Match Thread: Braintree Town v Bristol Rovers

Throwing in the towel is unforgiveable and has now occurred at 3 games out of 7. No confidence in DC altering this so Higgs you have to take professional advice on finding a real manager before the whole Club goes out of existence. I see no hope on the horizon without meaningful change. 

Oh, and welcome Ras.

We said the same last season, totally out of his depth, clueless

Yep, think conclusion was he talks a good game, let's see if he delivers. So far, so sh**e

My opinion on today's game, I'll comment more on individual performances in the player ratings thread:

We started alright, better than Braintree and fashioned a couple of good chances from crosses. Braintree fought back into the game, but we were still tough in midfield, especially Clarke who broke a lot of play up.

Then came the penalty. Trotman and Parkes had been in a physical match-up with the two Braintree strikers all game and the ref had let it go. A cross came in and I didn't see anything that warranted a foul. The ref pointed immediately. Parkes and Cox ended up in the goalmouth, when Cox stood over Parkes and may have flicked his boots at him, I couldn't quite tell. A goalmouth melee started and Mansell pushed a Braintree player into the back of the net. A Rover's fan lent over and swung a couple of blows though the net. The ref lost control and didn't know which player had given away the penalty and neither linesman knew either. Rover's players surrounded the ref and Parkes got booked for dissent.

Although we lost our heads a bit, we got back to playing fairly quickly and a decent move ended with Parkes having a goal disallowed for offside.

After half-time we were hopeless. We lost any bite we had in the middle, every ball was played wide or over the top. Braintree doubled up on Martin and kept him out of the game and Monkhouse was lost on the wing. Cunnington worked hard, but was given no chance to get into the game with balls at his throat with his back to goal.

The second goal came from their winger having time and space to pick out a good cross from their left. We'd shown determination to no effect before that second goal, but we lacked even that afterwards. I wouldn't accuse the players of giving up, but we never looked like forcing a chance even with some fresh legs. Stringing passes together looked like a challenge and we lacked an obvious outlet as Braintree cut off our wingers and were strong aerially.

Ahem...