Winless Wimbledon Trip

You can't help but feel our torrid luck with injuries and suspensions is going to get worse before it gets better. That's certainly the case heading in to the Accrington game this weekend. Forget the fact we lost 3-1 to AFC Wimbledon last night, the worst news was the silly red card shown to Tom Parkes and the injury sustained by Garry Kenneth in the dying minutes - arguably two of our most important players. Utterly mind-boggling that to heap further misery on Mark McGhee, both our centre halves have become absentees for the foreseeable future, adding to the ridiculous number of injuries we already have on our books. The footballing gods dislike Bristol Rovers, don't they?

Adam Virgo started up front against the Wombles

Kenneth injured his leg and hobbled around the pitch in the dying seconds of injury time, whilst indisciplined Parkes picked up two yellow cards for stupid fouls. It leaves us ridiculously short in defence.

We lost the game in the first half an hour of the clash at the Cherry Red Records stadium by conceding 3 goals. Kenneth netted an own goal, whilst Will Antwi and Rashid Yussuf completed the scoring for the home side, who are now level on points with Rovers. We couldn't defend and we showed no signs that we were (near enough) the same team of players who outplayed Torquay United 3 days previously. There was no passing from our back four or midfield and we had no real efforts on goal in the first half. After our really decent recent form it was embarrassing to see us play as poorly as we did throughout the entire game. The only positive to take from our lacklustre display was Tom Eaves' superb strike from 25 yards that flashed past Seb Brown with quarter of an hour left to play. Other than that and there was nothing at all to get excited about for Gasheads.

It could well be a minor blip. I hope so. But it's alarming that we can play so poorly against weak opposition and play well against other teams. We should have more consistency and strength in the team, regardless of who we field in the starting eleven. Okay, it's not ideal that Adam Virgo started the game up front - his record in the team is abysmal to say the least - but we should have had more than enough to go out and win the game. McGhee kept the players in for a long time after the final whistle and who can blame him? He must be perplexed that stand-out players like Oli Norburn were anonymous last night after performing so well in the last match. We can't be judged until we've been able to field our strongest 11 for a few games on the bounce, and obviously that won't happen until we get our injured players back, but it's frustrating because it's taking so long. The situation won't improve for Accrington Stanley at the weekend, with the exceptions of Fabian Broghammer and Derek Riordan, both of whom McGhee hoped would be fit to feature. Knowing our luck though they'll be struck down with flu or something similar.

I'd like to think we could still go to Accrington and win but I'm not as confident now. They won't roll over and die on their own patch and will sense blood when they see our depleted squad. Expect a battle. I'll be there, stupidly, on the freezing cold terrace cheering on the boys - hopefully they can deliver 3 points to reward me and the other loyal supporters! Perhaps the fact it's my birthday will bring us some luck? (I doubt it as I recognise that God is a shithead!)