THE MATCH
Following three home games on the bounce when performances were encouraging and six points taken from the nine on offer, there was hope that a corner might have been turned, but this game against Cambridge, at the Abbey Stadium, seemed to suggest otherwise.
Steve Evans made three changes to his starting XI, leaving out Ellis Harrison and the injured duo Shaq Forde and Riley Harbottle and starting with Taylor Moore, Tommy Leigh and Joe Quigley.
Rovers might have taken a first minute lead when a fierce shot from Fabrizio Cavegn, following a run down the right, was well saved by home goalkeeper Jake Eastwood.
The home side responded, though, and quickly grew into the game. Sullay Kaikai headed over the bar from a corner while Brad Young did well to palm away a Ben Knight effort. However, the Cambridge man, fresh from being chosen as the League Two Player of the Month, wasn’t to be denied and, two minutes after Young’s save, gave Cambridge the lead.
The goal came after Kaikai did well out on the left before cutting inside, evading his marker and slipping the ball to Knight who hit a first time shot past Young and into the corner of the net.
Cambridge retained the upper hand as the half drew to a close and the tricky Kaikai hit a shot wide of the mark before a rare Rovers attack saw them awarded a penalty deep into first half stoppage time.
A long throw from Kofi Balmer caused problems in the home defence and when Quigley took possession of the ball, he was tripped by Dominic Ball. Referee Thomas Parsons immediately pointed to the spot and Quigley struck the penalty into the right hand corner of the net while Eastwood didn’t move and remained rooted to the spot in the centre of the goal.
Cavegn didn’t reappear at the start of the second half, after suffering a dead leg injury in the opening 45 minutes and he was replaced by Harrison.
However, the home side went close to regaining the lead after knight, played in by Kaikai, saw his shot deflected behind from a corner. Kell Watts met the corner kick at the back post and headed down to Louis Appere who, with the goal at his mercy, was just unable to apply the finishing touch.
At the other end Harrison fired in a shot from just outside the area, forcing Eastwood into a fine save, but it was a rare chance for a beleaguered Rovers side who were forced on to the back foot by a Cambridge side looking to cement a place in the automatic promotion places.
It came as little surprise when the second goal duly arrived and came after Cambridge were awarded a penalty of their own. Alfie Kilgour was the culprit who committed the foul, wrestling Mamadon Jobe to the ground. Knight stepped up to blast the spot kick high into the net, giving Young no chance of saving.
The impressive James Gibbons, a former Rovers player, was given the freedom of the right flank all afternoon and he went close to scoring with a curling shot that drifted just wide of the upright.
A third goal did arrive, though, as Rovers failed to clear a long throw by Gibbons the ball reached Sean Raggett. He picked out Kell Watts who headed past Young to seal a Cambridge win.
True, there were still 11 minutes to play, as well as an astonishing ten minutes of added time, but Rovers really failed to pose any threat to the home side after that third goal, apart from a couple of half chances that fell to Yusuf Akhamrich and Harrison.
Evans pulled no punches in his post match interview and was critical of his side’s defensive performance in particular. The Head Coach, though, must rally the troops again as they face an important away game at Oldham on Tuesday evening
WHAT WAS SAID
‘It was a tough day against a good side. They’re up at the top end of the table because the manager’s put some good players together, playing with a lot of confidence, so we always knew it would be tough coming up. It’s always tough going here anyway. But they also got us on a day where our performance levels were way short, especially defensively. Way short. If you defend like that, especially against the top teams, you’ll concede goals, and we never gave ourselves a chance. We get a break, but it’s a penalty; we go in 1-1 after a poor first half. There’s nothing in the second half.
‘The game started from a corner, a couple of free kicks, and they’re the same. Then the referees give them a penalty, it’s a foul, I’m not complaining about the decision from the referee. Defensively, we were all over the place. Then the third goal is bad, you know, Sean Raggett goes on for Cambridge, and he wins a header, then the boy comes in and heads it in five yards unopposed. So, defensively poor, very poor.
‘We’ve defended like that for long parts of the season, haven’t we? We’re trying to instil different things; it didn’t look like it today. I think it was just the whole back five, if you like. Yusuf Akhamrich didn’t have an impact on the right, and Jack Sparkes was poor on the left side. The three in the middle were all over the place, so it makes it more difficult. Listen. We’ll go away, and the boys will look back at it. We’ll come back to it, we’ll look at it at the training ground, and we’ll need to be better at Oldham, or we’ll get the same. Simple.’ Rovers Head Coach Steve Evans
‘I think by our standards, it’s not good enough. A lot of the things that happened, again, weren’t good enough. We didn’t start the game great; it was scrappy, and we probably needed to get the ball on the deck more.
‘We made it too easy for them; they obviously had three big centre halves, who came in and headed everything. So, we needed to get the ball on the deck more and play a bit, and when we did, towards the end of the first half and the start of the second half, we created a few chances and did well. I think that was our problem, we kind of just fed into what they wanted, and that didn’t help us.
‘I think we were lucky to be honest, to go in 1-1. Obviously, with our standards being so low, to go in 1-1, we were just thinking, ‘listen, we’ve still got a chance here. Let’s not knock ourselves down.’ We’ve obviously not played well, but then we need to up the standards. That was the main point of call.
We should be doing much better and we’re looking at ourselves and not others. We obviously need to go back on the training ground, do a few bits and look at a few things to work on. At the end of the day, it’s all about us and we need to improve.’ Rovers defender Ryan de Havilland
‘We spoke at half time about what we want to be now. Do we want to feel sorry for ourselves, or respond accordingly, get back on the front foot, go and really grab the game by the scruff of the neck? Anyone who wanted to question us – I was asked about complacency and was I concerned with the performance against Harrogate – well there was the answer. Six points, six goals, it’s a great response.
“The game went how we expected it, we thought it would be a tough battle but that we’d have real moments of quality as well. We were disappointed at half time, naturally, a bit deflated, (but) no panic in the changing room, no tea cups being launched by myself or anybody else. We were by the far the better team.
‘I said to the guys it was an opportunity again to deal with a little bit of adversity. The reaction for 25 minutes was outstanding. For me, over the 90 minutes there was one team in it. We got 1-0 up, we deserved to be in front, it was a brilliant goal. Ben Knight’s finish was sheer class. Cambridge boss Neil Harris
