Dpl points 2 and Orient

Just seen the highlights which suggest greater dominance than was the case especially in the first half. If we could play like the highlights all the time we'd be back in the Championship in 2018-19. Let's hope we can!

I would love to be proved wrong but, although we frequently find ways to win, in my view we tend not to dominate games. I've seen us play teams from every level in the table at the Keepmoat this season, and only in the final minutes of some games did I feel that we had the opposition on the run. As the table confirms, as a group our players are better than the rest, but to aim for the Championship we need at least one or two players in midfield and a left back.

It has been made very clear by the club that when we do go up then funds will be made available to DF to bring in the players he needs to compete in L1.
I don't think that anyone would expect anything different.
On the Marquis thing, he tries to get "under the skin" of his opponents and I think he does it very well.
Is he the only player doing it?
I don't think so, look at how Hylton of Luton caused us problems by doing much the same as Marquis.
Almost all of the teams we have played have employed spoiling tactics to try and get something from the games gains us.
It is the way that the game has evolved.

I do not think that I have seen (in a Rovers match) simulation on the scale that Marquis practiced it at Orient even from him before. I do have some perspective too. Since the beginning of this year I have been to 2 League 1 games, 4 Rovers games and the Portsmouth-Colchester game. I don’t think he has done it enough to get booed for it before either.

I have never come across any football fan who welcomes it and the feigning of injury and dramatic “appealing” that often goes with it. I know people who have stopped going to matches because of it. It is a modern thing that lowers the game towards the level of all-in wrestling.

I have not noticed any of our other players doing it. I greatly admire his enormous energy and commitment to the team effort which usually exceeds that of anyone else, so he doesn't need this dark side of his game.

Should we just accept it and keep quiet?

I think it works against him. In the home match against Accrington. He was denied a couple of legitimate free kicks and a penalty shout purely because of his prior "crying wolf" tactics. Agree it's an undesirable part of the game theses days and a difficult one for refs. JM is hardly the worst culprit though.

I agree Nookie. It has been largely absent from the Leagues 1 and 2. Our players and most of the others we saw in the Championship didn't do it either at least 2 or 3 years ago. The sad thing then was that what we did see was often from players who had played at the top level. Diouf only needed a slight nudge to knock him off balance, but despite his reputation I do not remember him being over-dramatic and he was such an "artiste" that I was never certain that the fouls were not geniune.

Maybe the reason Marquis was booed is because he had been on loan at Orient in the past.
maybe he had said something bad about the club after leaving, in the same way as Kyle Bennett had done which resulted in him being booed by our fans in the recent Portsmouth game.

Lots of "maybe"s Hound. Maybe if you had been there seeing what we saw in the midst of the relatively fair-minded O's fans you may have formed a different impression from mine, but I suspect not. As I said, they applauded Baudry.

It is interesting sitting with the opposition supporters; some of the ones at Championship clubs have been most annoying and even in League 2 you come across a few amazingly emotional, hateful and aggressive people who do not sit behind the goals with the ultra-committed ones. But generally most of the rest seem to put the game and the skill levels into appropriate context.

I don't know whether I dare say this, but down south fans are not as hard on their own team either. Errors, mistakes and mediocrity are quite often met with humour rather than anger.

Baudry has gone public over the fact that he had had a great time at Orient and that he was wishing them well in their quest for survival.
Also he didn't celebrate his goal.
No wonder they applauded him.

25b