jennings leaping to save of high inswinging corners and catching the ball cleanly one-handed. With Raya just catch the ball and less palming.

He did catch a few yesterday but they were not high balls.

[roversfan99]

4 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Give Nuttall a proper chance before writing him off 

Ref gave Wigan alot of dodgy decisions that werent at all. Give them more than us. Miss Dack penalty claim. 

So you could say he was Biased or just poor or both. Or it just be typical league 1 football. 

Did neither any favours? Are you winding me or something? Gave them most decisions 

I just said he looks out of his depth. He needs loaning out next year hes not ready for first team football he was totally ineffective again.

It was in no way a penalty, the main 2 mistakes led to both teams second goals. Quit with the conspiracy theories and winding you up rubbish, he was just equally incompetence. We lost our lead and it was nothing to do with the referee.

[Vinjay]

31 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I just said he looks out of his depth. He needs loaning out next year hes not ready for first team football he was totally ineffective again.

It was in no way a penalty, the main 2 mistakes led to both teams second goals. Quit with the conspiracy theories and winding you up rubbish, he was just equally incompetence. We lost our lead and it was nothing to do with the referee.

Exactly. If you feel someone is out of their depth then what chance are you supposed to give them? Its illogical. 

As mentioned perhaps sometimes people just aren't ready but in some cases people just aren't good enough. Seems to me roversfan99 is more the former than the latter (though maybe strong doubts on the latter as well in longer run) so it hardly seems unfair on Nuttall.

[arbitro]

31 minutes ago, AllRoverAsia said:

Raya has had a charmed career so far. He emerged as a contender when we had Steele as first choice and now he no no serious competition for a starting place.

He is weak in many of the attributes you liik for in a keeper. Yes he is decent at reaction stops, not much else.

It can be no fun being in defence knowing he is manning the last chance saloon.

And some are saying he does not need a specialist coach. Pure bunkum.

Anyway he is what we have so good luck to him.

On my youtube wanderings yesterday, pre match, came across footage of Pat Jennings leaping to save of high inswinging corners and catching the ball cleanly one-handed. With Raya just catch the ball and less palming.

He did catch a few yesterday but they were not high balls.

Having seen a replay of their second goal yesterday it confirmed what I thought at the time. Raya commits the cardinal goalkeeping sin of not reading the flight of the ball and he simply didn't move his feet to get his body behind what was a tame, waist high ball. He then flapped an arm at it when he realised where the ball was. If the ball had taken a deflection I could have understood his lack of mobility but it didn't. 

He has a mistake in him in most games, some cost us and he gets away with some.

[blueboy3333]

7 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Lot of criticism of Raya flying about, I haven't seen the goals again on the box yet but my initial reaction was he dropped a real clanger with the second goal and this match of all matches was not the one in which to make a glaring mistake.

That said, overall I think he is a really good keeper who just needs a few rough edges knocking off with more experience. Whilst he tends to make minor errors I don't think he has actually cost us many points or goals apart from one other earlier in the season when he tried to be too clever dribbling it out. Neither is it all one way, he's saved us a number of times this season with outstanding stops and it's only two games ago he won us the three points with a brilliant one on one block late on against Walsall. However these instances rarely seem to get mentioned, only his mistakes. We have far more pressing problems than Raya imo, the main one being that we only seem able to perform for 45 minutes at the moment meaning that our goal is under constant pressure for the other half.

Minor mistakes? He's cost us close to double figures in goals just through flapping at crosses or dropping them. As a poster above points out he didn't even get behind the flight of the ball yesterday and let it just bounce past him. He's a liability.

[G Somerset Rover]

For all of Ray’s mistakes the guy has saved us a fair few times over the season too. Some criticism far too harsh on here.

[Tom]

Just now, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

For all of Ray’s mistakes the guy has saved us a fair few times over the season too. Some criticism far too harsh on here.

In fairness - that's his job!

[jim mk2]

Outfield players make mistakes all over the pitch but goalkeepers cannot because their errors usually end up in the back of the net. Unfortunately Raya does make some very basic errors and it's one reason why I have no confidence in him at all - I dread crosses, free kicks and corners going across our box because it's a lottery as to whether he deals with them like a proper goalkeeper should. 

[roversfan99]

39 minutes ago, Vinjay17 said:

Exactly. If you feel someone is out of their depth then what chance are you supposed to give them? Its illogical. 

As mentioned perhaps sometimes people just aren't ready but in some cases people just aren't good enough. Seems to me roversfan99 is more the former than the latter (though maybe strong doubts on the latter as well in longer run) so it hardly seems unfair on Nuttall.

Hes done really well for the under 23s but apart from a couple of important tap ins in his first couple of games, since hes looked well out of his depth.

I think he has done enough to suggest he could be good in the future based on his eye for goal but not now.

Im also not convinced by his attitude, like Samuel he comes across as disinterested alot of the time and he pushed someone really petulantly in the build up to a free kick yesterday.

Id have him playing for the u23s and loan him out next season to a club in League 1 or 2.