Another point on the board against a good team

I won't spend a lot of time discussing the EFL because I am strongly in the "waste of space" and us travelling all the way to Fleetwood over the Christmas period is another topic to add to the lack of thought that the EFL and in fact the Premier League show to the paying public. They always show that their interest is only money and how they can obtain it and the only thing that they have not yet imposed on us is thankfully VAR.
Anyway on to the match and the second in a hopefully long run of Ben Garner. At the moment the changes are minimal but I would describe them as GCish with a bit of excitement as although the performance yesterday could more be described as effort, commitment to the cause and battling for the shirt there were flashes of swift passing movement that when it happened made Fleetwood look very ordinary rather than the efficient unit that are at their peak which they have become ,full of players and Manager who we could not afford For all who don't like Joey Barton and I am one they do play a good brand of football that spread the game across the full width of the pitch with a pair of strikers who are up there with the best of this division with Madden and Ched Evans although the former is similar to the Manager!



Jaakkola 8 Some customary brilliant saves and a great calmness about him that really makes me hope he is our keeper for a good few years because he is that good. 
Rodman 6.5 Better all round game than against Wimbledon and another who is more than capable of a few goals and some skilful runs deep into enemy territory but I think ideally he would be a winger in a 4-4-2 but only time will tell. At the moment he is our only attacking player with any pace and I have high hopes that under BG this will change. 
Leahy 7.5 His usual hard working game both defensively and offensively. He has made the position his own and looks a good combatting player who will give everything for the shirt which IMO is great because Kelly isn't good enough and THD although the better player is rarely fit. 
Craig 7.5 Masterful as ever and leads by example. Like all three centre halves they are up for battle and strong in the air but more importantly they usually cover each others mistakes up when they do occur. 
Menayese 6.5 A bit over confident some times and does get caught out but he appears to be learning all the time and when Davies is fit it will provide interesting competition as we seem to be the most commanding defence I have seen in many years of following Rovers. It is almost like the Larry Lloyd and Stuart Taylor combination with another big guy for good luck! 
Kilgour 7 Another strong performance that bodes well for the future 
Sercombe 7 Another strong battling performance and just lacking a goal to really build his confidence but if we could get a bit of pace in midfield then with Sercombe and Upson we could have a really talented midfield capable of playing good attacking football. 
Upson 8.5 MOM The central pivot of the team and as usual won more than his fair share of the ball and in possession showed a lot of close ball control and was economic with his passing and IMO just shaded the Man of the Match. If we could get another strong creative midfielder with a bit of pace then we could be in for exciting times ahead 
Hargreaves 6 No faulting his effort and chased about and covered a lot of ground  with some good moments and it will be interesting to see if he can now continue to improve enough to become a regular feature of the squad or whether he is not quite good enough to play at this level. 
Ogogo 4.5 Very poor game like the last time out. Another booking took away a lot from his game and for me he is either very good or pretty poor. It could also be down to his wrist injury that limits his usual robust game play. 
JCH 5 A strangely quiet performance from him and until Nichols came on he looked very lonely and either unfit or not wanting to be here or maybe a bit of both. I feel his tendency to go down easily worked against him yesterday as he didn't get some decisions from the referee that he should have got. Will we keep him or will he go? Personally I would not pay big money for a striker who is obviously nowhere near 100% fit but I expect there is a team who would take a chance on him bat the usual sort of price that we seem to accept and I think at the moment it is more likely that he will go than stay and then we will be looking for another miracle to find at least another one goalscorer and more likely two.


Nichols 6 Livened up proceedings when he came on but yet again should have scored one and on another occasion was very unlucky not to gain us two extra points with an exquisite lob over a  stranded keeper  but unfortunately a few inches too high which saw it hit the lower part of the bar and unluckily missed the retreating keeper who could easily had luck been with us turned it in.
Kelly NOLE



Ref 6 Ok he flashed his card a lot and seemed to favour the home side by penalising what looked like a couple of good tackles but overall I thought he got most of the decisions right including the disallowed goal which irrespective of whether Madden got a touch he was in a clear offside position and in doing so interfered with the keeper and therefore the lineman was correct in flagging him albeit late which we have to accept is the norm these days.
Fleetwood 7 A very good footballing side who used the full width of the pitch well and I have the feeling that they played the sort of way that Garner has in mind for us in the long term although he is the complete opposite to Joey Barton-thank God. One thing which Barton said afterwards which was correct was that it was not a dirty game from either side but the number of bookings summed up the current game where players may as well start off with a yellow card because there is more likelihood of them getting one than not!  
Crowd 5 Another club whose supporters in small numbers rely on a bloody drum. Over 500 was a fair convoy from Bristol taking into account the length of the journey and the time of the year and they provided good vocal support in a match that was not pulsating but another nil-nil draw which like the Peterborough game was far from boring and particularly the second half was an entertaining affair with both sides playing some good football.

Great interview from the Manager after the game gives me real hope that we have found a gem. Already in a different League to both DC and GC when it comes to interviewing and if you haven't heard it yet it is well worth a listen. I think there is a great deal of ability in this side and if we could keep it together and add two or three attackers (winger, Striker and Central midfielder) then we could push for the play offs however a word of warning- if we lose a couple of key players and don't adequately replace then don't be surprised to see us slip quickly down the table. We are at a key point in our future whatever that may be. I very much hope that 2020 will be our year but this is Bristol Rovers!


So we move quickly on to another away game on New Years day to the rejuvenated MK Dons . Key players coming back from injury has seen an improvement in their results and the problem is that it is now a real pressure game for us and is the difference between a good festive period and a poor one. Only a win giving us four points out of nine would be a reasonable period, two wouldn't be the end of the world but 1 could be looked on as a disastrous holiday!

I can't see there being much change in team selection for Wednesday and then we have a break from the League and the unusual experience of being in two cups still!! UTG