Dear me, 6-1. Do I really want to write about this? I guess I'll be alright as long as nobody in my house starts to play any Leonard Cohen. Keep the medicine cabinet locked please, mother.
And to think I nearly went today, on two occasions. A few weeks ago I thought to myself 'it's about time I went to an away game', I've got none to my name thus far this season, not even Swindon away thanks to Sky's arrival meaning the game was rescheduled for a Monday night. Walsall isn't that far and there's a train station right next to the ground, so I thought I might as well, but alas, I never followed through with my plan, £18 for each train journey eventually putting me off. Then just a couple of days ago my neighbour said they may be going, that never came off either. Add a match ticket, a couple of beers and a bacon roll into the equation and I've saved myself a good 70 odd quid.
The radio it was then. I'm used to that, tuning into good old Geoff Twentyman and the BBC Radio Bristol crew, so much so that it's nearly an every-other-Saturday tradition. The first shock of the day came when I read on my laptop that Dominic Blizzard was in the starting XI, his first start since facing Aldershot in the JPT in October.
Blizz has always been an enigma to me and many other Rovers fans alike, his first season started off with him suffering from a virus and other niggling injuries meant he never started off fully fit and from then on he found himself unable to dislodge the central midfield partnership of Campbell and Lines and spent much of his time wide on the right, a position that he was clearly uncomfortable in. Stockport fans used to call him 'The Hoover' as he was always sucking up the loose balls that dropped in the middle and they loved him for it. But he has never been given the opportunity in that position while playing for the Gas and was eventually made available for loan by Paul Trollope having become frustrated at the lack of chances he was getting.
Since Trollope's departure he was given a role on the bench under Darren Patterson and subsequently Dave Penney before being placed on the transfer list by the new manager. With Chris Lines suspended he was given his chance in his preferred central position but that seems to have gone spectacularly wrong for him given the result, and I fear that Wayne Brown could end up in the same boat too.
After the Swindon game Penney came out and said that he had only two central midfielders he could trust, namely Campbell and Lines, but with Lines suspended and Blizzard transfer listed Brown looked to have a chance, even playing in front of his gaffer in a reserve team game in the week, but for whatever reason he wasn't picked today, not even coming off of the bench unlike new loanee Scott Davies who came on and played wide right. Brown is young and inexperienced but from the few times I've seen him I feel that there's definately some talent there, it's just how to use him. At 5'5" he won't have much of a physical presence in the middle of the park so perhaps Penney felt that putting him in alongside Campbell would leave his midfield a bit too weak. Brown's best spell in football came at TPS Turku in the Finnish Premier League where he was allowed to play in much more of a free role sat just behind the striker and he was successful, scoring nine goals and setting up numerous others, but in Rovers situation he may be a luxury player, not the sort of battling type that is needed in a relegation dogfight.
Friday saw the arrival of two new players on loan, the aforementioned Scott Davies and striker Rene Howe. I don't know a great deal about either player but having looked at the stats I feel confident about Davies, but not so much Howe. Davies has played a lot of games for both Aldershot and Wycombe as well as a brief stint with Yeovil, spending two seasons with the Shots, and has a decent goal scoring record for a central midfielder and with Lines looking rather out of form this season he has a real opportunity at getting a run in the side and would most likely have started against Walsall had he met and trained with his new teammates before their pre-match meal.
Rene Howe could go either way, he has had good spells out on loan before but never in League 1, his most recent run of games coming at Conference side Rushden & Diamonds, though their manager has come out and said that there were various league clubs after him. He has never made it at Peterborough and clearly wants out and Rovers is his big chance to remain a League 1 player. From what I've seen and heard he is a decent unit and will provide the power up front that Rovers have lacked since the departure of Rickie Lambert, although he has previously come out and said that he is not a target man during his time at Rushden, so whether he will be able to fulfill the role Penney wants from him remains to be seen.
The game itself sounded like a total disaster from start to finish and we should have gone behind earlier, only for Jason Price to put the ball wide. The first was a header from a free kick, the second came from a backheeled pass inside the box and the third was a volley from outside the box, the first two at least seem to be the fault of poor marking in the penalty area. The team seemed to come out with a bit more verve at the start of the second half and when Jeff Hughes pulled one back you could have thought that bottom of the table Walsall would crumble under the pressure but that never happened as they ran straight to the other end to score, and they went and got two more to rub it in. Needless to say I won't be staying up to watch the goals at 00:45 on The Football League Show, I'll save that for when the highlights go up on the BBC Sport website on Monday.
The scoreline has demoralised the Rovers fans and will do no good for the players fragile confidence either so it hangs on Dave Penney and his management team to motivate them for the visit of MK Dons on Wednesday. I'll be there, watching, hoping for something to change, whether that will come against a team sat in the play-off places remains to be seen, though, and there's only so much praying I and my fellow Gasheads can do. Will any more signings between now and then change anything? We've already got six loan players in and only five can be named in a matchday squad at a time. Post-match Dave Penney has also come out and talked about the budget for ne players, so there may be no new faces before Wednesday.
For me it's a matter of mental preparation for the players that is going to keep us up. Davies and Howe making starts could surprise our opponents, we've looked rather one dimensional for the past two years, so I'm going to cross my fingers for that, as I do at least expect to see Davies start.
A bad day all round for anyone who has something to do with Bristol Rovers, but at least I've got an extra £70 in my pocket, that should be a good night down the pub.
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