The 2023/24 L1 Matchday Thread

Joe_Citrone

Fair play to the ref for sending off Oisin Smyth. Although I obviously don't wish to see it happen to us, that's the sort of petulance that would have gone unpunished in the past despite it being an inarguable yellow card.

Apart from that though, I don't think the ref had a great game. The fact both teams seem to think that they were hard done by him kind of says it all.

I've watched it back and the Mills red card looks ridiculously harsh and I'm not sure the ref ever had full control of proceedings.

Not the best today - still rather that than VAR though.

brinyhoof

Controversial take but I’m not entirely sure what the ref got wrong? He showed early on he wouldn’t tolerate any dissent so if the players choose to ignore that, is that his fault? Especially the rovers players who all seem to be learning at the Barton school of backchat.

As for Mills, the lino gave it so vehemently the ref had no choice. Why was everyone so gobsmacked when the decision went against Mills given the lino clearly flagged in the direction rovers were attacking? Again, Mills feigning injury for both that and their goal looked immature and desperate.

TrevorAylottsHeadband

At the time, I thought the Mills red card was understandable. Having watched it back, I’m not so sure but, as has already been said, he shouldn’t have given the officials the opportunity.

What I can’t get my head round, given everything that had gone before, is that the Rovers player got absolutely nothing for the apparent retaliation.

JonnyBiscuits

Yeah the Mills decision was the lino, not the ref.

JonnyBiscuits

Tell you what though, it's incredibly enjoyable that we've massively rattled both Evans and Barton in the space of a week.

oxblogger

Match wrap - Oxford United 2 Bristol Rovers 1

'If Joey Barton – now dressing like late-career Eminem or a New York actor who only dates vulnerable young models - was returning to a house fire, he’d be the one flicking a cigarette lighter provocatively.'

https://oxblogger.co.uk/2023/10/08/match-wrap-oxford-united-2-bristol-rovers-1/

JonnyBiscuits

There's something quite pitiful about a manager using their post-match interview to try and score banter points against the team that's just beaten them (see also Steve Evans a week ago), and if I were a Rovers fan I'd actually be pretty irritated with his assertions that they are much the better team. Okay mate, so why have we only got 15 points from 11 games... if we're that good a team, something else is going wrong and it's your job to fix it, so why not stop the embarrassing yourself on Twitter and fix it.

TrevorAylottsHeadband

Well, the good news is that the Stan Mills red card has been overturned.

JonnyBiscuits

TrevorAylottsHeadband Really wasn't expecting that. It's really good news - it made a huge difference when he came on on Saturday.

brinyhoof

JonnyBiscuits great news indeed. He will learn from it without having to learn from it so win-win!

LeftSider

Whomever decided that International Breaks are a good thing is responsible for a great deal of human misery and should be punished.

brinyhoof

LeftSider 100%. Worse than the close season.

Bspittles

Is it just me, or does it feel like more and more non-Premier League fans couldn’t give a stuff about the international scene?

LeftSider

The people I know who are fans of PL clubs are as disinterested in international football as anyone else I know. They live in fear of losing players to injury, too

I don’t watch England friendlies but will watch qualifiers if there’s something riding on it. The Euros and World Cup are different, and I absolutely love those.

It’s a shame that the situation is exacerbated this season with the fixtures against Reading and Portsmouth being affected. It probably wouldn’t feel as bad if it was Stevenage and Port Vale.

JonnyBiscuits

I'm an England supporter. I don't tend to watch friendlies, but I'll watch the Italy game on Tuesday. The Euros and the WC are amazing.

I have a couple of PL mates who are sniffy as hell about internationals and yet absolutely love the major champos - I point out their massive hypocrisy all the time. I suspect it comes from them getting irritated about the international break, which I'm starting to sympathise with now it's regularly affecting us.

But it's kind of essential really. Not sure how the international game would work without it.

And as you say, Nick - it's particularly annoying because it's too incredibly high profile fixtures that it has affected.

TrevorAylottsHeadband

I'm also an England supporter and will be at Wembley on Tuesday. However, I pay very little attention to the PL and pretty much every England squad has players in whom I have absolutely zero idea who they are.

brinyhoof

On to Blackpool then… same formation and line-up that started vs Brizzle?

Joe_Citrone

brinyhoof We changed to a back-four at half-time against Rovers and I think we'll start with that tbh.

That said, really depends on who's available with sickness going through the squad and a few knocks apparently.

To be honest, nervous about tomorrow's game. I think it's going to be a really difficult one.

TrevorAylottsHeadband

Joe_Citrone Agree with this. I think Blackpool are probably better than their current league position and form suggest, plus they have a real threat in Jordan Rhodes. Three points tomorrow would be a really solid result.

brinyhoof

Joe_Citrone yes, I know we changed formation but that was to counter Rovers' game plan. I'm not sure how wedded LM is to any formation and was quoted as it not mattering! I assume he meant we have the players to cope with any eventuality.

Agree also thats its going to be a tough one.

« Previous Page Next Page »