Thetownend.com

Put any considered opinion, or inane ramblings, about the match here.....

They've won only one game at home and 5 away, so will be a frustrating game, similar to Fleetwood.
So on that basis I reckon we'll just nick it 4-0.

3-1 defeat burst of bubble with Williams scoring in front of 7,495 crowd with 245 Donnys there.

I will briefly be at the county ground today, but only to buy a home shirt for my son for christmas.

That good vibe will see us through to a comfortable 3-0 win.

2-0 win. Byrne and Obika

Seeing as I'm going to my first game at the CG in far too long, I may just cry if that were to happen :cry:
I think your crowd prediction will prove to be not too far out though.

2-0 Williams, Obika

I am a glass half empty person this time of year, often crowds are down due to the Christmas shopping factor. I would be happy to be very wrong about the score and wrong about the under estimation of the crowd too.

We're going to fucking smash them 27-2

Missed the Fleetwood game so it's my first match for a while. Let's smash them.

Got to be bollocks about not going cos of Xmas shopping.

You can shop any time of the day or night these days, so if anybody doesn't come along cos he/she says they have to go shopping is just a cunt.

I was at work from 5 this morning, so by the time I finish, get straight to the pub and then the game I expect, nay demand, a 5-0 thrashing

I agree but that doesn't change a fact. Football crowds have always been lower for the Saturday prior to Christmas, doesn't mean its not wrong but it is historically proven and well known, thats why we moved our pre Christmas game in 2012 to the Friday against Tranmere.

Do you have to pay for it or does someone do it for free?

As said earlier, Rovers have promotion standard away form, so I fear a frustrating game.  Hopefully we'll just nick it 2-1.

Incidentally if we fail to win today then we'll have a better away record than home (based on mean average points per game) which would be remarkable for us this far into a season.   

There's a lot of reasons to think this will be a very difficult game....1.  Donny are decent away 2.  We tend not to do very well against them  3. Winning 6 in a row is extremely rare in our history, off the top of my head maybe 3 or 4 times.
4.  First home game since Cooper got MoM  5. Clem is there.

Given the above a point might be as much as we can hope for...

Captain on the ship I'm working on is an opinionated racist Yorkshireman who supports Donny. Therefore 3-0 to Town Obika hayrick. 250  peasants from pop north.

Nice tweet from the legend Lou Macari this morning...

bad feeling due to their away record.One of them streaky draws or worse.But Andy Williams will definitely score

Frustrating 1-2 defeat

I've forecast draws for the last two games and we've won, so I'll go for a draw again 1-1

I sense a pattern too ;)

For all you that are going today please be careful and watch out for this "radar" that we are apparently under.

Oh and take the piss out of Clem ;)

Foderingham; Stephens, N Thompson, Turnbull; Byrne, Luongo, Kasim, L Thompson, Gladwin; Williams, Obika.

Belford, Barthram, Bell, Branco, Reeves, Rodgers, Smith

Unchanged. Branco on the bench.

I'm starting to feel the same love for this team as I had for the Hoddle side.  Luongo and Kasim are up there with Hazard and Moncur.  Fodders is Digby.  Nathan T is Shaun Taylor.

Williams definately the Steve White too. Ex Rovers and offside all the time and lots of games off the bench :D

I love that analogy,until it gets to the end!

Yes.. Nathan t and OST must be opposites really

I was thinking 'rock at the back' rather than playing style.  :D

Amari bell is Shaun Close :D

Having listened again today to Lee Power I think if he was cut through the middle he would have football clichés in his body like a stick of football rock.

But he does say the right things, I like him.

Are you saying he's football through & through?

No I am saying he is football cliché through and through :D

I counted at least 8 of them in the last 3 minute interview, its a bit like listening to the Match of the day interviews back in the 70's.

Nice to hear STFC Player is cutting out every couple of minutes already and we haven't even started the match yet.

Twins!

(http://www.edp24.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.3058565.1385741659!/image/3090250678.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/3090250678.jpg)(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/X4I1ye2gcEo/hqdefault.jpg)

Uncanny.

standard

Morshead: 'This is intolerably dull.'

Sounds like Donny have done their homework on us, just like Fleetwood did.  But instead of parking the bus, they're packing the midfield.  Mass and Yasser are going to have their work cut out.  Win the midfield battle, and we'll win the game.

Sounds end to end so far but not exciting.

Dongs one up

Troy scores for Carlisle.

Ritchie for Boremuff.

Pritchard for Brentford.

FFS penalty against us.

Austin - QPR

Never a penalty. Never

0-1

It's been a while since this feeling.

Let us see what we're made of and all that.

Awful decision.

Awful decision.  Clearly got the ball.  Now the referee is blowing up for everything.

Don't panic, gonna come back and win this second half!

COYR

Donny definately on top now.

So true.

Notts County 1 up
Dongs 2 up

Crewe holding shitty so far, can't see that going on for too much longer.

This side is more than capable of scoring 2 or 3 in the second half.  My concern will turn to panic only with 15 to go if the score stays as it is.

We sound quite poor but still plenty of time to change it.

We seem a bit nervous at home these days

We've lost our way since going behind.  Some of our passing has been awful.  Let's hope we turn it round in the second half.

Shit half that deserved to end 0 0 . which would have been the case had the ref not remembered his Donny 1-0 half time bet.

Christ that was awful. Still time to turn it around

If we lose this then I'm going to throw something at the first person to, inevitably, say: 'we've been found out'.

OK so the logistics make it a bit tricky, but the thought is there.

I'm a bit closer, so I'll take 'the wheels have come off the bus'.

Ludicrous penalty decision and then the ref decided to give random free kicks to the wrong team seemingly willy nilly.

We're not playing well and Yaser may as well have a Donny strip on today.

How about "We now sit just above the radar"?

Close by beeker

Gladwin=shit today

Bad mistake by Nathan big let off.

Shitty down to ten now, all our fault no doubt!

We sound a little livlier this half so far.

Bristol city are now down to ten men in their game.  I tell you what is disgraceful.  Its ridiculous.  The player just isn't like that.  He'd never foul anyone.  He's lovely to animals and helps old ladies across the road.  Its a conspiracy against the good honesty bristol city who kiss the gournd honouring it with their presence.  Sorry Im writing Cotterils speech for after the match.

And Oxford are losing.

Come along Town make it a proper good day for me please.

Thankyou.

Cotterill is already blaming us saying its unfair, a conspiracy against them. Replacement dummies being shipped to Crewe in case they lose today.

he has at least one per game

As long as its one per game...and that was it...then we got away with it.

I've just realised that this means nothing to me at all.

Amazing what a promotion challenge can do for you.

Indeed.  Also not arsed particularly but it just got mentioned on the radio as I was typing.

FFS wide bad miss from Willo.

COME ON!!

COME ON TOWN!!!!

Wasn't having a pop.  It surprised me too.

Yeah I don't even find myself looking at their results any more, that said they are 1-1 now ;)

I didnt think it was a pop.  They're drawing now anyway.  

Back to Swindon.  Come on town please.

Too many players having poor games, Byrne, Gladwin and Kasim in particular.

It's going to be one of those days.

It does sound that way so far. We sound poor overall.

not gonna happen I fear

City 1 down.

COME ON SWINDON
COME ON CREWE
FUCK OFF Franchise

Come on Town, we will go top with 2 goals!

Big big ask though as we are playing quite poorly.

Pen to Town!

COME ON TOWN

Saved FFS

Not going to be our fucking day is it >:(

Never a penalty. Never. Te he he.

Oh for fucks sake. That was piss poor.

Christ almighty

Definatley not our day.

Shit penalty.  Sums today up really.

Fucking hell, one point to go top, COME ON

its the "Zico" factor.

One-on-one missed, penalty missed, post hit.

Not today, folks.

Nope not holding my breath on this game. Not our day.

Charlie gets a hatrick for QPR

5 mins added...COME THE TOWN!!!!

Positive thoughts...

Turning a bit negative now...

Fuck me MK Dongs are on fire...  7-0 after 6-0 last week

Game over...shame.

Didn't deserve to lose, or win.

MKD doing their goal difference no harm whatsover.

Sounds like we had the chances today, can't put it all on the referee.

Onwards...

League still look allright really.  Quite tight.  Just have a nice christmas and we'll still be up and around there.

Well at least other games went our way, the bottom 3 lost.....

There's always hope.  Insurance job?

Hope they drug test their players or are subject to some betting scam :D

Balls. No they didn't did they as Crewe won.

Still not got to 52 points.

Still 2nd. Can't complain.

3rd ;) but I am very happy to be where we are at this stage.

Extended highlights on Football League Show tonight.  Every time they come here, we lose.

Surprised Cooper was happy with the performance.  I thought it was pretty rubbish to be honest.  

We just don't seem able to up our game against these types of team.

2nd, JJ. 2nd. The thing obscuring the facts doesn't really count  ;)

 Shame we couldn't have nicked a point, as that was always the best we could hope for from this one.   

Another tough game on Boxing Day....Walsall had a slow start, but have steadily been picking up....conceded the least goals at home in L1....I'd expect them to be be somewhere near the PO's at season's end....so it's a game which should tell us a lot about what is realistic this season.

Meh these games happen, onwards to walsall!

Should be a great away day

That was shite.

We were shite.

Gladwin was . . .

But we aint gonna win every game so bollox to it

Well, that was shit.

We tried to play our normal passing game and Doncaster did OK without worrying us. The the ref gave a penalty that from my seat down the wrong end of the DRS looked like a well timed tackle. As Sam M says, it does depend on whether Turnbill went through his man, but I can only say what I see.

After that we kind of became disjointed, and Kassim was hopeless but Gladwin was even worse, a theme that continued through the match.

After the break we put a bit more pressure on them. Williams looked certain to equalise as he went through one on one with the goal at his mercy. Then he fired wide. The ref evened up the penalties when a Donny defender was adjudged to have had a handful of Town shirt in the box. Looked soft from where I was, but again I'm told it was a fair shout. Unfortunately Smith took a real stinker of a pen, neither hit with power or precision.

So it was a game we didn't deserve to lose, though I don't begrudge Donny the win really, but we didn't click. Hey ho, the main thing is to show this was a blip rather than the start of a slide.

Much prefer watching us playing away, we're such a better side when teams come at us rather than getting 11 men behind the ball.

Watching home games is getting irritatingly annoying. Teams all set up the same, can't blame them but its so annoying. Kasim and Gladwin were awful. It was never a penalty and Smiths penalty was just awful.

A bad day in the office but the worst reffing performance I've seen in a long while. The worst penalty decision since the Tuesday night against Hartlepool when Jerel did an airshot outside the box. You then think he can't make another decision as bad as that and yes he did with the free kick in front of the DRS when their player literally just dived in the air. This was followed up late on by the ball being a good yard over the line before their player crossed it and fods fumbled it on to the post. I didn't think ours was a penalty.
Doncaster were shit but won. Rochdale beat us and they were good.
How many times did their centre half go right through Obika.
I struggled with MOM but would have given it to Stephens. There were some bad performances out there but even so we were infinitely better than Doncaster who truly were shit

Well that was awful, we were awful, the ref was a joke, but at the end of the day we had enough chances in the second half to have won.  horrible side but they did a job on us.  Surprised to hear Cooper say he was pleased with the performance!  Gladwin was pathetic, cannot run, no good on the left wing!  Too many players not at the races today, apathetic is the way to describe our performance.  The only one with any pace was Williams, should have taken Gladwin off and moved Willo slightly wider.  No energy, no desire!

"Gladwin was pathetic, cannot run, no good on the left wing!"

Except for last week?

You've got to give them some credit to be fair. They were well organised, sussed us out and did the job. It was up to us to break them down, we couldn't.

They have a good record away from home as well.

Awful performance but just a bad day at the office really. Doncaster were the embodiment of Dickov as a player.

I presume teams do that against the Dongs as well.

They seem to get round it, though.

We seem to try to be too precise and lose momentum going forward at times.

Can't really be bothered to type too much but generally too many below par performances. The ref have a shocking penalty and then continued to give baffling decisions for both sides.

Second half was a much better showing and Obika hit the post before Williams fluffed his lines when one on one. The ref then gave a soft as hell penalty which you just knew we wouldn't take.

Doncaster were well organised and defended manfully, we just couldn't break them down. Hey ho!

I agree with chalkies, Stephens was my man of the match. Nathan was good too, but made one stupid blunder that Donny should have scored from.

Move on.
Fantastic position. Can't win every game and did enough to at least get a point.
Not our best performance but in the mix at Christmas is unbelievable.
On to Walsall.

Bumped into Tim Sherwood before the game - dressed to kill man in black.

Asked him if he was here for a job - Cooper doing to well for that said he

But it is a fair assessment of this week. Hopefully consistency will come

Was puzzled as to why Obika was taken off. When ball got into his feet he turned sharply and looked like breaking them down.

Gladwin did look very much out of position this week (one peach of a cross in the first 10 aside). Which I suppose was exactly what he was...

he was sat behind Power during the game, they were chatting quite a bit. wonder how much involvement he has?

Power looks really tense at times during the game

Well, he wasn't very good this week FH, very cumbersome and poor positionally at times.  As you say, last week was different, sadly too many had off days this week.

Sounds as though a few of the players were off par. Perhaps a few of them had a tad too much Christmas 'spirit'?

The penalty given against us was strange, the ball was taken - not sure if he took the man before the ball as wrong end of pitch for me, but as he was the last man surely it should have been a red card? He did book their guy for giving a penalty for us, not sure that was a pen either but didn't have the best view!

Theirs was never a pen from where I was.

We could be out there now and not score.....

my mate had some sonny mates.

They reckon none of them were pens.

This..

This as well......

A little reflection on the game after a few beers. Probably one of our worst home performances of the season, apart from a spell when we seemed to be getting the upper hand and pressuring well comes the penalty decision which changed the whole  situation and then it becomes very difficult to break down a well organised outfit.

I love seeing us keeping the ball and trying to work suitable attacking positions but Gladwin is not the answer down the left on this performance and Byrne likewise on the right who seems to have gone backwards from his early season form. Both doing too many turns inside and then into trouble often resulting in losing the ball. Obika/Williams thrive on crosses into the dangerous areas and that sort of ball was sadly lacking today.

I have the feeling that playing away suits us far more than at home as teams have susssed our style of play and are quite content to sit back when playing us here and we will see far more games like this as the season progresses.

On a positive note, a crowd of 7,793 on the biggest shopping Saturday of the year is a pretty impressive figure.

I would wager a few of the "free kids" have dragged their parents back.

So well done the Trust

Would have put a lot of money on Williams to score that one given his recent form. As others have said thought we would miss penalty - can only think Smith's lack of recent game time contributed as it really was a piss poor effort. Surprised he didn't go 3 up top rather than take Obika off neither Gladwin nor Kasim were at the races at all today. Disappointed Reeeves didn't get a bit of a run out rather than Bell in last 10 minutes as I can't imagine Bell will still be here come February whereas I hope Reeves is. Certainly think he will be needed to cover Mass and Kas jaunting off to Asian Cup.
As for their penalty looked a great tackle tome but will see if FL show supports refs decision

I have the inside line on why Sherwood was there.  :-[

I wonder if kasim was deliberately dog shit so Iraq don't select him.

Disappointing we didn't get to the byline once yesterday. Gladwin nearly did but got blatantly pulled back by his shirt and wasn't given the foul. I wish Byrne would try to get to the byline meow rather than cut back inside. He has lost some of his early season mojo unfortunately.

Fucking pussy!

Ffs, I've watched the replay, still looks like a great tackle to me. What was kassim doing letting their man run.

Though ours was possibly one, bit soft.

Pretty sure I typed more!! Haha! :)

What a pointless post. Unless the objective was to make you look like an attention seeking twat, in which case well done.

We've had a fantastic start to the season, exceeding most people's expectations and playing some (At times) breathtaking football. City's result at Crewe yesterday just reinforces the fact that you can't accurately forecast results all the time and that sometimes form goes out the window.
What slightly concerns is our seeming inability at home to go for the jugular and rip teams apart; we have the possession and the players, just not the killer instinct. When games are open and both sides attack, I'd back us to win. When teams are more defensive and we have to break them down, we just don't look as threatening. If Cooper can find a solution to this we'll be top 2, if not we'll be around the PO's.

Indeed.

I have the inside line on why Sherwood was there.....HE IS A MATE OF POWER....end of.

As for yesterday, bad day at the office, we all have them, too many bad performances, move on.

I agree herthab. We seem to have a bit of an issue at home whereby we struggle to break teams down. Apart from Sheffield United we have really toiled to pick up points at home. Rochdale and Oldham were open against us and we picked up only 1 point in those games so it's not just an issue against teams parking the bus.

If we can sort ourselves out at home it could be the difference between autos and play offs, as you allude to.

Dare I suggest changing things at home? Our one clear cut chance came from a long ball and flick on by smith that put Willo in. I like our possession football but yesterday we never looked like unlocking Donny by passing it left and right.

That was my first home game of the season, (I know I know I jinxed it) so a couple of observations that are probably very familiar to those who go every week.

A decent crowd given it was a Saturday before Christmas, but my, hasn’t the CG gone quiet. Hardly a peep out of the Townend, what’s happened to them?

Town’s general ability to retain the ball and the angles used to pass out of tight spots was impressive. Doncaster didn’t really look a threat and adopted what will be standard away tactics at the CG of getting men behind the ball and nicking the odd goal.

Which is what they did with a penalty. From the other end of the DRS it looked a great tackle – certainly the ball changed direction significantly. If it was a foul and penalty then surely as last man it should have been a red as well. Overall the ref failed to impress. The penalty he awarded us looked very soft.

To our credit we continued our patient passing game right to the end, however here there becomes a difference between patient build up play and helping Doncaster run the clock down. Being one down with five minutes to go a little more urgency was needed. Also the Town’s determination to play the passing game regardless occasional meant they lost the ball in areas they shouldn’t – and better teams would have punished us for it. Doncaster were through on goal, as a result, a couple of times with their finishing letting them down badly.

Overall it should have been a draw, and we had opportunities to win it especially when Williams was through one-on-one and missed.

And £25 for a ticket…?

Yep, ghanimah.  Wouldn't disagree with any of that. 

The one thing I would add is that I thought, for the second match in a row, the pitch looked 'dead' - presumably as a result of all that sand which has been put on it. 

Hi all.

Nothing changes on here...some different views on it....here is mine.
Thought Doncaster got it spot on and are a better team than there lge position shows..that said i thought the whole team looked flat and all were waiting for something to happen rather than making it happen...Byrne seemed off the pace and his direct running at the defence was missing.
Still think Obika struggles a bit with the style we play...he is used to balls over the top to run onto.
That said all you want is 100% and this team always gives it...i like that...it is turning into a great season
Wallsall will be tough let us hope we bounce back.

All the best to you all....have a great Christmas.

That was a soft penalty. Like a fluffy polar bear soft.

I didn't notice the pitch last game, but yesterday it was poor, no bounce and bumpy (could have embarrassed Wes in the first half!).  What is the problem that they have put tons of sand on?

Apparently sand gets put on the grass to prevent the frost taking a hold of the grass? Just from what Nathan said on the post-match interview.

Not doubting it, but didn't notice so much sand last year.

I assumed it was cost cutting way of assisting the absorption of rain. But they had the sprinklers on at half time..

I think this is the first time I've ever noticed our own fans mentioning the pitch.. In a negative way..

Must've been really poor.

It's not really poor at all. In all honesty I didn't notice it this time, but I did last home game.

The ball doesn't zip and doesn't bounce as much. I thought it was waterlogged until I realised the water they were kicking up was in fact sand.

The players aren't complaining so our must be OK.

I think Wes mentioned in a tweet that 'the pitch didn't help' - I hadn't noticed any others though.

And Nathan Thompson in the post-match interview said that the pitch wasn't great.

The pitch wasn't too bad... The shit referee and some shit finishing were more unhelpful.

Yes, i admit this this was a tease, though I was out today and forgot to follow up earlier, which should tell you that getting attention on the TEF isn't all that high on my bucket list. Sorry to have upset you.

Anyway, story I heard (which for the literal-minded needs to be taken with all the usual caveats) is that in January, Sherwood will be in a position to negotiate a move for Luongo, which to avoid the sell-on to Spurs will involve two incoming players.

Of course I have no idea whether there's any merit in the story, but I don't mind reading these rumours, so I thought I'd share this one.

How does that work if Sherwood isnt at a club though?

Part of the story is that he will be in Jan. Allegedly.

I thought both penalties were soft at the time and having watched the highlights haven't changed my mind. (Although regrettably Smith's taking of the penalty looks even worse on TV, and it looked shite live)

Had a bad feeling about the day to start with though - and when you hit the bar, miss a one on one and go 1-0 to a very debatable penalty - you don't have to be a Derek Acorah level fake psychic to think that penalty was not going to go in.

I must admit I noticed the pitch more last home game than I did yesterday, but I suppose if anyone's words are to be taken on the subject it'd be the lads who actually played on it.. Strange how 2 of them should mention it.

To my mind Doncaster and Fleetwood aren't the same. Fleetwood were very organised and came to stop us playing, but Donny got their lucky goal and then tried every trick in the book to break the game up, including falling over, falling over and falling over. There was without a doubt a level of Dickov-ness to their game.

That's not to excuse us mind - I think it'd still have been a 0-0 without the ref, but we were playing relatively well up until that point. From then on he blew up for everything, they got total control of us in midfield, and the dreaded "FORWARD!" chants started coming out.

It's all Clem's fault.

Don't blame Clem. He's just a front man. Blame the BBC, it's all a load of shite

Anyway, I have to do this otherwise Si Pie will never talk to me again.

Are you fit?

Small bit on the match and Swindon in the Guardian -

http://www.theguardian.com/football/football-league-blog/2014/dec/21/doncaster-confidence-swindon-league-one-match-report

'Though the best fell into their laps from Swindon whose high-risk, close-passing confidence in the 3-5-2 shape wavered between Barcelona and catastrophe. It was cool going on casual – a delight on the brink of disaster as even last defenders passed or were caught short.'

Life was so much easier when we were under the radar....

Thought Bell looked sharp when he came on

I'll agree with this. He livened things up, as did Smith. Our attacks seemed to link up so much tighter after he came on. Obika was doing a 13/14 Smith by controlling the ball into the opposition's feet every time, but Smith was taking the ball down and making something of it every time.

Gladwin should have come off for Reeves at minute 50 though. Everything he touched turned to crap unfortunately. It's a shame Ben's still in a phase of pulling out a 8.5/10 then a 3/10 instead of consistent 7/10 games.

Obika's apparent lack of control was because their defender was going through the back of him time after time with the useless cunt of a referee doing nothing.