THE GAME
Head Coach Inigo Calderon was able to name an unchanged side for the visit of Stevenage in what was yet another must win game for his side.
With rival relegation candidates Burton Albion hosting Birmingham City, a win would lift Rovers out of the relegation zone if Birmingham did the business at The Pirelli Stradium.
Birmingham duly did the business by winning 2-0, but Rovers capitulated to a Stevenage side that looked as though they wanted the win more, and so it remained the same at the foot of the table.
To be perfectly blunt, Rovers never really got going. As in so many games this season, they made a bright start, conceded an early goal and never looked like getting back into the game.
The only goal of the game arrived in the 12th minute when Elliott List played a through ball to Jamie Reid who slalomed his way into the penalty area, rounded goalkeeper Jed Ward, and slotted the ball in from close range.
The anticipated fightback by Rovers didn’t materialise and the visitors bossed the game, almost doubling their lead on the half hour mark when Harvey White’s free kick hit the post.
Visiting goalkeeper Taye Ashby-Hammond was a virtual spectator during the opening 45 minutes and, in all honesty, that scenario hardly changed after the break.
A hugely disappointing performance from Rovers meant that they made very little impact on the Stevenage back line and it was only late in the game that they
really threatened anything at all, but Scott Sinclair’s free kick was comfortably saved by Ashby-Hammond.
The news filtered through that Birmingham had done the business at Burton as Rovers were booed off at the end of the 90 minutes and with just two games to go (three for Burton) it’s going to take a miracle and two vastly improved performances to avoid the drop into League Two.
THEY SAID WHAT?
‘It was not the performance we needed. It’s as simple as that. I don’t think it was good enough, especially in the first half. It was not the level we have to be on a day like today. It was not good enough. The first half especially, I would say. In the second half, you have to change the game, and maybe it’s a bit more chaotic, and the nerves come. It’s not the first game it’s happened. They scored the first one too early in the game, and then we panicked because of the situation we were in.
‘I think it’s not easy to explain. It’s not easy to be there or at least try to understand how I think we are. I want to think that we were a bit locked because we could not express ourselves. We are thinking more about the situation we are in more than what we have to do in the game, and then it’s a problem because we look worse, and it was not acceptable. I think we didn’t deserve to win the game at all. I don’t think we even deserved to get a point today, and that’s really frustrating because, especially after coming from Friday and getting a good result against Wrexham
‘You can cut and copy the same interview, and I feel sorry because I have to say the same things. We have to do better because we still have two games left, and first because of ourselves, each one has its own reasons, but more importantly, because we are defending the badge. We are defending the football club, and we have to keep going. If we are not performing, I am the first one to blame.’ (Rovers Head Coach Inigo Calderon)
‘To be honest, I don’t really know what to say. The performance and the inconsistency that we’ve shown over the last six or seven weeks hasn’t been acceptable as a group. We can’t have a performance like we have done against the likes of Birmingham, Wrexham, Bolton, Huddersfield, those types of teams, and then turn up at home and show what we have done in the last couple of weeks.
‘It’s miles away from where we need to be. The only positive is that it’s still all to play for, and I guess we can twist that, and that inconsistency can show us that we can go and find a performance out of nowhere.
‘So, that’s the only thing we can look at from this game and know that we can be inconsistent in a positive way, and we need to be. We can’t hide. It’s not the time to be feeling sorry for ourselves. The way I’m speaking now, it’s not positive, but we have to turn around on Saturday and show more than that.’ (Rovers Midfielder Matt Butcher)
‘I thought that Bristol Rovers had a little bit of a spell in the first half, but apart from that I felt we created so many chances and scored a really good goal. This is a hard place to come at the best of times but I thought we managed the game brilliantly and should have been out of sight come the end.
‘I thought that Jamie Reid was a menace all day, he was fantastic. We should have killed the game off in the second half but I’m just really pleased with the win, for everyone. We probably dominated possession but today was all about winning and getting the result.’ (Stevenage Manager Alex Revell)
