ROVERS FANZ VIEW COLUMN
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After a weekend watching everyone else play football, I'm sure most Gasheads were straining at the leash to get into the Mem for Tuesday's match against Chester. And having seen Rovers return to winning ways the previous week, here was a great opportunity for us to turn our good LDV Vans form into league points. What a superb night's entertainment it turned out to be. There was a time, earlier in the season, when we were scoring a couple of goals every game at home. On recent form, however, we have been lucky to see the goalkeeper make a save, but a flying start and rousing end to the first half in midweek saw Rovers score twice for the first time in seven games. Surprisingly, Ian Atkins had never seen his team notch up three goals in a competitive fixture before last week, and that elusive third finally came with around twenty minutes left, when Lee Thorpe found the net with a looping header. As if that wasn't enough, Rovers went for the jugular in the next few minutes and we saw a shot cleared off the line before Paul Trollope slotted home number four just to make the victory taste even sweeter. Thorpe then saw another header sail into the net only for the linesman to chalk it off, denying us a nice round fifth. When you look at the squad, we undoubtedly have the players here that are capable of that kind of display on a regular basis, and maybe it clicked on Tuesday because Atkins refrained from changing the winning team from seven days earlier. If you let a side play together in the same system for a series of games, more often than not they will improve as a unit because they will know each other's roles and habits that much better. The outstanding player for me in midweek was Craig Disley, who turned in a landmark performance by scoring his first goal for the club and by basically running the show whenever Rovers surged forward. Counter-balanced by James Hunt, who took on the defensive duties in midfield, Disley was able to push up with the strikers and cause all sorts of trouble for Chester, while Dave Savage, unrecognisable from the dark days of last year, impressed again on both sides of the pitch. Disley has looked a much more dangerous player when playing as part of a four-man midfield, as this means that he has more support and passing options compared to when we employ a more negative three-man midfield in front of a back five. Most teams would be severely crippled by leaving out their top scorer, yet the absence of Junior Agogo from the starting line-up on Tuesday merely left the stage clear for Jamie Forrester and Lee Thorpe to forge a fine partnership in the classic mould of the big man-little man combination. Whereas Agogo is unstoppable on his day, we have yet to find a suitable partner for him in attack and the pairing of Forrester with Thorpe suggested that Rovers' most effective front two does not involve Junior. Much as I love Agogo tying defenders in knots, a dynamic duo will always get you more goals than one man on his own and I only hope the potency of the Forrester-Thorpe partnership is not diluted or even forgotten altogether amid the temptation to tinker around with things.
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