Football Defending was nowhere near good enough, blasts Gas boss
BEN Garner rated Bristol Rovers’ defending as “nowhere near good enough” in Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Wycombe Wanderers.
Goals from Adebayo Akinfenwa, Darius Charles and Matt Bloomfield stretched Rovers’ winless run to 13 games.
Garner’s side had equalised through Jayden Mitchell-Lawson on 27 minutes, and they spent long spells of the game on the front foot, but they were made to pay for their profligacy in attack and sloppiness in defence by Gareth Ainsworth’s team, who remain second in League One.
“We spoke a great deal this week and worked a lot on their set-pieces and restarts,” said Garner.
“They are very, very good at it, we knew what was coming and we didn’t deal with them, so from our point of view that’s very disappointing.
“In open play we were much the better side, but we didn’t deal with those restarts and set-pieces. We should take responsibility as a group, we didn’t deal with it well enough.
“From the two set-plays, it’s nowhere near good enough. It’s people not doing their jobs, but it’s a collective.
“We’re really disappointed in that today, because if you come here and defend restarts and setpieces well you’ve got a great chance of keeping a clean sheet.
“We spoke about it all week and unfortunately we didn’t do it anywhere near well enough.”
Garner was also left fuming by the performance of “inept” referee Tom Nield, who failed to clamp down on the Chairboys’ time-wasting tactics.
“You need a strong referee and unfortunately he was anything but today,” said the Gas boss.
“I don’t like to say players should
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In open play we were much the better side, but we didn’t deal with those restarts and set-pieces
be sent off, but (Curtis) Thompson should be sent off. It’s two feet, off the floor. I know he gets the ball, but it’s a dangerous challenge.
“And we should have two penalties. We have one on Ollie Clarke in the 15th minute, and the one on Jayden Mitchell-Lawson in the second half is unbelievable.
“I think we had three players booked for dissent, which for me shows how inept the referee was, because they’re reacting to very, very poor decisions.
“I think what’s frustrating for a player, take Jonson Clarke-Harris, you’ve got Akinfenwa doing one thing at this end and there’s no free-kick given. Jonno’s doing the same and the free-kick is given against him.
“All we’re asking for is consistency and we didn’t get that, certainly in the first half.
“They’re (Wycombe) clever at what they do, but you need a referee that’s wise enough to spot it and make the correct decisions.”
There were positives to take from the performance – the Gas created a catalogue of clear-cut chances – but the Rovers boss conceded his 13th-placed side deserved nothing from the game. “There was some fantastic play,” he said. “Considering the pitch is heavy and it cut up, some of the play was excellent.
“The chances we created, we’re unfortunate with one or two, but there’s three or four we should score and do better.
“We should be coming away with three or four goals there comfortably, but again I’m like a broken record at the moment.
“Are the performances getting better? Yes they are, and we’ve created so many chances in the past three games.
“The level of performance was good, but we didn’t do the basics well, so we didn’t deserve anything from the game today and that’s down to us to put right very quickly.”