Rochdale (H) League One 10 Feb, 7.45pm

[aaaae]

Just to make things even better, Villa finally drop into the bottom three :lol:

[Pheasey_Saddler]

With regard to the attendance, Rochdale brought about 100 so a home attendance of around 3,400 isn't too bad in my opinion. Not brilliant but certainly not awful.

[SoccerHQ]

Better indication crowd wise and any rise since Wembley will be Saturday. 3pm and Vale will bring 1k I'd imagine so would like to think that will be 5k + with the win tonight.

[Wyrley_saddler]

I honestly think that was sour worst performance at home in a long time. We turned up for ten minutes, where we scored three goals, and for the rest of the game we were by far the inferior team. Even before we went 1-0 up, Dale were knocking it around quite comfortably.

For that ten minute period, we were fantastic. Forde had his man on toast, I think that lad is still spinning round.

Last 15 of the first half Dale should've got a goal back, thankfully ROD came to out rescue.
The loss of Forde at half time was a massive blow, he was our main outlet, when he went off we lost pretty much all the attacking intent we had.
Why do we persist with Baxendale? He is woeful. He's like a lost little kid chasing the ball around the pitch. I'd rather give a proper winger in Morris a go and rip up Baxendale's contract. (Funnily enough, Morris was recieving raving reviews from Wrexham fans this evening).

Second half was truely terrible. We just invited pressure onto ourselves constantly. I thought we'd throw it away, but fortunately and thankfully we did not.

Decent three points on paper, but a terrible performance as a team.

[Walsallone]

Just got back-what an excellent game against a team whose style of play was the exact opposite of ours. For the first time this season our lack of height throughout the team was cruelly exposed at times ,however we stuck to our task and deserved our victory for our superb first 30 minutes when Rochdale were torn apart. Two further points:
the Man City lad did well but I would have taken him off after 60mins and brought Grimes on who I understand did well on Saturday.
I hope Forde and Cook are fit for Saturday. Forde was superb in the first half and we really missed him in the second.
Lets hope we can build on this on Saturday when hopefully a few more people will be bothered to come.

[SWS1]

Well done to the lads. More than I can say for the people of Walsall. The attendance was pathetic!!!!

People have young families and jobs. Life isn't like the '60s when all women stayed at home all day looking after the kids while men went out down the pub five nights a week and to the match while she cooked and cleaned at home without complaint. Would have loved to have been there tonight, but putting bread on the table by working and putting kids to bed. PS. If anyone can find me a traditional woman that is like a woman from the sixties (ie...Gloria Hunniford-looking) then I'll gladly welcome her into my arms?

Times have changed. I wasn't there tonight,but I'm there in spirit. UTS. Great win! May have been 3.5K there tonight, but there would have been at least another 2K willing them on from home. A priest once said to me during confessions that you should go to church every Sunday to believe and worship God. Bollocks. Same as Walsall fans...there's many that are just as passionate that can't make it every match. You can will the boys on to win, wherever you may be.

Mek sure yo wife/partner dow see this thread. :lol:

[Ancient Moaner]

I honestly think that was sour worst performance at home in a long time. We turned up for ten minutes, where we scored three goals, and for the rest of the game we were by far the inferior team. Even before we went 1-0 up, Dale were knocking it around quite comfortably.

For that ten minute period, we were fantastic. Forde had his man on toast, I think that lad is still spinning round.

Last 15 of the first half Dale should've got a goal back, thankfully ROD came to out rescue.
The loss of Forde at half time was a massive blow, he was our main outlet, when he went off we lost pretty much all the attacking intent we had.
Why do we persist with Baxendale? He is woeful. He's like a lost little kid chasing the ball around the pitch. I'd rather give a proper winger in Morris a go and rip up Baxendale's contract. (Funnily enough, Morris was recieving raving reviews from Wrexham fans this evening).

Second half was truely terrible. We just invited pressure onto ourselves constantly. I thought we'd throw it away, but fortunately and thankfully we did not.

Decent three points on paper, but a terrible performance as a team.

And there's us thinking "what a great result against a good team"
Are you SURE THAT was our worst home performance? Methinks 1-4 to Swindon 1-4 to Scunthorpe,
and 0-2 to Coventry, might, just might, rank as slightly worse? :?

[m&m]

Ultimately it's 3 points but the way we fell away after half time was alarming and needs to be addressed.
Hopefully forde picked up a slight knock as replacing him at ht when he was on fire for bax was suicide.
It says it all when a player who is on the pitch for 45 mins wins mom.
Looking at the bench when it was 3-2 shows how paper thin our squad is so it should be commended that we are only 10-11 points from safety at this stage of the season.p

[Wyrley_saddler]

I honestly think that was sour worst performance at home in a long time. We turned up for ten minutes, where we scored three goals, and for the rest of the game we were by far the inferior team. Even before we went 1-0 up, Dale were knocking it around quite comfortably.

For that ten minute period, we were fantastic. Forde had his man on toast, I think that lad is still spinning round.

Last 15 of the first half Dale should've got a goal back, thankfully ROD came to out rescue.
The loss of Forde at half time was a massive blow, he was our main outlet, when he went off we lost pretty much all the attacking intent we had.
Why do we persist with Baxendale? He is woeful. He's like a lost little kid chasing the ball around the pitch. I'd rather give a proper winger in Morris a go and rip up Baxendale's contract. (Funnily enough, Morris was recieving raving reviews from Wrexham fans this evening).

Second half was truely terrible. We just invited pressure onto ourselves constantly. I thought we'd throw it away, but fortunately and thankfully we did not.

Decent three points on paper, but a terrible performance as a team.

And there's us thinking "what a great result against a good team"
Are you SURE THAT was our worst home performance? Methinks 1-4 to Swindon 1-4 to Scunthorpe,
and 0-2 to Coventry, might, just might, rank as slightly worse? :?

I think we played better in all three of the games you mention, but oddly we come out with three points tonight. Football's a funny old game ay!

[BathSaddler]

With regard to the attendance, Rochdale brought about 100 so a home attendance of around 3,400 isn't too bad in my opinion. Not brilliant but certainly not awful.

There were 4 lower crowds in our league tonight, including the 3,451 at Boundary Park to see 6th placed Oldham beat second placed Swindon 2-1.

However, a 5,000 gate against Fail would be nice.

[Ancient Moaner]

I honestly think that was sour worst performance at home in a long time. We turned up for ten minutes, where we scored three goals, and for the rest of the game we were by far the inferior team. Even before we went 1-0 up, Dale were knocking it around quite comfortably.

For that ten minute period, we were fantastic. Forde had his man on toast, I think that lad is still spinning round.

Last 15 of the first half Dale should've got a goal back, thankfully ROD came to out rescue.
The loss of Forde at half time was a massive blow, he was our main outlet, when he went off we lost pretty much all the attacking intent we had.
Why do we persist with Baxendale? He is woeful. He's like a lost little kid chasing the ball around the pitch. I'd rather give a proper winger in Morris a go and rip up Baxendale's contract. (Funnily enough, Morris was recieving raving reviews from Wrexham fans this evening).

Second half was truely terrible. We just invited pressure onto ourselves constantly. I thought we'd throw it away, but fortunately and thankfully we did not.

Decent three points on paper, but a terrible performance as a team.

And there's us thinking "what a great result against a good team"
Are you SURE THAT was our worst home performance? Methinks 1-4 to Swindon 1-4 to Scunthorpe,
and 0-2 to Coventry, might, just might, rank as slightly worse? :?

I think we played better in all three of the games you mention, but oddly we come out with three points tonight. Football's a funny old game ay!

Agreed, but surely the Swindon capitulation was in my humble opinion, THE worst display of any Walsall squad that I have witnessed for many, many years, at the Bezza, we were humiliated.

[Sadders]

Just got back-what an excellent game against a team whose style of play was the exact opposite of ours. For the first time this season our lack of height throughout the team was cruelly exposed at times ,however we stuck to our task and deserved our victory for our superb first 30 minutes when Rochdale were torn apart. Two further points:
the Man City lad did well but I would have taken him off after 60mins and brought Grimes on who I understand did well on Saturday.
I hope Forde and Cook are fit for Saturday. Forde was superb in the first half and we really missed him in the second.
Lets hope we can build on this on Saturday when hopefully a few more people will be bothered to come.

I disagree with this, Swindon absolutely hammered us with 2 big forwards in the air. But then again, Donny did the same on Saturday and we were fine. We can't be 'perfect' in every single game and one thing some fans forget in football at times...the opposition can play well. The height is where we miss Butler.

[SoccerHQ]

I honestly think that was sour worst performance at home in a long time. We turned up for ten minutes, where we scored three goals, and for the rest of the game we were by far the inferior team. Even before we went 1-0 up, Dale were knocking it around quite comfortably.

For that ten minute period, we were fantastic. Forde had his man on toast, I think that lad is still spinning round.

Last 15 of the first half Dale should've got a goal back, thankfully ROD came to out rescue.
The loss of Forde at half time was a massive blow, he was our main outlet, when he went off we lost pretty much all the attacking intent we had.
Why do we persist with Baxendale? He is woeful. He's like a lost little kid chasing the ball around the pitch. I'd rather give a proper winger in Morris a go and rip up Baxendale's contract. (Funnily enough, Morris was recieving raving reviews from Wrexham fans this evening).

Second half was truely terrible. We just invited pressure onto ourselves constantly. I thought we'd throw it away, but fortunately and thankfully we did not.

Decent three points on paper, but a terrible performance as a team.

And there's us thinking "what a great result against a good team"
Are you SURE THAT was our worst home performance? Methinks 1-4 to Swindon 1-4 to Scunthorpe,
and 0-2 to Coventry, might, just might, rank as slightly worse? :?

I think we played better in all three of the games you mention, but oddly we come out with three points tonight. Football's a funny old game ay!

Agreed, but surely the Swindon capitulation was in my humble opinion, THE worst display of any Walsall squad that I have witnessed for many, many years, at the Bezza, we were humiliated.

Swindon are a very decent team though and have battered a few in league one this season.

I doubt it compares to some of the cup shockers under Smith and that 1-4 at home to Tranmere towards the end of the Hutchings era that sticks in my mind for how inept the whole situation was.

[Wragbyred]

There were 4 lower crowds in our league tonight, including the 3,451 at Boundary Park to see 6th placed Oldham beat second placed Swindon 2-1.

On the day that the Premier League announce a £5 billion TV contract, that attendance should send shudders through the lower leagues

[kshammer]

The talk of it being our worst home performance is taking it a bit far but it could well be a shout for our worst second half performance of the season. We had a fantastic spell in the first half - Forde was unplayable and it pretty much looked like they were playing without a left back, such was the quality of his play. As an attacking unit we moved the ball around well but the difference was the speed we switched play with direct passing (not long bals) that was a joy to watch.

The signs were there in the latter part of the half though that Rochdale were not going to just lie down and if we had come out with the right attitude second half we would have been alot more comfortable. Our lads were second to every ball, lost every tackle and didn't work hard enough. Never have I seen a team suffer so much from losing one player - as soon as Forde went off, we had no out ball, no width, no legs and it wasn't until Henry came on that we seemed to get a bit of that back. This was the game when the Bax out wide must have come to an end, surely? At 3-2 I said to my mate i'd be happy with a point!

Too many players let the game pass them by in the second half. Cook and Cain are great when we're playing well but are anonymous/cack (delete as appropriate) whenever we need to actually dig in a bit. Sawyers had an awful spell when everything he did went wrong, and Hiwula went missing a bit (no fault of his though - he's a youngster after all and looked promising first half). We seem to have real trouble in managing a game, and still try the flicks and tricks even when we should be keeping it simple and showing discipline. I thought the game was crying out for a Grimes to be honest, and I never thought i'd hear myself say that. :lol:

We won and for that i'm happy, but there are still gaps in the team. Still say we need a big centre half and still think we need another powerful midfielder who can put his foot in.

And for all of the occassional fans who can make Wembley but can't make any other games, we could have done with a few of you last night.

[Super Gabor]

KSHAMMER - pretty spot on assessment.

Cain in particular went AWOL in the second half - poorest 45 mins I have seen of him and as much I as like Bax, you kind of anticipated that every time he made a run he'd end up losing the ball.

Anyway, great to get a home win again - relieved in the end. First half we were awesome and tore them apart. Incisive attacking football - Forde, Cook, Sawyers and Hiwula were all over them. O'Connor played his best game I think too.

A great first half and a nerve wracking second I guess balances itself out as a mediocre game on average :D

[Sadsfan]

I thought the reaction and tactics of Keith Hill spoke volumes, 3 down after 25 minutes and 2 subs on, I'm not sure Deano would have made that tactical change. Smith replaced Forde at half-time due to an injury I presume and replaced him with the ineffective Baxendale who has no physical presence whatsoever and surely must be on his way out at the end of the season - but I felt that Smith should have made changes earlier in the second half as it was clear to everyone in the ground that we were sitting back inviting pressure on instead of going for a fourth goal to kill Rochdale off. Still, that first 25 minutes was the best football I've seen at the Banks's since the heyday of Grigg, Brandy and Patterson.

[Darth Vader]

Honestly thought we were gonna blow it, think we swapped kits at half time.

[Super Gabor]

https://audioboom.com/boos/2881583-hear ... ort#t=2m9s
Nice bit of praise from Keith Hill (skip to 2 mins 10 secs but worth listening to the whole interview).

Although it will probably pass over the heads of a resident doom- merchants. :roll:

P.S. apologies but this interview appears to automatically start when you land on this page of the thread - be warned those with their sound-on and working with others around them!

[Walsallone]

I think some of the comments above are a little over the top. We should be prepared to give some praise to Rochdale who applied themselves very well to the task of overturning a 3 goal lead . Their tactics were spot on and bearing in mind they are the highest away scorers in the division we also did well to see the match out. One thing I didn't say in my earlier post was to say what a prospect Rico Henry is-quick feet,good pace and with an excellent football brain. Lets hope he will develop into a top player.

[IHTC.]

I thought the reaction and tactics of Keith Hill spoke volumes, 3 down after 25 minutes and 2 subs on, I'm not sure Deano would have made that tactical change. Smith replaced Forde at half-time due to an injury I presume and replaced him with the ineffective Baxendale who has no physical presence whatsoever and surely must be on his way out at the end of the season - but I felt that Smith should have made changes earlier in the second half as it was clear to everyone in the ground that we were sitting back inviting pressure on instead of going for a fourth goal to kill Rochdale off. Still, that first 25 minutes was the best football I've seen at the Banks's since the heyday of Grigg, Brandy and Patterson.

I believe Bax still has another 18 months on his contract. Perhaps it would be best for both parties to come to some sort of mutual agreement at the end of the season.

[Sadders]

Didn't realise Dale were unbeaten since the turn of the year, how many runs have we ended for opposition sides recently? Dons, Fleetwood, Doncaster, Dale..ridicolous when you think about it. 2 smashing results in the last couple of days against teams on good runs. Dale were top away scorers in the league and have an away record similar to ours, they were always going to react under Hill and it was just about crossing the line and taking the points home, which we did - how many times would we have capitulated in that game under previous regime's or even Smith in his early seasons?

Excellent result, excellent victory...a forgotten tale in football....sometimes the opposition are allowed to play well. You won't win 20 games a season and have the opposition be rubbish and just give up in games. The fact we beat them even after they came back into it and built momentum from the 2 goals will probably help us more in future games than if it just fell away and we cruised the second half. Think back to Notts County and what followed.

2 very good results.

[Louise]

The attendance was dire, yes it was a midweek game but if we cant up the crowds in the wake of Wembley and another great away win when can we.
Still I had my usual row to myself so legs were v comfortable,unlike a fortnight ago. :wink:
Yes I appreciate times are tough - for Women and Men. Just to counterbalance the previous stance, 'Im a Woman who solely pays my own mortgage ,all the bills and supports two kids in higher education.You just have to priortise Football first then worry about the other bills. :wink:
The game was the proverbial cliche of two halves - we were all in wonderland when it went to 3-0 but as I said we could lose 3-4, at one point in the second half I could see this joke actually happening.
We won , 3 points and a playoff push is a possibility so bring on Port Fail.

[sandysaddler]

A very welcome 3 points against a useful side. 3 good goals and at that point every ball seemed to fall for us. Substitutions changed the game, firstly the two changes they made and then us losing forde who is rapidly becoming my favourite player (despite his dubious past). We looked like we were going to completely blow the first half lead but credit where its due and another substitution changed things. Deano and rok gave rico a run out and he really gave dale something to think about with his pace and gave us an outlet.

Bring on the vale, hopefully we have saved a couple of goals for saturday.

Uts.

[WFC_Rob]

One thing I didn't mention was the absolute rage some of our fans show when we try to keep the ball. One bloke sat behind me nearly exploded when we played a free kick short with 10 minutes left rather than lump it into the box.

[SaddlerSteve]

One thing I didn't mention was the absolute rage some of our fans show when we try to keep the ball. One bloke sat behind me nearly exploded when we played a free kick short with 10 minutes left rather than lump it into the box.

To be fair and though that tends to be the free kick routine for all our free kicks in the middle of the field regardless of it being the last 10 mins or any other time in the game.

[tinned]

Still I had my usual row to myself so legs were v comfortable,unlike a fortnight ago. :wink:

Liar! Your son and Rob were both on your row :wink:

when it went to 3-0 but as I said we could lose 3-4, at one point in the second half I could see this joke actually happening.

You did indeed say that. I though you were being over pessimistic, but at 3-2 I was fully expecting us to capitulate.

[Darth Vader]

One thing I didn't mention was the absolute rage some of our fans show when we try to keep the ball. One bloke sat behind me nearly exploded when we played a free kick short with 10 minutes left rather than lump it into the box.

Funny as fudge, as soon as Rochdale got their first the Walsall 'faithful' moaned and groaned like they cack theirselves.

[tipton saddler]

1st 25 mins were great the next 20 were bang average and the second half was fudge shite. Forde deserved motm for his 1st half performance but was replaced at half time by a 5 stone (when wet through) teenage girl who unfortunatly has no place in our team let alone the right wing, constantly drifted into the middle last night leaving purkiss totally exposed. Would have much preferred rico on the left and cook on the right from halftime if forde was injured. Now onto my biggest gripe of the night....sawyers. For as good as he was for the 1st 25 mins he was crap overall imo. Gives the ball up too easily in important positions on the pitch and makes zero effort to win it back if the other blokes bigger than him, i have to say though what a ball from him for fordes goal, please romain just a bit more consistency. If he added consistency over 90 mins he could get us to the playoffs by himself pretty much, hes that good on his day. Cook showed flashes of what he is capable of but the shot he blazed over 2nd half pretty much summed him up last nite, not great. The new lad looked good 1st half but my dad called it early on, he said he would be knackered by half time and he was, full of running 1st half not much left 2nd. Cain lost his way 2nd half, played too deep as did chambers. Defence was poor 2nd half after being good 1st half, same story for RO'D. Couple of fantastic saves 1st half but looked shakey 2nd. Oh and the ref was barclays....aren't they all at this level though.

Also as others have said fairplay to dale for not giving up and also to hill for changing it early, take note deano.

I actually walked out of there last night feeling like we had been beaten, thats how bad the 2nd half was. Like someone else said the points are on the board and thats all that matters today but i was pretty pissed off at that 2nd half performance last night. Think we got lucky....on to saturday and lets hope we get some more luck :mrgreen:

UTS

[sandysaddler]

Second half they were first to every ball, maybe the fact they didnt play the weekend had something to do with that.

Though i love us to play football on the deck we dont half play ourselves into trouble at times playing it across the back. I do believe when win a free kick in our half we should just hit the 18 yard box and play percentages rather than playing a short pass and end up conceding a corner/free kick/goal, sometimes we can be the masters of our own downfall.

As for romaine, first half, he cut dale to peices, second half although i believe he works and covers a lot of ground he did seem to bottle challenges, when he is on the ball he strong and holds off players but he needs to be able to win a 50/50.