Oldham Athletic v Rovers,4th Tier,Match Thread,Tuesday night

In a game that SHOULD have been a formality to close out,but for some sloppy play,

Come on superbus, Oldham were looking for that through ball esp on the right hand side all night. And they were pressing us all night, never giving our midfield time to settle, look up or play forward. They pressed brilliantly esp on Coutts who was always having to do stuff quickly.
I thought it was a masterclass in playing against a team who had 71% possession but were never able to take advantage of it. 
We may have been better than Oldham but we never really showed it did we? How many saves did their keeper make? One from Collins in the first half from a good move, every other save he made was comfortable, he was never extended.
As for the “main stats”, better than them? Really? The main stat, goals scored showed we were not so good, we lost. 

I will always support us and talk us up but on Tuesday night we were done right and proper by a team fighting for their life and set up to frustrate us and hit us on the counter. They should have won 3-1 (ball over the line) and could have won with a few more goals but for Anssi. I don’t think JB is often out-thought tactically, but he was by Sheridan on Tuesday night.

Move in to Mansfield now, win and somehow it will still be a good week!

UTG!

Yes, really. 

If Oldham were as awfully poor as you suggest, why should we need to be ‘at our best’ to beat them? Mmmmm.

i think that’s a fair comment.  We didn’t need to be at our absolute best to beat them.  if Oldham turned up dial to their max 10, our 7 or 8 would have beaten them.  I agree.  But my main point is we didn’t turn the dial up.  

Why>. so what was missing?   A side without Connolly and Evans takes away too much of our effective edge?   With his rotation system, Joey throws players in without match fitness or sharpness (which is a key algorithm in Football Manager simulation these days)?    

But also, the old saying “you only know the mettle of your players in how they are up for a wet Tuesday night at Oldham”.   This was that wet cold Tuesday night at Oldham where we didn’t turn up the dial to what we are capable of.  

All those three things played more of a part than Oldhams performance IMO. 

Do you see my reasoning why it went wrong - I predicted this on the front page of this thread, in much same way as now saying to insist we are in good form, this blip caused by Oldham being good on the night, might be wide of the truth. 

I saw it in ifollow as well. I don’t think I’m being polite, just going on what I saw. They pressed all evening, conceded possession to us in unimportant areas and constantly attacked our right hand side having identified, rightly, that it was a weakness. And we weren’t good enough to counter their tactics. Perhaps we saw things differently.
Points to make:
... If we were at our best we probably wouldn’t be in the position we are. If we were “at our best” last season we wouldn’t be in League 2. It’s a silly argument isn’t it, if we were better we’d be in League 1 or the Championship? We aren’t so we’re not. And I love the way we’ve started to play and some of the players we’ve attracted but “at our best”? Not sure we’ve been that apart from the first 20 mins against Tranmere and the match against Carlisle for much of this season. It’s just the last 10 matches or so when we’ve been better than we’ve been for the last two years.
... “We had possession and physicality they couldn’t match”. We did but they set up knowing that we’d have more possession and as we know possession means nothing without an end product. Possession means “b***** all. Oldham were happy to let us have possession in our half, there was no end product. That physicality and possession means nothing. It was a very good display by Oldham, masterminded by a tactically aware manager who set his team up perfectly to play us. And I think credit should go to them. But others will feel differently as you do.
... Perhaps we did gift them the goals but that happens. Our defenders were poor and not as good as the Oldham defenders, who stopped all our efforts save for the goal. Their defence was better than our defence on Tuesday.it happens, we move on.
... And the question marks over the players fitness? Well that’s up to the manager, if Saunders wasn’t match fit and you may be right then why was he playing? 

So yes it was a disappointing evening but we move on. As I said win tomorrow v Mansfield and it will still have been a good week. But we have to win!

UTG!