FUZZYDUCK'S FOOTIE: Doncaster Rovers v Colchester United

Last Time Out....

12785 saw Rovers dominate the Blades but be forced to settle for a point in an South Yorkshire Derby thriller. A second penalty in two games from Billy Paynter and a third in three games for David Syers looked to have given Rovers the points but the Blades had other ideas.

In the last 10 minutes, they won a penalty that Nick Blackman duly converted; Billy Paynter was sent off after a clash with Tony McMahon and immediately after that Dave Kitson scored after a scramble to give the Blades a point they hardly deserved.

After the game, an understandably disappointed Dean Saunders raged against the referee. He cited three decisions; not sending off Blades' 'keeper George Long for the foul on Dave Syers that gave Rovers their penalty; the award of United's penalty and the sending off of Billy Paynter as decisions that the referee got wrong.

My opinion? Dean's correct on the sending off of Long. Syers was in the process of rounding the 'keeper when fouled and therefore the incident would resulted in an obvious goal-scoring opportunity had he no been fouled. That's all that's needed for a red card. The Laws of the Game say nothing about whether players get back or not. This is a media invented guideline.

However I do think the Blades' penlaty was fair. Andy Griffin was hauling on Ironside's shirt and he went down. Its a penalty.

On the final one, sadly the cameras didn't catch the incident between Paynter and McMahon so I can't give an opinion. Rovers have said that they won't be appealing the red card as the match video didn't catch the incident.

Meanwhile...

Colchester's poor form continued with a 3 : 0 away defeat at Crawley. It was an opportunity for the Us as Crawley had gone nine weeks previously without a win at home.

It took just 5 minutes for the home side to take the lead. Mark Cousins kept out Josh Simpson's goal-bound header only to present Mark Connolly with a tap in. Colchester tried to get on terms before the break and enjoyed the majority of possession. Unfortunately, after the break they were limited to just 1 shot on goal as Crawley finished off the job.

A poor clearance from Cousin's allowed Billy Clarke to fire home on 71 minutes two minute from the end, Nicky Adams was put through by Hope Akpan to chip over the 'Keeper.

Looking at the game, I saw all kinds of problems on the right-hand side of the Us defence. Players left unmarked, players getting the wrong side of the defender you name it, it was happening. I also saw some occasions where the ball carrier was put under so little pressure that he could basically do what he wanted. The best example was when a midfielder was allowed to chip the ball up before hitting a long volleyed pass to a running striker who nearly scored.

Colchester Manager Joe Dunne is obviously becoming frustrated with the Us giving away sloppy goals, claiming that he could simply take a tape recorder into the dressing room and press play as they are saying the same things over and over again.

Earlier this season...

David Cotterill was the U's main tormentor. Three minutes in, he latched onto a suicidal ball out from Cousin's to loop in the opener. Magnus Okuonghae on the half hour gave the Us some hope with a deflected shot from the edge of the area that went in off the post. After the break, Cotterill's dangerous free-kick was headed by Andrew Bond into his own net.

The Season So Far...

Not good for the Us! 20th place coming into the New Year and 4 points behind 19th (Oldham) with a game in hand. Below them, Portsmouth will take a 10-point penalty but then there are still Bury and Scunthorpe only two points adrift.

What is more worrying for the Us is that things are currently getting worse rather than better. They come to the Keepmoat with 9 defeats in the last 10 outings. Prior to that, they had a period of 5 wins and a draw from 7, which included the scalps of Stevenage and Swindon.

With things looking especially bleak for Portsmouth and Hartlepool, Colchester need to recapture that form to pull themselves clear of the third and fourth relegation places.

The league tables show that Colchester's home record is actually similar to that of the Rovers. It's not too surprising then, that in the comparison of results against the same opponents, Colchester have actually fare better than Donny at home, gaining three more points in this fixtures.

But unfortunately for Colchester, they are not at home on Saturday. Away from home, only Hartlepool have a worse record.

And so to the game

That awful away record plus awful form at the moment should mean that Rovers will be too strong for the Us. Currently, the Us are needing an average of 13 shots to register on the scoreboard. So far this season, they have achieved more than 13 shots in a game just twice away from home this season.

The goal distribution shows difficulties coming to the end of games. In the last 15 minutes of games, they have a -8 goal difference so do they tire?

At this stage, I don't think anyone can see an away win apart from the most optimistic Colchester fans. According to reports on the forums, a maximum of 100 look like making the trip up North so it would seem very few of them feel this way.

But I bet the same was said of Hartlepool on Boxing Day!

Rovers could have a small striker crisis going into the game. Billy Paynter will be suspended after that red card on New Year's day; Chris Brown and Robbie Blake are both injured. Iain Hume was substituted on New Year's day. The word on the forums is that the change was due to cramp so Hume should be OK for Saturday. I hope they're right!

Other than that, they have secured their first signing of the January transfer window, with midfielder Lee Fowler joining from Fleetwood Town. Paul Quinn is doubtful and so Andy Griffin, who has signed until the end of the season could come in.

For the Us, loan signing George Porter will be pushing to start after making his debut from the bench on New Year's day and their attcking options have been increased some more with Dominic Samuel joining from Reading. But there are a few setbacks in defence. Josh Thompson must serve a suspension after a red card against Brentford and West Ham have recalled Dan Potts.

The referee for the game is Tony Bates, a 51 year old from Staffordshire. Tony has reffed games in all three football league divisions this season showing on average 2.6 yellow cards per game. In his 14 matches this season, he has shown just 1 red card.

Forum Corner

After the smash and grab raid made by Sheffield United, the Rovers Forum released chagrin in the direction of Dave Kitson. Kitson was of course responsible for cheating his way to two goals in Portsmouth's 4 : 3 win over Rovers last season (an amazing game, never before have I seen a team score 3 goals that I would have disallowed). Its made him the man Rovers' fans love to hate. Unfortunately, he thrives on the bad-boy image so I preferred Dean Saunders' reaction when asked about Kitson's over the top goal celebration.

"I'm not interested in Dave Kitson" said Saunders bluntly. Let's see him thrive on that!

After initial disdain for the referee's decisions, it was good to see changes of opinion being put in writing after seeing the video. I've seen Rover' fans agreeing with the ref on all three decisions in hindsight. Sporting as ever!

Sadly, there's always a couple of fans who having seen a very good performance cannot help themselves by voicing undue criticism. One blamed the substitutions even though all three were enforced; another tweeted in to drfc_official that "another lead had been thrown away #silly". If the tweeter had checked this blog, they would have known that we'd actually just lost our first points of the season from a winning position #illinformed!

On Colchester's cu-fcchat.com the first thing that struck me was an "Always look on the bright side of life" (Optomists Anonymous) thread that wasn't hijacked by the doom-mongers. As one poster says, Luton, Darlington, Chester, Halifax, Grimsby, Mansfield, Cambridge, Wrexham, Lincoln, Plymouth and, believe it or not, Bristol Rovers are in worse shape than Colchester. Very true but after losing 9 from 10, I can accept it's hard to appreciate.

Another thread suggests that Dunne be sacked and replaced with Sean O'Driscoll. I'd suggest that about 25% of clubs in the football league have fans suggesting O'Driscoll as a manager and most of fans posting on the thread are realistic enough to doubt whether Sean could be attracted to Essex. But the thread did reveal how fans felt about the current management. The original post and the comments make for a 50/50 split on sacking Dunne.

Whatever is decided, the U's have a tough second half of the season in front of them, and I wish them luck.