Best Of
Re: Match Day Thread: Crawley
I needed to sleep on that one.
A very frustrating game, Crawley played with a lot of energy and closed us down and we failed to work the ball around the pitch in response, so we never really drained them enough to change that script.
The ref and linesmen were pretty poor, seemed intent on slowing the game down as much as possible. Eyes of a hawk / bat-like vision depending on the part of the spectrum hitting the retina.
I too am disappointed that the fresh blood seems slow to come into the match day squad, particularly those who have already debuted well. I suppose losing a manager, a key figure in midfield and the leading striker in the division is going to have a large impact.
I understand the nerves about Skura but I thought he had a decent enough game yesterday. If you are going to bring young players through and put them in a makeshift position, you need to have patience and understanding and moreover be fair about your criticisms. It’s no more his fault that he isn’t a right back than it is Leahy’s or Taylor’s or Bradley’s. He is the next best fit and he has the balls to step into that role as a young lad, I think that shows a lot about him. It is the manager and the senior players who should be adapting the system if a lack of available players in a key position is costing us games and yet Skura seems to be taking the brunt of the discontent about the downturn in the output at the top of the pitch from the right back position.
I think that any notions of having promotion secured a month before the end of the season have to be put on hold now, but I hope that week on week we will start to recover from the mid
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Re: Match Day Thread: Crawley
The new Danish sensation Simonsson certainly looks the part. Hopefully he starts on Tuesday and provides the creative spark to unlock Bristol Rovers.
Re: Match Day Thread: Crawley
Got to trust in Dodds and team. And hope we’re going to go back on the upturn. As disappointing as yesterday was, a point is a point, and we trust that our new signings will start to get game time.
Hopefully Kone will be back for Birmingham. Sads and Jasper to return. Lowry looked exciting. Simons will hopefully be a starter for Bristol and who knows what we have with Berry.
And destiny is still in our hands, we’re still in the automatics by right.
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Re: Match Day Thread: Crawley
Really think it’s now the time to move on from the Bloomfield debate. Clearly there are differing views on the forum about whether he was pushed or did he go because he was ambitious and wanted higher grade football. He will always be a legend but he’s gone and he’s not coming back.
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Re: New signings - what is their fitness like?
I think the problem is that we all saw big cash being spent and assumed these guys were good to go to improve the squad.
We needed a central midfielder and the Morely chase was clearly going nowhere. Boom here comes a million Euro player. 3x our record transfer fee this guy is going to be amazing and we can stop talking about the other guy back at Bolton. It’s now mid Feb and nothing. The other signings were for positions where we have cover and depth. Anders is well covered by Taylor, Bradley and Low. Lowry by Humphreys etc.
Wrexham, for example, signed a fit striker in the form of Smith. He’s playing a scoring. Therefore he’s improved their team. We sign 12 and 2 get in the team.
It was to me an irresponsible window. Especially with the fees involved. And to spend so much on players who are apparently not even fit enough to be in a match day squad is mind-blowing. Our 3 highest transfers in our history not one start between them. One to still make the bench.
Re: Match Day Thread: Crawley
Simonson has got a hard task to match up to Morley, although there were positive signs yesterday in his brief appearance.
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Re: Match Day Thread: Crawley
Well done @WestLondonWanderer. At last someone has achieved something which was beginning to look beyond the wit of the Gasroom - namely the relatively simple task of correctly spelling the surname of Xavier Levi Simons. Someone even managed to stretch it to Simmonds!
I agree with those who think Xavier may be the missing link to fill the gap resulting from Aaron Morley’s departure. We’ll need to sign him permanently if that proves to be true. He certainly looked the part during his five minute cameo yesterday.
Now back to bed.
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Re: New signings - what is their fitness like?
His information on Magnus is also incorrect.
Magnus played in the quarter final of the Danish Cup over two legs on the 8th and 13th December playing a total of 135 mins. Viborg won and will appear in the semi-finals in Apr/May.
He completed two full games after 6th October both in the Danish Cup with his last full game being 8th December.
The Danish league has a huge winter break. Brondby last played at the end of November and only just had their first game back yesterday against Viborg. That’s an 11 week break!!
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Re: Match Day Thread: Crawley
I will happily share exactly what I know by phone or in person but not in a public forum