Sunderland fans know what disappointment is like better than we do.
With them, there is the excuse that there is almost unbearable pressure on the players and the manager to get promoted. They have had highly competent professional managers with proven records of success who have not been able to deliver results under pressure that is endemic. Playing week in week out against this background is something that was experienced at Leeds in the years of their decline and to a lesser extent it is at Portsmouth too.
Rovers fans are used to having to accept that success is not some kind of right and our players will never feel that weight of expectation on them.
We lost at Fleetwood, we were outplayed and there is little evidence of making it a real contest. The team did not leave the field exhausted from their efforts to compete. Their schedule has not been as intense as many of their fellow League 1 squads; they capitulated and did so without obvious emotion. No one from the team has expressed their apologies for the failure and the manager has been restrained in any criticism. Whether escaping the full force of censure will have a favourable effect on the application we will see.
Sunderland lost at Shrewsbury, admittedly a rising force, but nevertheless not a team against which they would readily accept a defeat. And of course the match against us is at home where they have been most vulnerable.
So the question is “Where will the pressure fall most heavily?"
“On Sunderland" would be the obvious answer; that is the norm and would be so, even if they had won at Shrewsbury. On the other hand, I get the impression that for Moore to exert pressure on his players, would not be his style, because he would expect his players to put pressure on themselves even though lots of us feel that is was overdue even before the Oxford game. They let him down.
Will we see 100% on Saturday? That is the final question.
My feeling at the moment is that we are at a critical point in this campaign. The next match may well have a profound effect on how the rest of the season will play out.
I will add my thoughts on the likely outcome later.
DPL v Sunderland
posted on 13/2/21
Strong starting line-up with a chance for Okenabirhie to take a rest and see how Bogle will get on in that difficult number 9 role.
posted on 13/2/21
As my scorer, please change Okenabirhie to Bogle.
posted on 13/2/21
Rovers 1 - Sunderland 1 - okenbirhie with goal
posted on 13/2/21
Sunlun 1-2 Rovers
Bogle to score
C'mon Rovers ⚽⚽
posted on 13/2/21
18 shots on goal, 5 on target - 1 goal, 9 and 5 - 4 goals.
Unlucky for us or Lucky for them?
Neither really.
I cannot say I was as dissatisfied with the performance as I was with aspects of the previous three.
We did look good. We kept at it, but we missed Anderson and 2 penalties.
I thought John was exceptionally careless today and I do not think Taylor shows as much commitment as he did before his injury.
Wyke was in the right place at the right time unreasonably fortuitously not once or even twice: it happens and we have perhaps not had such a massive chunk of bad luck all season; everything went wrong in the box for us. But then again, having it all in one match is better than it being spread around. We have done it to other teams ourselves.
Bostock and Bogle showed up well and nobody, apart from the two already mentioned, did not put in much less than 100%.
Sunderland probably have the best individual players in this league and they clicked today and I think we will recover.
It could be good for us because it proves we can come through it and feel that 4-1 was flattering.
Sunderland will have seen how good we can be and not be able to look back on it without recognising that it was very much a day when everything came up smelling of roses.
posted on 13/2/21
Well, for the second time I stopped watching at half-time. We started fairly well, but it does not say much about match prep when in the end all goals come from the combination of the same two players. I wonder if it would have been different if Tom Anderson had been there? In the last few games Halliday has been beaten far too easily - maybe worried about penalties he has given away in the past.
We obviously need a penalty taker now Whiteman has gone. 4-3 would have looked much better.
How was Sims after he came on?
posted on 13/2/21
Sims didn’t get much of the ball.
posted on 14/2/21
Donaldo, I was obviously typing my comments as you typed yours. I now wish I had watched the second half as we obviously were better. However, two penalty misses are not good! Who do you think should the penalties?
I thought in the last game Taylor was nearly back to "normal", but today he was "off" before the penalty miss. However, sometimes power down the middle does work!
On the stats, certainly 4-1 flattered Sunderland, but putting the ball in the net is what counts.
posted on 14/2/21
Penalties used to be rare when you could get away with all sorts of challenges and we had replays to determine results properly. They were rarely missed when goalkeepers were often not even 6 feet tall, but they are undoubtedly less easy to convert now there is more practice for goalkeepers and margins are smaller. Those who can hit a ball hard along the ground and players used to one-on-ones are surely most able to deal with the pressure and have the technique. So Bogle or Richards in Okenabirhie’s absence.
The DFP journalist Liam Hoden awards players scores after each match and if we win everyone gets at least 5, but if we lose no one is likely to get a good mark. I think most of the more balanced, experienced followers of football recognise that the score does not always reflect the play.
Another way of assessing performance is to judge a team by the quality of its members and using this measure Sunderland, with 11 valuable footballers are potentially the best in the League. They only needed 2 of these to work the goals by which they won plus the good fortune to be in precisely the right places at the right time. I can recall numerous encounters with teams containing quality players - Crystal Palace and Aston Villa in the cup for example - where it needs only isolated bursts of class to change the course of a match. Much as we may think of the individuals in our team, several of Sunderland’s are probably more talented and are capable of precisely what happened yesterday.
I suggest that if we had scored the 2 penalties the less sophisticated observers would be looking back at it all rather differently.
posted on 15/2/21
Our optimism endured strongly through our forecasts and only Nookie proved correct and then only once over the two games. Will it continue?
Mooli stays out front.
The Accrington game is put back to Wednesday with a 19:00 KO and their draw at Lincoln keeps us theoretically able to go top if we win our games in hand which may not be a wager in which we would wish to invest too much.
Fleetwood T 3 : Rovers 1 (Lokilo)
>>>>>>> Scorer > Score > Result Bonus > Total > Pts B/F > O/all
Donaldo>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 76 >>>>>> 76
PDXMickey> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 80 >>>>>> 80
BVZ>>>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 38 >>>>>> 38
Crazy>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 73 >>>>> 73
Mooligan>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 93 >>>>>> 93
Nookie>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 83 >>>>>> 83
Selby>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 32 >>>>>> 32
>>>>>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 475 >>>>> 475
Sunderland 4 : Rovers 1 (O.G.)
>>>>>>> Scorer > Score > Result Bonus > Total > Pts B/F > O/all
Donaldo>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 76 >>>>>> 76
PDXMickey> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 80 >>>>>> 80
BVZ>>>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 38 >>>>>> 38
Crazy>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 73 >>>>> 73
Mooligan>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 93 >>>>>> 93
Nookie>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>>> 83 >>>>>> 86
Selby>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 32 >>>>>> 32
>>>>>>>>>> 0 >>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>>> 475 >>>> 478