THE GAME
Rovers equalled an unwanted record when they fell to an eighth consecutive league defeat against a Notts County side reduced to ten men following the 35th minute red card issued to Matt Dennis.
There were few chances for either side early on but Rovers pressed hard as they looked for an opening goal. Clinton Mola headed wide while Joel Cotteriiol reacted to a Jack Sparkes corner by thumping a shot against upright.
Ellis Harrison headed just wide from a Macauley Southam-Hales cross and then, in a rare counter attack by the visitors, Tyrese Hall clattered Southam-Hales and received a red card for his troubles.
The ten men did threaten as the half drew to a close, though, and Luke Southwood was called on to punch the ball away following a corner.
Darrell Clarke sent on Josh McEachran for Shaq Forde at the start of the second half and Rovers once again looked threatening in attack. Cotterill dragged a shot wide, and Cavegn, on as a substitute for Stephan Negru caused the visitors defence a few problems, as did another substitute, Freddie Issaka, who had replaced the injured Southam-Hales before the interval.
Issaka rattled the crossbar with a rasping drive and Harrison just failed to turn in the rebound, but in a cruel twist the deciding goal was cored by County on the counter attack. Kellan Gordon found Matthew Dennis with a through ball and he shrugged off a couple of half hearted challenges before hitting a shot that took a wicked deflection off of a Rovers defender, completely wrong footing Southwood who had no chance of saving.
And so, in spite of dominating possession for long spells, and bossing a game for the first time in a long while, Rovers once again fell to a defeat.
If chances aren’t put away, they will struggle toi pull away from the lower reaches of the league, but no one needs me to tell them that. Callum Morton, who made a cameo appearance as a late substitute may, or may not, be the answer to our lack of goals but he and his team mates need to get their shooting boots on…and quickly!
WHAT WAS SAID
‘The game is about sticking the ball in the net. We were the better team 11v11, then obviously loads and loads of territory and chances, and we didn’t take them. So, you have to go and put the ball in the net; unfortunately, it’s another hard luck story. Last week Cheltenham scored with one shot on target, and so did these lot. So, it’s another hard luck story, Gillingham as well, one of the games before that as well. Unless we start being ruthless where we need to be, it’s going to be a long old season because we can lead it to water, we can do the builds, we can change formation, I can switch things around, but at the end of the day, the game is about putting the ball in the net and we aren’t doing that.
‘I mean the goals is a deflection, but I’m not knocking my lads for the effort and the endeavour, I’m knocking them for the quality in the final third. When we got those chances, we’ve got to take them because it just makes for what happens today, so we’ve got to accept it. It’s tough to take at the minute, I’m frustrated, and I’m disappointed for my supporters and it’s another defeat.
“For me, it’s about standards every single day. It’s about being ruthless and putting the ball in the back of the net in training and making sure you do that on a regular basis because when Saturday comes, that becomes easier. So, make sure you raise your standards when we’re doing that, and when we’re doing our finishing drills, I want to see players be ruthless and hit the ball into the back of the net because when you do that, you’ll do that more in matches.
‘I’m not really a hard luck sort of guy, you know that. I’m disappointed for my team and my group. I ask every single time when we’re on a bad run that my players go out there and show confidence, to show no fear and to get on the front foot, and I thought we did that.’ Rovers Head Coach Darrell Clarke
‘We’re all down in the dumps in there. It’s such a cruel way to lose when we dominated the game like that, but that’s football, and if we aren’t going to take our chances, then we always leave ourselves open for the sucker punch on the counterattack. I think that we’ve had control over the last few games, but we haven’t created any chances. I think that was totally different today. I thought we had numerous chances and could have been two or three-nil up in that game. I thought we were a way better team when we had 11v11.
Playing against ten men makes a difference. As I said, we’re probably going to get more time on the ball. As soon as they went down to ten men, I think we changed formation because that would work better for us. It definitely has an impact. Obviously, today, not a good impact. I think we were playing really well when it was 11v11. But like I said, there’s no excuses, we should have won that game comfortably.
‘I think the fans aren’t going to want to hear this, but we’ll have to work even harder in training. We’ll have to get back to work on Monday. There’s one thing for certain: we’re all very determined to turn this around. I don’t think anyone is watching this game today and thinking we should lose that; we should come away comfortable winners, but we’re not going to scream and shout about it. We need to get results to back what we’re doing on the pitch.’ Rovers midfielder Luke Thomas
‘I’m not going to spend much time talking about decisions and referees. I think they deserve a bit more respect than that. So it was what it was. We come down here – there was a little bit of me that carried this week in terms of – so disappointed that we didn’t get something out of the Colchester game – because if you were at that game, we don’t deserve to lose that game.
‘But that’s football. That’s football. So you come down here, and Bristol Rovers, and Darrell’s a friend of mine. So the one thing, we celebrated with the supporters on the grass, but the one thing we did, that sometimes it is not reciprocated, actually it wasn’t reciprocated, is that we go in there, we’re nice and professional, quiet and respect that football’s hard. I have to say, he [Darrell Clarke] is someone, that every time I’ve needed help as a head coach or a coach, he’s always been on the end of the phone for me.
‘Because sometimes in football, it’s great to talk about, not only just the fact that we’re an in possession, attacking team – we come down to a Bristol Rovers [side] who are going to throw the kitchen sink from the first minute, and I felt it. We found it hard to settle into the game and a couple of stray passes, because they needed a win. And then, obviously, we get the sending off and our work, not only just with the ball, our work out of possession and we dipped last week, well, that’s a fantastic response. That is the minimum I expect.’ Notts County Head Coach Martin Paterson
