It rained nearly all game and the made the pitch sodden and control very difficult.
As I thought BRov came with a 4-5-1 formation to frustrate us.
Team: Hoult - Robinson, Clement, Gaardsoe, Albrechtsen - Chaplow, Wallwork, Richardson, Gera - Campbell, Horsefield
The first half we played well, and Richardson was one of the best players on show.
It was he who opened up the scoring on 32 mins, with a stunning freekick hit with his left foot, and the ball going into the top right hand corner of the net.
Campbell was manhandled to the ground, I think it was Oneill, had both his arms around Campbell and just dragged him down, blatant pen. But the ref didn't see it or the linesman!
Gera was trying to do too much by the look of things and I think his game suffered unfortunately. Chaplow was pretty much wasted on the left, and we were struggling at times to keep our heads above water in midfield.
Stead smacked the inside of the post and the ball went along the goal line and out much to our relief.
Second half and after 5 mins Rovers took control and we ended up sitting deeper and deeper. You could sense a goal coming from Rovers, so Robson took off Campbell and Chaplow replaced by Kanu & Scimeca. The result, instant goal for Rovers! It looked like Clement had trouble controlling the ball in the wet and ended up giving it away to Rovers, Emerton got the ball from Pedersen IIRC, and finished with aplom.
Cross came over from the left it bypassed Friedel and the all the players in the 6 yard box, Clement met it at the far post, and had 3/4 of an empty net to aim at from 6-7 yards. Maybe the ball was wet but he just glanced it and it went several yards wide. I'll bet he couldn't do that again if he tried. Clement was also guilty of ballooning another great chance over the bar when he tried to volley the ball from a right wing cross (quite what the centre back was doing that high up the pitch is anyones guess!)
To be fair to him it was just over the bar, but again looked harder to miss than score.
c'est la vie!
I think we're down now!
