Very interesting… Where he references he has had ‘a warning shot’. I assume the ownership have made their feelings clear to Dan Rice?
I don’t want to get involved in the MB discussions and have purposely not participated in any of them in Gasroom 2.0 or 3.0. Mike Dodds is the boss now and as frustrating as today was, I’m fully backing him because if the players aren’t putting into practice what he is dictating, then that’s not on him. I actually like him and want him to succeed (of course). It was nice to see a bit of fire from him in the interview today, especially when he said he was ‘furious’. I wouldn’t want to be on the Wycombe team bus home today, that’s for sure. I suspect Marlow Road will not be comfortable place for the players on Monday morning.
Given we’ll definitely lose against Reading, Tuesday’s game is massive. Surely his position won’t be tenable if we come away with one point from the first give games.
Who knows. But again, it comes down to this head coach v manager role and how much say he had in the signings. I suspect there will be reasonable patience. I think November is when Dodds needs to start sweating.
Daniel Harvie’s reaction to conceding the goal is interesting. He immediately looks straight to the bench. I also notice he got injured in the build-up to the equaliser and was unable to complete the game.
It was pretty dire for long periods today but I thought we were better than the vast majority of games under MD. I certainly didn’t expect that reaction.
As others have said I’m bemused about that reaction, it didn’t seem substantially different from any of the other performances under Dodds. If anything a little better?
You’d of thought we were cruising at points in the gane today, knocking the ball around the back like we was 3 up or something, just think we lack urgency until we go behind.
I feel like everytime we have the ball in the opposition half there’s a chance it could end up at our goalkeepers feet.
We look so much better when we attack with pace and intent. We just don’t do it enough.
As others have said we weren’t awful today, we just weren’t that good. When we do get it right we can be very incisive but those moments are few and far between.
Why we are so intent on playing ‘keep ball’ I really do not understand. There was one instance a bit before they scored (54 minutes - I made a mental note) where we won a few kick on the half way line and somehow decided to pass it back to the keeper.
Speaking to some Doncaster Rovers supporters I work with on the way back to the car they said they thought we were “organised” which I think was meant as a compliment and it’s probably worth noting that the only shot they had on target all game was the one we gifted them.
Positives:
Harvie - we would have lost today without him
I thought both Allen and Anders played pretty well, the odd (quite dire) mistake aside. (Someone made a brilliant saving tackle late first half after we had given the ball to them in a dangerous position for the 24th time).
Junior - took his chance well and caused them a lot of problems after he came on.
Fred - seems to be playing pretty well at the moment. Again caused them quite a few problems.
Lowry - shows great potential. I think in a good team he could be a standout. (Pity we are a long way from being a good team at the moment)
Negatives
We lack a midfield.
We aren’t winning many second balls
The persistent ‘passing without purpose’ (a Martin O’Neil saying someone reminded me about today)
The standard of referee. That incident where he allowed the Doncaster player to stay on the field after the trainer had come on for a head injury at a late corner was indefensible, given that when Grimmer had gone down first half and waved the trainer away he still made Grimmer go off the pitch
Highly unlikely and rare to have a point in the season where everyone is fit. They’ve bought enough players in to be able to compensate for injuries. Best squad (on paper) we’ve ever had.