Rovers v Blues

DONCASTER ROVERS
-V-

BIRMINGHAM CITY

Another big night at the Keepmoat and once again both sides will be after all the points for opposite reasons.  Birmingham still have a good chance of an immediate return to the top-flight.  Birmingham sit in 6th place with a game in hand on all rivals.  The 13 point gap to the automatic places is surely too much to make up before the end of the season, but the Blues will be sick as a parrot if they don't maintain that play-off place.

Rovers?  Well despite everything, amazingly they are still only 4 points away from safety with the 21st placed club, Bristol with a goal difference that is comparable to our shocking -30.  I've seen it as a season where sides just haven't wanted to get themselves safe.  Three of te bottom four look like going down, but Forest and/or Millwall could still yet be pulled back into the dogfight.

At St. Andrews, Rovers did not make a bad fist of it, and by all accounts were unlucky to lose by the odd goal in three.  Marlon King was our nemesis that night, netting twice to vastly reduce the importance of Marc-Antoinne Fortune's opener.  A good game, hopefully matched tonight with a better outcome!

DONCASTER ROVERS

Tuesday night's game was more like it!  Loads of effort from the Rovers and decent performances from the players who need to perform if we are going to pull off the great escape.  But it was only a draw.  A hard-earned, well deserved single point.  But well done all the same, especially to Chris Brown for coming off the bench after so long out and making a real impact.

All that hard was undone again by a simple mistake.  It was Adam Lockwood this time, losing possession on the edge of his own area to Wilfred Zaha of all people.   but if that was the story of our season, what followed wasn't.  Rovers kept going and got the point when Chris Brown turned in Diouf's header after it had come off a Palace defender.

Can Donny do it?  Well, I've been resigned to their fate for some time now.  We just cannot put together a consistent sequence.  But four other clubs haven't been able to do that either so, when we really should be dead and buried, we've still got a chance.  But that consistent run has to happen.  Now!

BIRMINGHAM CITY

A big side with lots to play for.  Just the way Rovers like them this season!  

I'd just settled down to watching 30 minutes of Birmingham v Cardiff when I realised that I didn't have that long.  So this summary is from the 5 minutes of highlights, which looked great incidentally.  

Has anybody every seen Chris Burke have a bad game?  He really showed up in this one against his former club.  His pace for the first goal, breaking from way within his own half was frightening and far too much for the left side of Cardiff's defence.  When he got to the byline, his pull back was perfect, Erik Huseklepp couldn't really miss.

It was also good to see former Rovers loanee, Jordan Mutch having a good game.  There was a good, long-range effort, not quite as far as the cracker he scored as a consolation for Rovers in a 4:1 defeat against Middlesborough, but good all the same.  Mutch also won a penalty with a strong run at the right side of the Cardiff defence.  Now that's something I don't remember from his Keepmoat days.

Defensively, Birmingham were making a hash of getting the ball away in the highlights I saw.  Anything long, into the box could end up half-cleared and coming straight back.  I also was smiling at the way the defence dropped back to guard the area, allowing the Cardiff midfield to play about 40 yards out.  I remember a team a couple of seasons ago who would have loved that sort of thing.

We can but hope we make hay with such behaviour tonight!  Enjoy the game everybody!