Matt Taylor has explained that his substitutions made in Bristol Rovers’ 3-2 win over Charlton Athletic on Tuesday night were due to the “physical nature of the group” as the Gas lost significant momentum in the final stages.
Rovers were cruising at 3-0 thanks to goals from Scott Sinclair, Jamie Lindsay and James Wilson and should have seen out their most comfortable winning margin of the season so far following their strongest performance to date.
However, late strikes from Alex Mitchell and Matt Godden reduced the hosts’ advantage to just one goal and, given that the Gas had gone into the contest on the back of four consecutive defeats, the conclusion to the game was more nervy than it needed to be.
Taylor opted to take off Ruel Sotiriou, Jack Hunt and Lindsay in the 71st minute, with the trio all major contributors, as Luke McCormick, Michael Forbes and Jake Garrett replaced them. Seven minutes later and Gatlin O’Donkor and Shaq Forde also came on for Promise Omochere, who got two assists, and Sinclair.
Within seconds of the fourth and fifth substitutes coming into the game, Charlton scored through Mitchell as a poor header from Garrett allowed the Addicks to keep a loose ball alive in the penalty area as the defender ensured an effort from Godden went over the goal line.
After Rovers had boasted such dominance and control of proceedings, they then became second-best for the remaining period of the match and gave up a second goal with two minutes of additional time remaining when Godden converted from close range, setting up a nervy finale. Tension in the crowd and on the pitch wasn’t helped by the fact that just three days prior the Gas had given up a lead they’d had for the best part of an hour by conceding 77th and 96th minute goals in defeat to Wycombe Wanderers.
Taylor’s men did see out the victory, earning a valuable three points to stop the rot, but the end to the game was the stand out of few negative point on a night full of positives.
It’s something the Rovers boss was keen to address when previewing this weekend’s trip to Burton Albion, saying: “We have to openly talk about the last 15 minutes [of the Charlton game]. The changes weren’t enforced through injury but in terms of physical nature of the group going into the game, they had to be made and we probably looked like a different team last 15 minutes and that’s where we might’ve been in the last few weeks.
“So yeah, we’re trying to get more players up to that top level of playing consistently for a whole game and then it’s a tactical decision to take them off as opposed to physical. But that all goes hand in hand with a managed job of the right time and blooding the right players in the game when needed.
“We were shaky to finish that game and we hadn’t been shaky for 80 minutes. It was such a strange shift and such a strange dynamic but we’re certainly looking for a bit of consistency to start to build this weekend at Burton and then Swindon and then Blackpool.”
Bristol Rovers Live on Whatsapp
Join Bristol Rovers Live’s Whatsapp community for all the biggest Bristol Rovers stories sent straight to your phone
Bristol Rovers Live is now on WhatsApp and we want you to join our community.
Through the app, we’ll send the Bristol Rovers news, live match coverage, team news, transfers, fixtures, analysis and more straight to your phone.
To join our community you need to already have WhatsApp. All you need to do is click this link and select ‘Join Community’.
No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Bristol Live team.
We also treat community members to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out at any time you like.
To leave our community, click on the name at the top of your screen and choose ‘Exit group’.
If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
The Gas still have a handful of players still not capable of completing a full match without it severely affecting their performance levels in the latter stages or put them at serious risk of injury. Grant Ward is an example Taylor has often used with the midfielder left out entirely of the matchday squad to face Charlton after he had started against Wycombe three days earlier.
Meanwhile, both forwards Omochere and Sotiriou are players on said list after the former had a disjointed start to pre-season with Fleetwood Town before completing his move to BS7 while the latter picked up an injury just after pre-season began.
Hunt, who was exceptional upon his return to the side, made his first start of the season on Tuesday having played his first minutes against Wycombe while Lindsay completed his first full 90 minutes last weekend having missed nearly a month of action between mid-August and September through injury.
The hope, as Taylor pointed out, is to reach a situation as soon as possible where more players are capable of completing full matches without their performance levels dropping significantly. However, they’re seemingly not at that point yet, or possibly near it, and will be looking for ways to manage the latter stages of games better than they did on Tuesday when changes have been made.