ROVERS FANZ VIEW COLUMN
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After averaging around two goals a game in the first month of the new season, it was rather frustrating to follow up the 0-0 stalemate at Rushden with another goalless draw against Shrewsbury last week. Ian Atkins shuffled his pack once again to start with an adventurous 4-3-3 formation, as Jamie Forrester started for the first time in four games alongside Agogo and Thorpe, while Ali Gibb was the unlucky man to drop to the bench. Unfortunately, Rovers' attacking policy was cancelled out by some very defensive tactics by the away side, who successfully sat back and soaked up the pressure with the occasional foray looking for Luke Rodgers, seemingly on his own up front. Atkins later said that Shrewsbury set themselves out in a 6-2-2 formation and we could see they were happy to take a point as they were running down the clock in the corners at the end. The negative approach Jimmy Quinn employed was perhaps why Atkins refused to shake his hand at the final whistle, something Quinn labelled "a disgrace". It was a game of very few chances and both teams ended up playing the ball around without doing a lot with it, Rovers opting for a more direct approach than the patient Shrews. Of the opportunities that did come our way, all appeared to fall to Lee Thorpe and it was a surprise when he was substituted just after an hour. If anyone looked like breaking the deadlock for us, it was him and there were a few disgruntled noises when his number went up. Forrester and Agogo were having very quiet afternoons in comparison, perhaps struggling to adapt to playing as part of a trident, but we needed to change the system and the manager decided to leave those two on and stick Ali Gibb on the wing. There may have been more than tactical reasons for withdrawing Thorpe as he got a bang on his knee when going in for a tackle shortly before and that could have slowed him up, plus the hard early-season pitch would not have been sympathetic to a potential injury. Thorpe is in good form at the moment and I'm sure that he would love to play against two of his old clubs, Leyton Orient and Lincoln, in the next couple of games. Whatever the motive for taking him off, we cannot complain too much as Atkins has guided us to joint top spot so he seems to know what he is doing. The defence again proved to be solid and well organised, Steve Elliott impressing along with Christian Edwards. Rodgers is a dangerous customer and he rarely got a sniff against them on Saturday. If we cannot prise open teams at their end, it is imperative that we keep it tight at ours and despite the frustrations in failing to win last week, we avoided defeat once again to equal our best start for 20 years. David Williams' team of 1984/85 were top after six victories and a draw in the opening seven matches but they won only once in the next nine, so I'm hoping history won't repeat itself from now on. Rovers finished sixth that season, when the Third Division was the third level of English football, yet the crowds we get now are double the average of about 4,000 that visited Eastville back then, and remember we are in a lower Division these days.
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