Wigan Athletic vs Bristol Rovers matchday thread.

I am encouraged by the performance despite not winning. Admittedly the bar is set pretty low after Saturday but at least the players looked more purposeful today. Thought Baldwin and Ehmer were excellent; Nicholson and McCormick has good games. My only big disappointments tonight were Hare - his strength is his crossing and when that is not happening he doesn't offer enough; and Leahy who doesn't look fit enough - all his movements seem so laboured.

As soon as it was announced Hanlan was out my thinking went from we should get a win tonight tonight to can we nick a goal with one of our makeshift strikers.

I can maybe understand fans being angry had Hanlan or Daly played but sadly our decision to not get another striker in before the window closed was already looking dodgy when we had all 3 fit but tonight it hit us hard.

You can never say never in football but if Hanlan had played we would more than likely had got 3 points tonight.

At least tonight we actually had Possession (58% vs 42%) and we actually had some attemps (13 vs 4) but sadly yet again only 3 on target and Nicholson well nothing needs to be said about the miss while Upson had a good chance that he should have got at least on target and Mcormick when he put the ball across the face of goal!!

It does sound like a broken record but its being clinical in the final third and that final ball that has been letting us down all season but at least tonight we actually looked abit more like a Possession based team instead of hearing all season that we were going to be a Possession based team yet nearly every game we have had only 40% of the ball.

I know the previous manager wanted it to be a fluid front 3 but I really hope that Tisdale has eyes in a goal poacher, we have the players who can pass the ball and run with it and in Hanlan we have a very good all rounder but I think we need a guy who is just gonna play in the 18 yard box and be in the right place at the right time. Easier said than done but someone in the Pitman mould who ain’t gonna be out on the wing taking people on but will just play in the box.

People used to say Cureton was a lazy so and so but that is the type of player we need right now!!! Lets hope that we can find one from somewhere.

Not a bad result considering we had no strikers. If Nicholson had put that one away it would have been a different story and Hanlan would have caused panic in their defence.

I hope Tisdale sticks with this formation. Ehmer and Baldwin seem more comfortable in a back four and of course it means more options to fit in the ball playing midfielders.

I hope we can pick up enough points before the January window when the priority has to be two strikers - one with League 1 experience and maybe an up and coming lower league player.

Not random at all, that's one of the most intelligent observations I've ever read on here!

33 games.
33.
Not 12.

What a pathetic miss by Nicholson unbelievable no wonder we have only scored 11 goals all season regarding Barrett it is appalling he still looks overweight

Oh, dear.

That was like playing non league opposition.
And although we had the best of the chances, we looked shaky in defence ourselves.

We looked nervous, ponderous and all over the place but still we were the better team, deserved to win and didn't. We played as poorly as I've seen since Conference days.

We didn't do the basics right by passing, moving and scoring when opportunity presented itself so only have ourselves to blame.

The fruits of our position are becoming apparent to anyone that wasn't aware......we have not replaced jch (whom surely would have scored if presented with any chance tonight) and will pay the price for waiting too long to oust BG..

Seatbelts on (if they weren't already)...

Lets try and look at the positives!

Going to a back four and not messing around with it at the back. Much better to see this. However, even Darlington will trouble our defence more than Wigan did.

For all the critics Leahy has, I do feel he is our best left back. The other two are better wing backs.

I feel like PT did not want to take off one of the holding / defensive midfielders. He did that on Saturday and then we conceded.

Nicholson is a good player for this level, despite his terrible miss. He is also not a striker and was blowing by the end but he put in a lot of effort.

Koiki could turn out to be a decent left sided midfielder, even a winger.

Was good to see Barrett back and he looks to have potential. However, I can understand why BG made him train with the kids (if true). A lot of managers wouldn't let a player like that anywhere near the first team until they were in shape. No matter how good they are.