Peter Taylor's Wycombe put in a classic away performance at Spotland Yesterday, with Rochdale working hard for little reward. Full Match Report online now...

Keith Hill was forced to go with Le Fondre and Toner with Keltie taking ill and Shaw picking up an injury before the game.  

The starting eleven was… Russell, Ramsden, McArdle, Stanton, Kennedy, Buckley, Toner, Jones, Rundle, Le Fondre and Dagnall.  

Spencer, Wiseman, Lambert, Higginbotham and Thorpe were named as substitutes. 

The game went ahead after a minute’s applause for Paul Conway who was obviously a very popular man at Dale and will be sorely missed by everyone at Team: Rochdale or whatever the management call us these days! 

Peter Taylor came with a game plan quite similar to his predecessor, Paul Lambert, as Wycombe came to Spotland to knick a goal and snuffle out any Rochdale attack throughout the game and they executed that plan perfectly too. 

It seems to me that we haven’t really worked out how to take the game to teams who are happy to sit back after taking the lead.  

The answer to how we do that seems to have evaded both the players and management so far, but I’m sure they’ll work at it like the always do and with possible signings on the horizon when the loan window opens on Monday, we might be seeing the squad shaken around a bit during the next week or so. 

But back to the first half…

There weren’t many talking points with both sides working hard with little reward. Dagnall came closest for Rochdale as he broke through only to see his effort go narrowly wide. 

The biggest problem for both teams was the incompetent refereeing throughout the match with Jonathon Moss missing countless decisions for both sides throughout the game, which would have only have made the increasing frustration for both players and supporters worse! 

Unfortunately for Dale, having look solid enough for the first half an hour, our defence failed to clear the ball properly after a Wycombe corner with summer signing Chris Zebroski taking full advantage to put his side ahead. 

There weren’t really any other efforts to talk about in the first half with the only other highlight being McGleish joining in with the "Sandy Lane banter" by showing his gut to those behind the net… 

The second half was the same again for Dale with both Buckley and Rundle struggling to cause Wycombe’s defence any problems as they seemed to have an answer for everything that our confidence-lacking team had to throw at them! 

Hill decided change formation around the hour mark with Buckley being handed a well-earned rest with Lee Thorpe coming on to try and turn the game around for Dale. 

And to be fair to Thorpe, that’s what he did as Dale started to win challenges in the air and take control of the match.  

But despite Thorpe’s impressive performance, the team was still not looking any likelier to score which lead Hill to replace Toner and Dagnall with Lambert and Higginbotham as we returned to our normal shape for the final ten minutes. 

Dale continued to work hard after the substitutions with Adam Rundle’s powerful effort from distance seeing Shearer beat for a second time. Unfortunately for us, like Dagnall’s effort in the first half, it went wide. 

At full time the team was booed off by some supporters despite the week they’ve had and I just hope the management and players both know that the genuine Dale supporters don’t feel the same way!

Photo: Action Images

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