Matt Taylor has stated that he’s getting closer to deciding on his best Bristol Rovers lineup and that the team’s recent layoff was “needed” in preparation for their trip to Huddersfield Town this coming weekend.
After defeating Burton Albion and Charlton Athletic back-to-back earlier this month, Rovers ended a run of four straight League One losses. However, they then suffered a crushing 4-0 loss on the road against Swindon Town in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy.
Nine changes from the Burton victory were made in the team that took on the League Two team, who had recently been having trouble in the fourth division, while Swindon made numerous changes of their own.
Following that loss, Taylor said he would be working with a smaller group of players because it showed that the Gas’ squad depth isn’t as good as people may think. Nonetheless, for the first time this season in the league, the Rovers manager started the game with the same lineup against Burton (3-1), suggesting that he is beginning to develop a notion of his best possible lineup.
Getting nearer to it,” Taylor said in response to a question concerning his strongest eleven. As a manager, your immediate group of 12 to 14 players is where you always look first because you know what to expect.
Every game, there is still some uncertainty in the squad. We are looking for players who can produce, but there seems to be a consensus right now that there are about a dozen who have outperformed the others in terms of consistency and general knowledge.
“I think you probably saw that in the two league fixtures to finish with. We felt we had a little bit more consistency, a little bit more of a rhythm in our game and a better level of outcome and performance. Hopefully we’ll be able to pick that back up this weekend.
“Some of them needed it,” he added on the recent break. “Some of them more so on the back of the Swindon game where they just needed to take a little bit of time away from the round thing and a bit of grass and just spend time thinking about other things because that put us in a difficult position. So I think it was needed and it seems to have put us in a good place.
“The guys have received excellent instruction. We followed my advice from the [Swindon] game, which was to either reduce the lineup or remove a few players. It seemed to have worked, at least at the beginning of the week, to not carry as many guys on the outside or outside of it and instead to focus on the 14 to 18 players who are truly going to contribute to the pitch. I’ll keep an eye on that.”
Rovers was supposed to host Blackpool on Saturday, October 12, but the match was postponed until a new date was finalized since the Tangerines fulfilled the requirements for international call-ups.
Just two League One games were played during the weekend’s international break. Taylor saw Shrewsbury Town defeat Crawley Town 5-3, and Salop will be at the Mem on Tuesday, October 22. But only three games continued during the break, with the Gas’s trip to Barnsley counting as one of them. This marked the first time this season that they have taken a longer hiatus from action.
Rovers’ lone international was Michael Forbes, who traveled with Northern Ireland Under-21s and started in an away 0-0 tie against Luxembourg Under-21s. Nevertheless, the break gave the team a chance to spend time apart, which appears to have helped everyone.
Asked about the time off, Taylor revealed: “Well obviously the lads have trained this week. We had a little reset in terms of rest and a couple of days away from each other back end of last week. The first opportunity to do that really at this point in the season.
“We realize it was perhaps a later chance because the Blackpool game was canceled later than other games, but we still felt it was beneficial to give the players a little alone time. Continue to perform their physical duties as experts do, and then return this week and step it up a notch.
“I was lucky I got to go to a game at the weekend so it wasn’t all just rest and recuperation, there was still a little bit of work going on.”
