Bristol Rovers manager Matt Taylor has admitted that he had an “honest conversation” with his Bristol Rovers players ahead of their 3-2 victory at home to Charlton Athletic on Tuesday evening regarding his position at the club with pressure intensifying on the back of a four-game losing streak.
Had the Rovers manager seen his team’s run of consecutive defeats stretch to a fifth match, there were genuine concerns that his position would be under serious threat. However, the Gas stepped up and produced their best performance of the season so far.
A second goal in BS7 in four days from Scott Sinclair opened the scoring for the hosts who started brightly before second half efforts from Jamie Lindsay and James Wilson gave Rovers a comfortable 3-0 advantage.
However, late goals from Alex Mitchell and Matt Godden made the final few minutes rather nervy but the Gas managed to cling on to a deserved victory.
After falling to defeat at home to Wycombe Wanderers in the final moments, having led for the majority of the match, three days prior, a number of supporters voiced their discontent towards Taylor from the terraces and the Rovers boss revealed he discussed his situation with his players ahead of Tuesday night’s win.
“I had an honest conversation with them in terms of where I felt I was at in terms of my stature of the club and my position at the club,” the Rovers manager declared. “They know that, they’re not stupid. As a manager, you can’t keep losing games. I just thought the way they went about their business tonight and yesterday to a certain extent, led by Scotty and the senior ones. They pulled and drove and pushed that team to where they needed to be.
“You can’t keep losing games and when the fans turn like they did at the weekend, I’m not stupid and the players aren’t stupid. But I just wanted to make sure that they understood that at the start of this season, I was a big part of it. We tried trying our hardest to build something positive and something good. And for that to end sooner rather than later, I think we wouldn’t have done ourselves justice, myself included.
“So I was honest with the players. I’ll always be honest in relation to that. And like I say, I was so pleased with the way they went about their work tonight.”
The Gas were on top from the very first minute as Bryant Bilongo produced a galloping run into the penalty area to win a corner which acted as a marker for the fight and intent the hosts showed throughout the evening.
Although they weren’t necessarily forcing Charlton goalkeeper Will Mannion into a flurry of saves, Taylor’s men certainly dominated the majority of the proceedings in the first half and took a deserved lead as Sinclair rolled back the years to pull out a vintage curling strike from the edge of the area.
After Saturday’s collapse, 1-0 always felt like a dangerous scoreline with the Addicks, based on the stature of some of the players they had on the pitch, expected to improve in the second period. However, Rovers maintained their pressure and got a vital second as great work on the left hand side from Promise Omochere saw the striker square a pass to Lindsay who then pulled out a cracking finish from the edge of the area to offer competition to Sinclair for goal of the night.
Rovers’ club-record signing then registered a second assist when flicking on Clinton Mola’s cross towards the back post for Wilson to header home his first league goal for the Gas.
Of course, the two late goals slightly dampened what should have been an outstanding night in which the backline deserved a clean sheet for their efforts. However, it was still an evening full of positives.
The third victory of Taylor’s side’s season so far, all of which coming at home, the Gas manager admitted that Tuesday night’s display was the stand out of their nine league games this term, saying: “Best performance of the season to date. It would have been nice to be more comfortable in the last five, 10, 15 minutes of that game but the effort they they all put in over the course of the night was excellent to a man. I’m very proud of them tonight. They still showed a few fragilities and weaknesses towards the end but the headlines and all the discussion points should be about how positive that performance was.
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“I think the game had natural speed in it. Sometimes when the game has not got natural speed in it, how we get speed and intent and foreplay into our game. I just thought we crossed the ball tonight. We got high up the pitch often enough to cross the ball.
“That probably says that we came out in more duels and more battles and our defence was stronger, our midfield was better in terms of tidying the ball to get it there. But then we just threatened the box consistently and softened their back line throughout that first half and early on in the second half and got the rewards for it.
“That’s what you always aim for. You need control aspects in areas of the pitch to be able to do that but the simplicity of Bryant and Hunty’s games was there for all to see.
“But players make it work,” Taylor added. “We weren’t perfect in our press tonight but the intent was perfect. It really was in terms of how Scotty, Ruel and Prom set us off and Jamie stepped in. Back-three against a back-three so we knew we wanted it to be a little bit of a match up game like I did at the weekend.
“I want when the team’s not got the most amount of confidence in the world, I want to keep it straight line and straightforward and the message is really clear, and I thought they were tonight. But players always make it work and we believed in it because we got success of it. And then the goal obviously helps.
“So everything goes towards more endeavor, more will and more love and more value in those moments. Like I say, we’ve got to find a way of bottling that type of performance up to try and replicate it as much as we can.”