Athletic found the going hard again against a Bristol Rovers team who set out their stall to stop the home side from scoring. It was the second consecutive league game at Boundary Park where a team came with that mentality as Yeovil adopted the same tactics in the last game. The Latics did recover their early season form after a shaky start and they managed to pepper the visiting goalkeeper with 21 shots but not necessarily all on target. Chris Taylor (pictured) was the only player to beat the opposing defence and it meant that the Latics again had to share the points even though the result still left them in third place in the league.
However, Paul Dickov was relatively happy with the way that his team played as he commented, “I thought we were excellent. We said to the boys that, with respect to Bristol Rovers, teams are coming here and settling for a draw. They are getting everybody behind the ball, time-wasting and doing everything they can to upset us. So we said it was important not to lose heart after 25 minutes. Because in the last two games we have done that. To be fair to the players, they kept at it and if we had won the game comfortably nobody would have argued. Going a goal down, it shows character to come back into the game. Saying that, Dean Brill made a fantastic save for us — but that was because we were the ones who were pushing on, trying to win the game.”
“I am disappointed with the result but not with the performance. In the first 20 minutes we defended very poorly and they got their goal, but we sorted that out at half-time. In the second half we had a right good go. We passed the ball well and created a few good chances. Everybody worked their socks off. We deserved to win. Their goal was slack defending by us, on the part of the whole back four. We weren’t on the front foot and didn’t anticipate or help out a team-mate, which is what we constantly tell the players to do. Apart from that, we were excellent. We had said before the game that if we were winning, I would not get involved. And that if we were drawing or losing towards the end of the game, I would possibly come on to try to liven things up a bit. It was always planned."