Bristol Rovers v Swindon pre match chat and matchday thread.

[Peter Venkman]

Rovers, 1 attack, 1 mistake by Town, 1 goal.

[theakston2k]

Not unlucky just style over substance

[Nomoreheroes]

Another break Iandolo, Payne to KKH who's cross goes to noone.

[Peter Venkman]

HT 1-0 to Rovers, Rovers fans blow a massive sigh of relief at being outplayed all over the pitch except in goal scoring.

Rovers look utterly shit so far but we can't score.

[Posh Red]

Rovers, 1 attack, 1 mistake by Town, 1 goal.

Stats say they have had two shots (both on target), presumably the first one was early on.
Whereas we have had one shot on target despite 70% possession.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

This is mightily pissing me off now.

[Godd002]

I’m new here but not impressed with Simpson.  I am not a fan of “big” strikers.  I’d rather have a fast sneaky put their body on the line striker

[Pericardinho]

Rovers are terrible. That’s just making me more angry though.

If we can’t get anything against these, it could be a long season.

[bigbobjoylove]

This is mightily pissing me off now.

Isn't it just? Even the players dont believe like they think they can score.

Sent from my XQ-AD51

[Frigby Daser]

HT 1-0 to Rovers, Rovers fans blow a massive sigh of relief at being outplayed all over the pitch except in goal scoring.

Rovers look utterly shit so far but we can't score.

We need to capitalise second half. If it stays as it is, Garner will “draw the positives” about our play, when in fact, a consistent failure to turn possession into goals suggests the strategy is flawed…. Losing is losing, and it’s his job to make us competitive not create passing stats. Come on town.

[Ardiles]

Stats say they have had two shots (both on target), presumably the first one was early on.
Whereas we have had one shot on target despite 70% possession.

It's a clear strategic error to start the season without an adequate strike force.  (Yes, difficult circumstances etc.)  You can overthink football sometimes.  Matches are won when you score at least one goal more than the other team.  Without goal scorers, nothing else matters.

Simpson strikes me as someone who could develop in to a superb talent in a year or two.  But sticking all our goal-scoring eggs in his basket right now doesn't look like paying off.

[Boeta]

Created far more clear cut chances than usual. Someone with some goalscoring nous would have had a couple of goals by now

[Peter Venkman]

I’m new here but not impressed with Simpson.  I am not a fan of “big” strikers.  I’d rather have a fast sneaky put their body on the line striker

Simpson is not normally this poor, hes out of the game at the moment.

[RobertT]

I'll probably get the ire of some for bullying a player or something, but Iandolo can just fuck off please.  He is an absolute liability in defence (he was actually beaten 3 times by the same ball, one of which they scored from) and he seems to have gone to complete pot at crossing.

Payne is a symptom of where I think Garner is a great coach and not going to make it as a Manager.  What on earth are we thinking of having him play next to Reed?  He has to be in the final third to create chances and cause a defender to panic.  He may look good on the ball in a game like this - because Rovers are proper terrible - but he slows attacks down with too many touches a fair amount of the time.  That's not the problem though, he plays like a school kid, we know that, so defending he is all over the shop chasing.  Great for a number 10, a huge issue for someone there in an anchor position.  Sometimes you can see his shirt number having to make a 40 yard run back because he has chased so far away from his position.

Grrrrr.

We just do not have players who look like they can do one of two critical things - final ball (gamble) or finish (gamble).  We don't have any gamblers, everything becomes safe.  Playing as coached no doubt, but it's also an instinct in a player and we seem to have filled the team with players who will follow instruction well.  We sort of look good, but we'll have plenty of games like this against teams that we could very well beat if we just assessed the ability of the two sets of eleven players.

[Posh Red]

We have so many attacking players who won’t shoot.

I quite like Simpson, but it doesn’t seem fair that we rely totally on him to score