How many times are we going to call a game “the biggest of the season so far” between now and May 3? Funnily, you get the feeling that today won’t be the last time ahead of Bristol Rovers’ clash away at Shrewsbury Town this evening.
There is still over a quarter of the campaign left to play but the importance of tonight’s match cannot be misjudged. Rovers will have few better opportunities to not only improve their dire away form, but actually pick up a win alone against bottom of the table Shrewsbury.
Salop’s resurgence under Gareth Ainsworth has been extremely impressive but one point from the last possible 15 has seen them return to the foot of the league standings while they need to recover an eight-point gap to safety within 12 matches, a task that looks tough to say the least.
No doubt they will see tonight as one of the final real opportunities they will get to win a league match as they look to secure unlikely survival. The Gas have to have the same mentality because, even though they’re still out of the relegation zone at this moment in time, eight of their remaining 13 matches will come against teams currently in the top half with Bolton Wanderers set to be played twice.
Four consecutive defeats on the road means that Rovers currently have the worst away record in League One which will have to change if Inigo Calderon’s side are to survive relegation. They are not going to get a better opportunity to do so than tonight.
The season won’t be defined by this evening’s game but the result can certainly have a notable impact, positive or negative, on the direction the Gas’ campaign will head during the final two months.
Saturday’s defeat to Rotherham United was a real sucker punch but these players now have to pick themselves up and go again within a short space of time. Rightly, there are doubts in regards to how many will be able to do that. This is their chance to prove those doubters wrong.
Considering the tight turnaround, naturally there will be some rotation while there has also been discussion regarding whether it is time for a formation change after the relative success of a mid-game switch in the second half of Saturday’s game.
Here is how we think Rovers might line up at the Croud Meadow this evening…
Goalkeeper and defence
Jed Ward made a few strong saves against Rotherham but also had some shaky moments, making the overall assessment of his first five displays back in goal for Bristol Rovers as mixed. An error or two won’t, or at least shouldn’t, force a decision to make a change in between the sticks but the 21-year-old has real competition behind him in Myles Roberts who arrived in BS7 with some raving reviews. Realistically, a couple more underwhelming matches and you wonder whether Inigo Calderon will be tempted to gamble and make a change. For now, Ward is rightly number one and needs all the support he can get.
Ahead of the goalkeeper, although the switch to a back-three worked for a spell against Rotherham on Saturday, Calderon confessed it was more to do with the personnel he wanted to bring onto the pitch as well as the fact that the Gas were losing the match at that moment. Because of that, our guess is that he will opt to stick with a back-four for now.
At centre-back, James Wilson is a no-brainer but who partners him isn’t nearly as clear. Sil Swinkels has come into the building and scored two goals already and impressed on his first start for Rovers amid a slight knee issue for Connor Taylor. The word was that Taylor should be fine for tonight’s game but now it may not be as straightforward as it had been previously for the 23-year-old to get back into the side.
Realistically, if he was unable to make it on Saturday, the chances are that Tuesday might actually come around too soon and Swinkels has shown that he is more than capable of stepping in. Likewise, Taylor Moore came on for the back-three and did fine. Perhaps he will get some minutes again against his former loan side.
At full-back, Jack Hunt was rested for the Wycombe Wanderers match a fortnight ago which suggests that the same will happen here with Joel Senior coming in. Hunt was one of the better Rovers players of the first half on Saturday but, with his injury record, it is probably the right decision to give him a rest.
On the opposite side though, as much as Lino Sousa is improving, surely he’s only one poor moment or two away from losing his place? The Aston Villa loanee has plenty of likeable traits but was glided past far too easily by Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu for Rotherham’s equaliser on Saturday. Admittedly, the left-back was up against a player who is 10 years his senior and played in the Premier League last term but it wasn’t the first time he has been pinpointed for a goal against.
Calderon seeed to quickly make his mind up in regards to Clinton Mola but surely the 23-year-old would be the obvious choice to bring in should the Rovers head coach decide to make the change? The expectation is that Sousa will still keep hold of his place but the 20-year-old is coming under a fair bit of criticism with some of it justified.
Midfield
Hopefully he had eaten something dodgy before Saturday or something and will be back to normal tonight because Matt Butcher was well below the high standards he had set for himself in his first handful of matches in blue-and-white quarters. The midfielder was guilty of giving the ball away far more often than he would have liked on what, you would like to think, was a rare off day.
Unlike the last midweek match when he was ineligible to face his parent club, the 27-year-old is available this time around and will hopefully be back up to scratch because it has quickly become clear how much more of a well-oiled machine the Gas look when he is on his game.
Alongside Butcher, another player who was uncharacteristically disappointing on Saturday was Grant Ward who might have been brought back ahead of schedule from an ankle problem amid limited midfield options. You would expect that, once again, the 30-year-old won’t be able to play a full 90 minutes but with Romaine Sawyers understood to still be injured and Jamie Lindsay clearly low down in the pecking order under Inigo Calderon, a not quite fully fit Grant Ward is seemingly the best option.
In attacking midfield, although he was guilty of an unecessary and costly challenge in his own half late in the game on Saturday, Luke Thomas came on and put in the delivery for Sil Swinkels’ goal and is naturally Rovers’ best option the right-hand side.
Scott Sinclair was another player who was pretty underwhelming over the weekend, having scored against Northampton Town a week prior, while Shaq Forde is still suspended.
Elsewhere, Isaac Hutchinson’s goal contributions of late cannot be ignored. Even when it seems as though he is having a quiet game, he can pull out some real quality from nowhere and therefore is an asset and should be on the pitch.
Meanwhile, Ruel Sotiriou’s Gas career has certainly started to bear fruit under Calderon. Naturally, there is still plenty for the 24-year-old to work on but he has looked particularly effective out on the left-hand side and links up with his teammates well; his goal against Rotherham was delightful.
Fans will understandably call for Kofi Shaw to get minutes but if he wasn’t an academy graduate there wouldn’t be nearly as much fuss as there has been lately. The 18-year-old is obviously extremely talented and is set for a career at a level higher than the bottom end of League One. However, the severity of Rovers’ current situation cannot be underestimated and the chances of a teenager with just four career League One appearances being the solution to scoring enough goals to win points and survive are slim.
I would love to be proved wrong and Calderon has already insisted that Shaw will get minutes. Hopefully the game will be in a position where he can come off the bench and make a positive impact.
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Striker
If Promise Omochere is deemed fit enough to start then fair play but considering 30 minutes seemed to be the maximum Rovers were going to get out of the returning striker on Saturday, it seems unlikely that he will be able to start a game three days later.
The Irishman admittedly looked decent when he came on which bodes well for the remainder of the season, assuming he can stay fit. He had unfinished business the last time the striker came back from injury so this time around that point rings even more true.
I personally like the idea of playing Omochere up top with Chris Martin but it will naturally come with risks and said risks seem particularly hazardous at this moment in time. For now, starting Martin again with the intention of bringing on Omochere as and when is needed later in the game seems the most realistic option, especially considering the fact that the Gas really cannot afford to see the Irishman pick up another injury that rules him out for the remainder of the season.
Meanwhile, we are still yet to see much of Michael Reindorf who was left out of the squad for Omochere on Saturday while Gatlin O’Donkor is expected to be out for at least another few weeks yet.
Bristol Rovers XI (4-2-3-1): Jed Ward; Joel Senior, James Wilson, Sil Swinkels, Lino Sousa; Matt Butcher, Grant Ward; Luke Thomas, Isaac Hutchinson, Ruel Sotiriou; Chris Martin