The wildly inconsistent Dale go to one of their better away grounds. Calvin Andrew is out for a couple of months with injury, however Keith Hill has managed to sign Grant Holt until the end of the season...
Scors will be anything from 8-0 to 0-8.
Dale team: Lillis in goal, Henderson and 9 others outfield.
I was very confident after the Peterborough and Southend wins but it sounds as if a stomach bug is doing the rounds and Josh Cullen is definitely out (two games, two wins and two miles better performances since he came in from West Ham), Lee Evans should be ok apparently, hopefully Knott comes in. 2-1 City.
Is it just me, or are they a bogey side for us at Valley Parade. I can't remember many recent wins against 'em at home.
Anyway, apparently the new saviour, Josh Cullen, is out for this one. However, we've heard this many times before from Parkinson, and he has then duely started said injured player, and there wasn't really anything wrong with said player at all! Parkinson's way of mind games, I suppose. Not that it'll ever effect the way the opposition set up, given they've one job all game, and that's to prevent Hanson dictating play.
.....I'm rambling again.
Team;
Ben Williams
Stephen Darby
Rory McArdle
Reece Burke
James Meredith
Tony McMahon
Lee Evans
Billy Knott/Josh Cullen
Kyel Reid
Wes Thomas
James Hanson
Subs;
Nathan Clarke
Billy Clarke
Stephen Davies
Jamie Proctor
Mark Marshall
Greg Leigh
Dale were pretty lucky to win here last year so hopefully the bogey side thing is going. I can't see us winning 3 in a row either though because we are too average.
Rochdale played well, as usual when they come to VP played at high intensity, treated it as a proper game. I can only deduce from their shite position that they seem to love playing at ours because they wouldn't be where they are if they played like that every week.
Poor from us really, defence looked shaky and central midfield was non existent, Hanson did nowt all first half and Tony McMahon bails us out again with his set pieces. As I said didn't think we'd win three on the bounce so at least we didn't lose.
Open game, I left naturally disappointed that we'd not taken a good opportunity to win three on the bounce but to come from behind twice has some positives, likewise 7 points from 9 out of Peterborough, Southend and Rochdale is decent. To say that defence has been pretty much the same all season, they looked like strangers at times today, and too often did we gift possession back to Rochdale, credit to them for their high tempo play. Special mention also to the most one sided referee I've seen in a long time too, I imagine he's still blowing his whistle right now as he drives over the tops back to Rochdale.