Well, Joey that was a real rollercoaster to watch. What was it like to be on the sidelines for?
It’s a strange one because we’re sitting here at 0-0 and I’m like ‘How has that game ended up 0-0?’ Credit to their keeper and James Belshaw, Belly has got out man out the match.
How the fans have not seen a goal here today. It was two sides that are clearly in the top end of the division, two good teams really going at it.
First and foremost, congratulations to Forest Green for getting promoted. They have sat at the table all season to be shot at. They’ve had a few nervy moments in recent weeks and months but they’ve managed to get the job done.
Hopefully, we can join them in League One next season at some point. Rob’s first season as a senior manager and he deserves enormous credit.
When we think about them as a football club, they’ve obviously built through the lower leagues with Dale Vince’s investment and they’ve hit the bar a few times. I remember watching them get beat by Newport in the play-offs last year. I remember the year before they got close and they never got there.
They’ve had big leads and we have to take some inspiration from that. We’re in the first cycle of our team. This is my first team at Bristol Rovers and we haven’t even completed the first season.
We had a huge turnaround over personnel to overcome in the midst of the relegation and we’ve shown today we can go toe-to-toe with the team that is best in the division based on the league table.
It would be very understandable for the players to be a bit frustrated, a bit down after that.
It feels like we’ve lost because we knew we had to win and I think that really affected our performance. Some of our big players were just guilty of rushing things.
We started superbly and Antony Evans has a big chance and then a couple of things happened where we didn’t follow our training and strategy we worked on.
It allowed Forest Green, and they’re a good side, to get some momentum back in the game and they had a series of corners and attacking moments because we didn’t do what we work on doing.
We were trying to force the goal and the chance, and you’ve got to relax and flow. We’re a young team in its first cycle, having to beat the top team in the division to keep momentum.
We’ll look back on this as a learning opportunity for our group and our team, but again it is another clean sheet and another point picked up because we’re still not guaranteed to be in the play-offs yet, we need more points.
Yeah, we want to get automatics and we’re looking at other team’s results, but we must be mindful of how tight the division is and not slipping out and missing out on a chance to further extend a season and possibly a chance to go up via the play-offs.
Looking at the table, there are so many different permutations, but you’re only two points off the automatic places with two games to play.
You probably need Stephen Hawking to work it out, such is the nature of the fixture list. I just say ‘Lads, let’s just win the next game, let’s not worry too much about it’.
My belief is we win the next two games then we have a chance of the autos. If we don’t then some teams have got games in hand or a little bit of a points head starts on us, so we’ve got to take care of business, which is Rochdale next Saturday and they’ll be dangerous because they’re safe.
They can’t go up, can’t go down and there might be a freedom to that. They’re a good side as we know from the game here. They knock it about so we’ve got to be wired in. It could be a tricky encounter.
It was one of those today where you sensed the nerves on some of them. You just hope with bigger games to come, whether it’s the next two or beyond, that those lessons have been learned and they trust themselves.
Yeah, well the top side of the division that have just been promoted have come to our place and adjusted what they do. They usually play two up and (Jack) Aitchison behind (Josh) March or Matty (Stevens) and Jamille Matt.
They’ve done it the other way so they put a box in there and pushed Ebou Adams further on, mainly to stop us playing with Paul Coutts and Sam Finley dropping in. It allowed them to set a mid-block press that was running the clock down, taking time over everything, pressing from a mid-block so they weren’t overcommitting. Bailey Cargill was allowed to stay in his slot and they didn’t often open up the seams down the side because they knew they only needed a point and they knew we needed three points.
It was almost like the second leg of a European tie. We had to upgrade and get more aggressive. That’s why I felt the ref was poor today and every time he comes in our stadium, that fella is poor. I told the fourth official I’d rather he ref’d the game than that ref. He’s arrogant, but I’m not going to talk about him more than that.
For me, you’re looking at our lads going ‘OK, can we win the game?’ We were huffing and puffing and they had a few opportunities as well.
We brought Luke Thomas and Ryan Loft on the pitch to try to win it and I thought LT was superb. He almost became the match-winner for us, great little cameo from him. Lofty’s had a chance and he’ll probably be thinking about that for the next 48 hours. He gets free at the near post and he’s got to hit the target.
Even at the end, we’re going 4-2-4 and we threw Harvey Saunders up there because we want to win the game. In the midst of that, it’s always likely they can counter-attack and cause you a problem.
I’ll sleep easier tonight because we went for it at every junction. We never made a negative sub, we weren’t happy with a point, neither were our players and they kept pushing and pushing to the end.
We just couldn’t find the key to unlock it all, that magical, match-winning moment, albeit when we did penetrate the defence, I thought their keeper made some great saves.
Joey, just one on Luke Thomas. We’ve seen him all season and he can be frustrating, but when he plays like that, there’s some potential there?
For sure, and the key is being fit and strong enough to do it for 90 minutes. That was his problem and if you get behind the eight ball in that regard, like he did, the lads who have gone in the team – Harry Anderson and alike – have just done better and then you get to the point where you’re like ‘I’ve got Sam Finley, Antony Evans, Glenn Whelan, Paul Coutts and Elliot Anderson to get into three in midfield.’ That’s tricky.
All of a sudden, the lads who aren’t firing on the frontline miss out. Sammy Nicholson’s been superb, but you can’t have three or four iffy games for us because you’re out of the team because we’ve got more than 11 good players.
LT has been in the squad all year, he’s been grafting away and he’s had his ups and downs, but he now looks in a position where he can challenge for a jersey. The problem for him is it’s April going into May, that’s got to happen in August and September.
You can’t start your season as late as he has, but also him particularly is success for us. You don’t get to see it all the time, the tough spot young men can be in. He came to this football club in a really tough spot professionally and personally.
To see him now, playing the way he does when he gets his minutes and the way he carries himself on a daily basis, for me, is success. That’s part of my job that goes without getting a medal, seeing young men find that confidence to fulfil their potential. In football terms, it’s not what you get all the headlines for, but for me it’s the most rewarding part of the job.
It’s not me personally who’s done that, it’s all of the football club. The fans and their interactions with him as well, but also the staff members and other players because we leave nobody behind.
Sometimes, he’s been frustrating me, because it takes a while for the penny to drop, but it seems to have dropped and he seems to have the bit between his teeth.
He’s a kid with enormous potential and his best football is actually back out in front of him again. Good to see.
Joey, what was your view on events at full time? It’s sort of inevitable when a team gets promoted that their fans are going to be delirious and come onto the pitch, but there were home fans that came on and it did threaten to get a bit moody at one point.
It’s tough because they’ve earned the right to celebrate because they’ve been promoted. I’m never going to say they can’t.
I’ve been in the dressing room and wished them all well.
There was a bit of antics from them beforehand. I think they were kicking the ball away in our warm-up and the sub goalie or third goalie pulled one of our flags down before the game.
For me, that’s just an indication of how much fear they had in them. For me, you don’t have to do any nonsense. Let the ref blow the whistle and then we’ll separate who deserves to be out here or not. But I think it just festered into they were apprehensive and nervous.
There’s a crowd that comes onto the pitch at the end of the game and if you’re a Bristol Rovers fan, that’s an invasion of your territory. Unfortunately at the Mem, there is only one way in and one way out. You have to go past the Thatchers End and they’ve all had a few ciders.
But on the other side of that they deserve the promotion and they deserve to celebrate it.
Charging onto the pitch, I can’t condone that because I’m a football manager and I’ll have the FA writing me a letter, but we’ve got to be sensible about the emotion of the game.
They’ve had huge disappointment in their club, failed seasons last year and the year, so you can’t begrudge them a bit of celebration and we’d want to do the same if we got promoted in someone else’s stadium, but I’d hope we’d be a little more respectful.
We’ll see Forest Green down the track.
I know you don’t want to be drawn on the referee, but he’s refereed almost every game this season in the Championship. Was there an explanation why he had been appointed? Was it because it was a big game, do you get told that?
I would imagine it’s that, I would imagine Mike Jones would want his better referees on the games that have got a lot at stake.
I didn’t think he allowed the game to flow today, I think he played right into Forest Green’s hands and let them waste time from the opening gambit. All we were asking for was just ‘Ref it as you would normally, just let the game flow’.
At the end, we’re trying to take quick free-kicks and he’s been quite pedantic with it. He’s been here a few times and I’ve yet to see him have a game where I go ‘OK, he’s a good ref, he’s a Championship ref’. The fact you’re telling me is news to me.
As your defence has matured, you’ve relied on James Belshaw less and less, but today he made three fantastic saves. You’ve got the complete package back there, a defence that is not conceding too many chances and when they do, James is bailing you out.
Yeah, and in the early part of the season Belly was the difference between heavy defeats and us staying in games or sometimes just getting out with a thumping.
He’s been superb. In recent weeks, he’s been a lot quieter and calmer, but as all top-class keepers show, they might have nothing to do for the game but when required they produce their moment.
The goalkeeper position is a specialist position, one that you don’t ever want to overwork if you can help it as a footballer. If your goalkeeper is not overworked, it tends to point in the right direction of a performance and a result.
Whenever Forest Green caused problems or penetrated us, you had Bellison in there. I’ve been calling him that for a while. Allison was £75million from Roma and we got Bellison, who is equally as good, on a free from Harrogate.
I guess one of the most important things about these last two games coming up is having no regrets. Other teams have got games to play and you don’t want to go into the play-offs feeling like you’ve let a chance slip to get automatic promotion in these last two games.
I don’t think we have. On balance, if anyone looks at it, they wouldn’t think we’ve ever had automatic promotion in our grasp and thrown it away. There might be other teams around us who might feel that or have that levelled at them, but we’ve grown incrementally through the season.
Because we had a slow start and we had to play catch-up, we haven’t been in the higher echelons all year, but we’ve been there consistently now for a couple of months.
We’ve embraced the pressure, we’ve embraced form team after form team coming and having to play against them. The key for us is making sure we finish the season strong.
I’ve used the horse racing analogy all the time. The key is you get to finish line and you’ve produced your best effort and your maximum points return when it matters. At this point it matters.
We went to Port Vale and handed their a**** to them last week. They’ve then lost at Walsall, which I didn’t see coming, so it’s thrown their momentum a little bit.
And then we’ve played the top team in the division, who have rightly been promoted based on the 42 games of work that they’ve put on the table previously. I think we have shown today that Forest Green are going to be a League One side next year and we can compete in League One against Forest Green.
Next year, if we get into League One, I wouldn’t swap my horse, the Bristol Rovers horse, for the Forest Green horse, to go and play on the top of that hill in that little manky stadium eating tofu burgers. Nah, I’ll take the Mem and the Gasheads.
If we go to Wembley, we can pull 40,000. Northampton can’t, none of them can’t. Swindon, possibly, it could be 80,000 if they get in there, who knows? But it’s exciting.
We were talking about going out of the Football League and the doom and gloom, and ‘this is crap, he’s crap, and he’s not good enough’. Now, they’re coming to the stadium and they’re like ‘OK, we’re disappointed we’ve drawn at home to the top team in the division’.
That, for me, is enormous progress in our football club and the best is yet to come. We’re just getting started.
Finally, you appeared to have Harvey Greenslade with you in the warm-up. Can you explain that a bit further? Has he been training with the group?
Yeah, he’s been dipping in and out. Whilst we’re intent on pushing at the top end of the table, we’ve got to be mindful of developing for next season.
Our younger players, as Luca Hoole has shown this season, if given an opportunity they can flourish.
I want to see a lot of Bristolians in our team. I want to see local lads in and around our football club because I think there is nothing better for a fan to see somebody who is one of your own.
We’ve got it with Alfie Kilgour and Hooley. When you’ve got people who understand the fabric of the football club playing for the football club, I think that’s really important, not only for the fans but for the culture.
Even if they don’t play a game, it must be a great experience for them to be around the group at this time of the season, learning from not only the players around them but the situation?
Yeah, and they won’t be with us if they can’t hold their own. The boy is with us because he can hold his own, he’s a good player. It’s not a charity and we’re not trying to develop Bristol people who are below the level.
As Hooley has shown and as I think young Harvey will with a bit of time, they are competent and they can cope with what the senior game throws at them.
We’ve got to improve our pipeline because the lifeblood of any football club is developing its own talent. If that comes out of our academy and from the streets of Bristol, nothing better.
SIGN UP: For our newsletter to receive more exclusive Bristol Rovers content
