Matt Taylor admits Bristol Rovers' win over Bath City revealed two major transfer needs, Bristol Rovers made hard work of beating Bath City 1-0 as Chris Martin's late strike decided the friendly at Twerton Park..By James Piercy, Sports Editor.i2-prod.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/article9409717.ece/ALTERNATES/s1176b/0_3591037.jpgMatt Taylor insists signing two forward players is a priority for Bristol Rovers before the 2024/25 season kicks off as the Gas’ lack of options and depth in the final third was evidenced in their 1-0 victory over Bath City on Saturday.
Rovers needed 81 minutes to find a winner as Chris Martin brought down a deep cross from Michael Forbes with his chest and then fired a half-volley past Harvey Wiles-Richards in a second half where they had struggled to create.
The opposite had been the case in the opening 45 minutes where Rovers looked more fluid, with Isaac Hutchinson especially bright as a playmaker, but with Ruel Sotiriou not present due to a small injury, Luke McCormick and Jevani Brown led the line.
McCormick wasted the best chance of the game when he glanced a free header wide from Joel Senior’s fine cross, while the closest Brown came was when he improvised to lift a shot over Wiles-Richards but wide of the far post.
Kamil Conteh brought real authority to the midfield, and tested the Bath goalkeeper with a stinging drive which was wll kept out, and was a steely accompaniment to the silk Hutchinson brought in possession, while Clinton Mola nearly broke the deadlock with a header.
But it was evident throughout the first half they lacked the obvious focal point to play into, and necessary presence in the penalty area, given Brown can best be classified as a second striker or wide forward and McCormick is very much a midfielder.
“We want to get two centre-forwards on the pitch, is Jevani a natural centre-forward? Is Luke McCormick a natural centre-forward? They're not, but Chris Martin is, and we need a few more like him,” Taylor said. “Ruel Sotiriou will fill that forward line, but he’s got a little injury at the moment.
“We need options at that top end of the pitch, that’s not to say Macca and Jevani don’t have a role to play, because of course they do, but that’s not their natural game - you could see that in the first half. But that will build as time goes on.
“There’s no better example than at the end of last season where we played the last two games, when Chrissy was suspended, with no recognised centre-forward. You can’t compete at any level like that, so we know what we want to obtain.
“We’ve got so many conversations going on behind the scenes, and so many attempts behind the scenes to bring the right profile of centre-forward in because we rely on Chrissy probably too much. He’s the mainstay of our team, our leading goalscorer and led the line so well for us last season but he’s suspended for the first two games of this season, so we have to be aware we want four centre-forwards by the time the season starts.”
Rovers have made progress in the transfer market with 10 signings, eight of which played 45 minutes at Twerton Park, however only Hutchinson and Sotiriou can be described as attack-minded with most of the summer surgery having been conducted to the defence.
Ollie Dewsbury played the second half in tandem with Martin, and had some bright moments with one particularly run leading to a shot dragged wide of the near post, but Taylor admitted post-match that the academy players being currently used to complement the squad over these early pre-season games are unlikely to feature in the league campaign.
The Gas retain an interest in Fleetwood Town forward Promise Omochere, whose physical presence and athleticism in being able to stretch a defence, looks tailor-made for this team.
“Yes, because of the finance, the market, everyone wants them and there’s not as many as you may imagine,” added Taylor, when asked about the difficulties of signing strikers compared to defensive players. “We have to be creative with it, we have to be realistic in terms of our budget.
"The four might look like a Chris Martin, a Ruel, another type of centre-forward and then a younger loan to supplement it because Ollie’s not quite ready. As a manager, if you’ve got four you can rely on, and they can all do different things in terms of the balance of the frontline, then you’ve got a chance - goals dictate everything and we were short last season.”
Taylor conceded that the Gas lacked a bit of zip in their play and the general pace wasn’t at the desired level, in-part because of the patchwork nature of the two teams he fielded, the fact it was two separate 11s which doesn’t help momentum over the 90 minutes, but also because of the level of fitness work that took place at The Quarters last week.
Taylor admits the staff really pushed the players, with a double session on Thursday that left them taking the field with a degree of fatigue, which contributed to their inability to properly break their National League South opponents down.
“It was a competitive game of football, so everything matters,” Taylor said. “We’re still in the 45-minute bracket at the moment so fitness is the most important thing and we got through it unscathed injury-wise.
“In terms of the result, I don’t think we deserved to in the second half but somehow we did with a bit of a moment of quality from Chrissy. The second-half team was very disjointed and there wasn’t enough control in all areas of the pitch, including the back areas and it meant Chris Martin, Luke Thomas and Scott Sinclair were too deep and frustrated which is why we changed the shape as it went on.
“First half team, I was pleased with, a lot of the intent and some good pictures. We should have scored more than one goal in that first half and we were lacking Chrissy on the end of it, that was pretty obvious. So we need to improve all areas of the pitch but the biggest takeaway was fitness-wise, it was a plus but it shows how hard they’ve been working because it looked like we didn’t quite have a yard in us.
“Even some of our quicker and more mobile players, and that’s probably the result of how hard they’ve gone this week. The pitch was a little bit slow and we didn’t quite have it in our bodies. We worked them so hard and that was probably in their bodies still, a little bit.
“We’re at that stage where we can still play a little bit fatigued, because we overloaded them across the week, so I’m not too concerned about that.”
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