Doncaster Rovers (A) League 1 - Tuesday 2/10/07.

[TimWilkes]

Sheffield Saddler got kicked out so I've just been told :D

He just texted me - thrown out for using foul and abusive language :D


This anti-social behaviour just suggets that he wants to meet his "hug a hoody" hero :roll:

[Duke]

Wrack - pulled hamstring, out for a month possibly.

shame , his best performances the season have been at right back imho.
Weston is steady enough .

[Cheesebag]

All Sheff was pointing out was that the Referee was underperforming. He did get a standing ovation tho. :lol:

[Cheesebag]

Donny fans are not happy, but to be fair are tending to agree that the best team won

http://www.footballforums.net/forums/sh ... p?t=147420

[Stu]

Wrack - pulled hamstring, out for a month possibly.

shame , his best performances the season have been at right back imho.
Weston is steady enough .

You think? I don't see him as an improvement on Pead to be honest. How clumsy was his foul to concede the penalty last night for those there, I'm stuck in a very wet overcast France for the week unfortunately so couldn't laugh at Sheff being chucked out...

[Barren Flak]

The last two games has shown grit and determination, resilience and more chances created than in the previous 9 games put together.

Sorry Phil, but I've got to pick you up on this, in the league with the exception of Oldham, we've created numerous chances in every match we've played. We've just missed the killer touch. Creating chances hasn't really been the problem, converting them has been the problem.

So to say we've created more chances in the last 2 matches than the previous 9 is tosh... We've been a clinical striker short of converting every defeat into a draw and every draw into a win in every match except Oldham in my opinion.

We've not played poorly, we've just been careless at times and lost concentration and been punished heavily for it.

Stu - I agree, with the exception of the Oldham game, I don't think we have been as bad as some have made out, like you say - we have missed the killer touch. The general play has been better than last season.

Me Too (And I don't mean the Granny Murray thing)

[Plastic Hawk]

Wrack - pulled hamstring, out for a month possibly.

shame , his best performances the season have been at right back imho.
Weston is steady enough .

You think? I don't see him as an improvement on Pead to be honest. How clumsy was his foul to concede the penalty last night for those there, I'm stuck in a very wet overcast France for the week unfortunately so couldn't laugh at Sheff being chucked out...

I think he's an improvement on Pead. Probably he'll be a below average, but not dreadful, League 1 right back this season, just as Pead was a slightly below average, but not dreadful, League 2 right back (despite his ridiculous appearance in the PFA Team of the Season :roll: ). I'd have liked us to have recruited a better right back, but I doubt he'll let us down too badly too often - and I think Pead would have been a liability in this league.

[Duke]

Wrack - pulled hamstring, out for a month possibly.

shame , his best performances the season have been at right back imho.
Weston is steady enough .

You think? I don't see him as an improvement on Pead to be honest. How clumsy was his foul to concede the penalty last night for those there, I'm stuck in a very wet overcast France for the week unfortunately so couldn't laugh at Sheff being chucked out...

to be honest Stu my aunty Mary would be an improvement on Pead , from what I've seen of Weston he's is steady enough not spectacular . he was a little slow at closing down against Swansea but i put that down to lack of match fitness.

[Over The Moon]

Wrack - pulled hamstring, out for a month possibly.

He can promote his DVD now :wink:

[Cheesebag]

Wrack - pulled hamstring, out for a month possibly.

He can promote his DVD now :wink:

I hope he can dance at the Skool Disco.

[Magic Man Fan]

How clumsy was his foul to concede the penalty last night for those there

It wasn't a foul Stu as the Donny fan confirms above. It was one of a number of baffling decisions by a terrible referee and justice was done when the pen was missed. Weston should have dealt with the Donny player earlier so he wasn't even in the box but when he was he just fell to the ground and the ref fell for it.

First half wasn't as bad as some have made out, but silly and hesitant defending and goalkeeping cost us. When we scored we had a very good 15 minute spell where we actually kept the ball but when we conceded the second we looked dodgy again. I'm not sure why everything was blamed on Ince. Yes he was at fault for one but the other Gerrard was just standing watching his man head in from just outside the 6 yard box.

I've said all season we have the makings of a good team. Unfortunately it has been shown more in away games so the majority of people haven't been there to see it which has resulted in too much negativity based on admittedly below par home performances, especially Oldham.

But everything came together last night in the second half. The defence wasn't it's usual self but midfield has more energy and pace and Mattis has made a big difference (not bad for the worst signing ever...who did say that before he'd kicked a ball for us? :roll:) I'm not sure it was the 4-5-1 that made a difference to be honest because the game was passing Bradley by until he scored. Before that we were saying Deeney should come on for him to give us more up front because up until then Mooney was struggling on his own also. But with Mattis and Bradley it allows Dobson to play his natural game more.

We now have two of the best wingers we've had for years. Sonko is brilliant, really brilliant. He's determined, quick, skilful, has good positional sense, gets stuck in, wins headers and gets in the box. Not bad for another pathetic cheap STM trialist eh? ;) He also seems to have a really good attitude to go with it all. Ishmel on the other wing was just as effective and because he'd been yellow carded he couldn't retaliate to the players kicking lumps out of him so he just got up and made them pay by taking the pee.

Both of them were putting so many crosses over, it would be great to get another quality striker in to get on the end of some of them.

The main difference for me though was the team spirit, especially at the end. The removal of Sonner and Butler, the troublemakers have made a big difference and the togetherness of last season was clear for all to see at the end and will make sure that this season is comfortable at worst if we can add a couple of quality players that we need.

It's not all doom and gloom it never was and if we can add to this squad based on last nights performance we can do something this year.

[gray]

Tommy Mooney is definitely the man to captain our club. The more games we get out of this guy the better. His passion was incredible. Him and Clayton almost came to blows in the first half and in the 2nd he barely stopped running and was constantly encouraging the fans to cheer the team on.

In the first half I can't stress how poor we were. I couldn't believe we equalised at 1-1. I don't think you will see a team not deserve to be equal as much as that and I feared we would go on to lose 3 or 4-1.

2nd half we were incredible. Perfect passing football with Mooney leading the line and winning balls with all the midfielders running off them. We fully deserved to go infront even though I thought out penalty was a bit strange and there weren't any appeals but I thought theres was just as suspect.

All of the players were heroes in the 2nd half but I think special praise should go to Sonko and Mooney. I think Sonko is going to be a real star. Bradley, Dobson and Mattis all worked really well in the 2nd half which was pretty much the antithesis of the 2nd half.

If we had lost this game we would never had heard the end of how bad the referee truly was. It wasn't really a very dirty game but I lost count of how many bookings there were. Players were booked early on for inocuous fouls and then players such as the bald donny right back got away with hacking Ishy down every time without being sent off. The 2 penalties really summed this guy up. I hope we don't get him again any time soon.

Our fans were brilliant and most were in shock at how well we played in the 2nd half. I think our formation may be more favourable away from home but i don't see why it can't work at Banks's as well. If we perform half as good as we did in the 2nd half for the rest of the season DD may very well be getting us a succesive promotion :shock:

[Magic Man Fan]

Wrack - pulled hamstring, out for a month possibly.

shame , his best performances the season have been at right back imho.
Weston is steady enough .

You think? I don't see him as an improvement on Pead to be honest. How clumsy was his foul to concede the penalty last night for those there, I'm stuck in a very wet overcast France for the week unfortunately so couldn't laugh at Sheff being chucked out...

I think he's an improvement on Pead. Probably he'll be a below average, but not dreadful, League 1 right back this season, just as Pead was a slightly below average, but not dreadful, League 2 right back (despite his ridiculous appearance in the PFA Team of the Season :roll: ).

Why ridiculous? It's voted for by the players themselves. The ones who had to play against him. Surely they are a far better judge than you or Dave?

Pead was ok. He put some good match winning defensive performances for us and wouldn't have been a bad player to have around in the squad this season in my opinion. Having said that I think when Weston has settled in and gets fully fit he'll be a good signing. Wrack was struggling at right back last night and accounted for a lot of the dodgy spells in the first half. Whether his injury was there throughout and it got worse I don't know but he wasn't playing well before he went off.

[Magic Man Fan]

Our fans were brilliant and most were in shock at how well we played in the 2nd half.

I wasn't. I said to my mates as we sat down for the second half we're going to win 4-2 and they took the pee so I said, ok then 3-2. :D

[Plastic Hawk]

Wrack - pulled hamstring, out for a month possibly.

shame , his best performances the season have been at right back imho.
Weston is steady enough .

You think? I don't see him as an improvement on Pead to be honest. How clumsy was his foul to concede the penalty last night for those there, I'm stuck in a very wet overcast France for the week unfortunately so couldn't laugh at Sheff being chucked out...

I think he's an improvement on Pead. Probably he'll be a below average, but not dreadful, League 1 right back this season, just as Pead was a slightly below average, but not dreadful, League 2 right back (despite his ridiculous appearance in the PFA Team of the Season :roll: ).

Why ridiculous? It's voted for by the players themselves. The ones who had to play against him. Surely they are a far better judge than you or Dave?

Pead was ok. He put some good match winning defensive performances for us and wouldn't have been a bad player to have around in the squad this season in my opinion. Having said that I think when Weston has settled in and gets fully fit he'll be a good signing. Wrack was struggling at right back last night and accounted for a lot of the dodgy spells in the first half. Whether his injury was there throughout and it got worse I don't know but he wasn't playing well before he went off.

It was ridiculous because Pead only started 26 League games for us - and several of them were in midfield. To be considered the best player in your position in the division surely it's necessary to be a guaranteed starter in your own team? I'm not judging who was the best right back in the league, just saying that it wasn't Pead!

I'm not sure that the players are the best people to judge, to be honest. Maybe in the Premiership, where they see a lot of it on TV, but in League 2 you only see each opposing player twice - and you're concentrating on your own game for most of that time and not looking at how a guy 70 yards away is doing. Maybe they could have asked just the left wingers to vote for the best right back. I doubt Pead would have won it then.

Other than that, I broadly agree with what you say about Pead - but I think that his salary would have been a luxury for a club of our size and he'd have been blocking Bradley's path to the first team. So probably best to let him go (and bench warm at Brentford).

[Duke]

Our fans were brilliant and most were in shock at how well we played in the 2nd half.

I wasn't. I said to my mates as we sat down for the second half we're going to win 4-2 and they took the pee so I said, ok then 3-2. :D

Mark , would you go with a 4-5-1 on saturday?.

[sid swifty]

Our fans were brilliant and most were in shock at how well we played in the 2nd half.

I wasn't. I said to my mates as we sat down for the second half we're going to win 4-2 and they took the pee so I said, ok then 3-2. :D

Thats a bit far fetched Mark.....you've got mates?.... :shock: :D

[Stourbridge_Andy]

MMF wrote: 'We now have two of the best wingers we've had for years. Sonko is brilliant, really brilliant. He's determined, quick, skilful, has good positional sense, gets stuck in, wins headers and gets in the box. Not bad for another pathetic cheap STM trialist eh? He also seems to have a really good attitude to go with it all. Ishmel on the other wing was just as effective and because he'd been yellow carded he couldn't retaliate to the players kicking lumps out of him so he just got up and made them pay by taking the pee.

Both of them were putting so many crosses over, it would be great to get another quality striker in to get on the end of some of them.

The main difference for me though was the team spirit, especially at the end. The removal of Sonner and Butler, the troublemakers have made a big difference and the togetherness of last season was clear for all to see at the end and will make sure that this season is comfortable at worst if we can add a couple of quality players that we need'

That is fantastic to hear - especially the bit about the team spirit

[SheffieldSaddler]

Tommy Mooney is definitely the man to captain our club. The more games we get out of this guy the better. His passion was incredible. Him and Clayton almost came to blows in the first half and in the 2nd he barely stopped running and was constantly encouraging the fans to cheer the team on.

In the first half I can't stress how poor we were. I couldn't believe we equalised at 1-1. I don't think you will see a team not deserve to be equal as much as that and I feared we would go on to lose 3 or 4-1.

2nd half we were incredible. Perfect passing football with Mooney leading the line and winning balls with all the midfielders running off them. We fully deserved to go infront even though I thought out penalty was a bit strange and there weren't any appeals but I thought theres was just as suspect.

All of the players were heroes in the 2nd half but I think special praise should go to Sonko and Mooney. I think Sonko is going to be a real star. Bradley, Dobson and Mattis all worked really well in the 2nd half which was pretty much the antithesis of the 2nd half.

If we had lost this game we would never had heard the end of how bad the referee truly was. It wasn't really a very dirty game but I lost count of how many bookings there were. Players were booked early on for inocuous fouls and then players such as the bald donny right back got away with hacking Ishy down every time without being sent off. The 2 penalties really summed this guy up. I hope we don't get him again any time soon.

Our fans were brilliant and most were in shock at how well we played in the 2nd half. I think our formation may be more favourable away from home but i don't see why it can't work at Banks's as well. If we perform half as good as we did in the 2nd half for the rest of the season DD may very well be getting us a succesive promotion :shock:

I dont agree with that. There was a 15 minute spell where we passed the ball around well and looked a decent team, the other 30 Donny were better, yes, but they did not really create a lot.

[Neuromantic]

What a second half performance, best I have seen for 4 or 4 years, superb!

Got to keep that formation and how we played it in the second half!

Dobson was MOTM, absolutely AWESOME.

Mooney has endeared himself to me forever, his passion, running and movement were brilliant, should have had a hat trick!

what a first game of the season for me!

:D

[Magic Man Fan]

Our fans were brilliant and most were in shock at how well we played in the 2nd half.

I wasn't. I said to my mates as we sat down for the second half we're going to win 4-2 and they took the pee so I said, ok then 3-2. :D

Mark , would you go with a 4-5-1 on saturday?.

No. I know it sounds daft but for me, the majority of the game it wasn't working. I'd start with Deeney up front in place of Bradley who was ok for the last 30 but wasn't that effective beforehand in my opinion.

I think DD will want to keep changing which young players he starts anyway to keep them on their toes.

[Magic Man Fan]

Tommy Mooney is definitely the man to captain our club. The more games we get out of this guy the better. His passion was incredible. Him and Clayton almost came to blows in the first half and in the 2nd he barely stopped running and was constantly encouraging the fans to cheer the team on.

In the first half I can't stress how poor we were. I couldn't believe we equalised at 1-1. I don't think you will see a team not deserve to be equal as much as that and I feared we would go on to lose 3 or 4-1.

2nd half we were incredible. Perfect passing football with Mooney leading the line and winning balls with all the midfielders running off them. We fully deserved to go infront even though I thought out penalty was a bit strange and there weren't any appeals but I thought theres was just as suspect.

All of the players were heroes in the 2nd half but I think special praise should go to Sonko and Mooney. I think Sonko is going to be a real star. Bradley, Dobson and Mattis all worked really well in the 2nd half which was pretty much the antithesis of the 2nd half.

If we had lost this game we would never had heard the end of how bad the referee truly was. It wasn't really a very dirty game but I lost count of how many bookings there were. Players were booked early on for inocuous fouls and then players such as the bald donny right back got away with hacking Ishy down every time without being sent off. The 2 penalties really summed this guy up. I hope we don't get him again any time soon.

Our fans were brilliant and most were in shock at how well we played in the 2nd half. I think our formation may be more favourable away from home but i don't see why it can't work at Banks's as well. If we perform half as good as we did in the 2nd half for the rest of the season DD may very well be getting us a succesive promotion :shock:

I dont agree with that. There was a 15 minute spell where we passed the ball around well and looked a decent team, the other 30 Donny were better, yes, but they did not really create a lot.

Agree, as I said above. We just made silly mistakes defensively which have already done too many times this season and meant we're not in the play off places by now.

If we're going to keep making those mistakes at the back then I'm happy for us to keep the ball in the opponents half and attacking like we did for most of the second half.

[belgiansaddler]

Sorry Gray but I am also with Sheffield here, we did not play badly in the 1st half in my opinion, the spell after we scored we looked very good. Only poor thing about the first half was that we gave 2 stupid goals away, apart from that the first 45 minutes was a decent away performance.

Some of the Donny fans on the football forums are being very complimentary about us, fair play to them they say they were awful second half but some do acknowledge that we tore them to pieces

[sid swifty]

Its funny how things change...you were all saying i was off my head last week after i started a thread saying DD should start playing some of our own youngsters rather than keep getting in loan signings.... :wink:

[Duke]

Our fans were brilliant and most were in shock at how well we played in the 2nd half.

I wasn't. I said to my mates as we sat down for the second half we're going to win 4-2 and they took the pee so I said, ok then 3-2. :D

Mark , would you go with a 4-5-1 on saturday?.

No. I know it sounds daft but for me, the majority of the game it wasn't working. I'd start with Deeney up front in place of Bradley who was ok for the last 30 but wasn't that effective beforehand in my opinion.

I think DD will want to keep changing which young players he starts anyway to keep them on their toes.

I was a little suprised to see DD change things from Hartlepool to be honest , agreed with what say about the youngsters .

[King Crimson]

What a second half performance, best I have seen for 4 or 4 years, superb!

The Third and Fourth Quarters were awesome for the Walsall Saddlers!

Got to keep that formation and how we played it in the second half!!

Coach Money got the team line-up A1 tonite.

Dobson was MOTM, absolutely AWESOME.

Mike Dobson MVP on basis of pass-ball stats from tonite's match.

Mooney has endeared himself to me forever, his passion, running and movement were brilliant, should have had a hat trick!

Walsall shot-kicker Thomas Mooney was outta here. Great composure for a PK specialist. That's 2 in 5 now for this senior player.

There you go. :wink:

[bangsection]

Thought my excitement about last night's performance would have worn off by now.

No chance! I said last night that it was probably the most exciting game and most impressive performance from a Walsall side away from The Banks's since the Millennium stadium and I stick by that.

To go to a decent League 1 side like Doncaster, play indifferently in the first half to trail 2-1 at the break, and then come out and ABSOLUTELY BATTER THEM for almost all of the second period was phenomenal. As others have said, in Ishy and Sonko we have two out and out attacking wingers possibly for the first time since Wrack and Pedro were in their prime. Mooney had an absolute ball - he had a permanent grin on his face for the entire second half and was never going to miss the pen and ZiDann seems to be back to his best. Importantly, it also went some way to burying the notion that Money's teams are not set up to play attractive, attacking football. I've not seen us play that well since we regularly gave teams a hiding at Bescot under Graydon.

The only downers were the usual problems with modern football - no tickets on the turnstiles because it saves them on staff costs, no public transport back to the town centre and the tetchy stewards overreacting. As far as I could gather, and I was sitting a few seats away from Sheff, the octogenarian steward wanted an apology from Sheff for calling him 'Grandad' after he was told off for abusing the ref and when he didn't get one decided to have him thrown out! Absolutely ridiculous.

But, overall, it's games like these that really do make it all worthwhile. It felt like a privilege to support that team last night.

[Stu]

Its funny how things change...you were all saying i was off my head last week after i started a thread saying DD should start playing some of our own youngsters rather than keep getting in loan signings.... :wink:

So who in that first team last night would you class as our own youngsters? Ishmel and Bradley are the only two who you could class as not youngsters deserving of a chance, and even then Ishmel has been around for nigh on 2 seasons now.

So in fact Bradley was the only one who was really new, and even he has figured before this season on 2/3 occasions...

Folk said you were off your head if you thought we should throw 3 or 4 in, I think everyone agreed that it might not harm to blood one or two, which is exactly what happened is it not?

[sid swifty]

Its funny how things change...you were all saying i was off my head last week after i started a thread saying DD should start playing some of our own youngsters rather than keep getting in loan signings.... :wink:

So who in that first team last night would you class as our own youngsters? Ishmel and Bradley are the only two who you could class as not youngsters deserving of a chance, and even then Ishmel has been around for nigh on 2 seasons now.

So in fact Bradley was the only one who was really new, and even he has figured before this season on 2/3 occasions...

Folk said you were off your head if you thought we should throw 3 or 4 in, I think everyone agreed that it might not harm to blood one or two, which is exactly what happened is it not?

Ok then Stu....lets call them "reserves" rather than youngsters...and if you look back on that thread i suggested just one or two at a time....not flooding the team with youngsters....and there was talk last week about getting another 2 loanees in....had that happened I know which players would have made way for them....so keep loan players down to a bare minimum....reserve team players need to know that there is a chance they might get a game in preference to loan players.

[Neuromantic]

What a second half performance, best I have seen for 4 or 4 years, superb!

The Third and Fourth Quarters were awesome for the Walsall Saddlers!

Got to keep that formation and how we played it in the second half!!

Coach Money got the team line-up A1 tonite.

Dobson was MOTM, absolutely AWESOME.

Mike Dobson MVP on basis of pass-ball stats from tonite's match.

Mooney has endeared himself to me forever, his passion, running and movement were brilliant, should have had a hat trick!

Walsall shot-kicker Thomas Mooney was outta here. Great composure for a PK specialist. That's 2 in 5 now for this senior player.

There you go. :wink:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Brilliant! :lol: