Rivals is back online so here is Saturday's match report and player ratings. Not a pleasant day by any stretch of the imagination and believe me it wasn't nice going through it again writing this.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.  A match that many thought we could win given that Wycombe had to lose sometime and Tuesday's horrible defeat to Grimsby would mean the players would surely look to show some bouncebackability.

That didn't quite work out.  In fact, that was about as far away as possible as Dale crumbled to an embarrassing 3-0 defeat.  Now I know that Wycombe are a very good side and aren't top of the league for nothing but we were absolutely awful.  Not only was the performance woeful and caused us to lose but we've now lost two players for the coming games.  Grant Holt was booed off the pitch by his own supporters after a total rush of blood to the head or pure stupidity, not sure which actually, saw him sent off for violent conduct.  He joined "The Regulator" Warren Goodhind in the changing rooms after he'd been sent off for two yellow cards. 

I was calling for Parkin to change things after Tuesday night and he did.  We changed to a 4-4-2 and Lee Cartwright and Tommy Jaszczun came back into the eleven.  Rory McArdle was dropped, as was Blair Sturrock after particularly poor performances on Tuesday.  Bizarrely Jamie Clarke, one of our better players at Grimsby, was also dropped.  The Dale line-up was:  Gilks, Goodhind, Griffiths, Gallimore, Jaszczun, Cartwright, Brisco, Jones, Goodall, Holt and Lambert.

Things started off well enough and Dale looked as though they might be able to compete with the league leaders.  A corner was swung in early on and Griffiths headed goalwards but Talia managed to pull off a stunning save to keep it out.

Despite Dale having the early pressure, Wycombe took the lead with about ten minutes gone and it was all too familiar poor defending from Rochdale.  Tommy Mooney picked up the ball on the edge of the area and fooled two players into diving in and turned away from them creating the space to shoot and he fired past Gilks into the bottom corner.  "Here we go again" was my immediate feeling.

We didn't let it get to us though like we did on Tuesday and we continued to have a couple of excellent chances.  The first came from the captain Gary Jones.  Lee Cartwright put in a magnificent cross right on Jones' bonce but the ball sailed over the cross bar.

Next up was Alan Goodall.  He had a pot shot from about 30 yards out on the volley and saw his effort go about an inch over the bar and onto the roof of the net.

Kevin Betsy who terrorised us at Spotland had me laughing when he had a shot which went out for a throw in!

Gary Jones had another excellent chance when he was put one on one with Talia but it was a poor effort which Talia saved fairly comfortably.

Half time came and although Wycombe looked a decent side, we matched them and caused them problems. 

Then began the nightmare. 

Matthew Gilks made it 2-0 with an absolutely awful error.  Tommy Jaszczun passed the ball back to him from 20 yards and seemingly no danger but Gilks took an age to clear the ball and booted it straight at Griffin who closed him down and the ball looped past Gilks, off the bar and Mooney headed the ball in from about a yard.

Gilks has been the talking point of many threads on the messageboard with a lot of criticism flying his direction.  You could see why with this blunder and if you weren't there at Wycombe, I'd advise you not to watch Football League Review as it was painful enough at the time.

That was it then, game set and indeed, match.  I certainly didn't anticipate what was still to come. 

"The Regulator" Warren Goodhind decided he'd been on the pitch long enough and got himself a second yellow card for pulling back the long haired girl by his ponytail.  Torres had been running the show for Wycombe.  A stupid thing to do and Parkin wasn't amused.

If he wasn't amused with Goodhind, he'd have been absolutely bloody fuming with Grant Holt!  He was showing signs of frustration and was diving in a bit.  He got tackled and landed on his arse so in retaliation, he dived in two footed wrapping his legs round the lad and brought him down.  Had he been going for the ball it might have been slightly different but the ball was long gone so, he was off, no questions asked.  Not only that but his stupidity wasn't appreciated by the 300 Dale fans who made the trip and they made their feelings know by booing Holt off the pitch and rightfully so.  Many comments were made with "Is that his last action for Dale?" being the main question from quite a few lips.

Their were some outstanding performances from Rochdale though at this point.  Tommy Jaszczun was outstanding at giving the ball away and limping.  He seems to do a lot of both.  Jamie Clarke was brought on to replace him.  Neil Brisco was outstanding at wandering round a pitch aimlessly and having no impact on the game whatsoever.  He was finally subbed off to the relief of the Dale fans and Lionel Blair Sturrock came on.

Formations went out of the window and Dale fans had accepted that the game was over for them despite about half an hour being left.  We even started pleading with Tommy Mooney to score us a goal with the song "Can you score a goal for us?"  He laughed along and gave us a thumbs up though he didn't manage to.

One thing did make us laugh and that was Charlie Griffin missing from a yard out after a great cross came in from the right.  He wasn't laughing at the time but he was a minute or so later when he did score to finish the show.  In a similar fashion, a cross came in from the right and he finished it on the turn.  An awful clearance from the touchline went as far as the edge of the area and the cross found Griffin all alone.

Several more sarcastic chants like "Can we play you every week?", "You're so **** it's unbelievable", "Top of the league, you're having a laugh" and "You're staying down with the Rochdale" were heard before we were finally allowed to get out of there and sulk on the way home.

I came away from the ground totally dejected and angry.  For a few days, I actually thought we might be able to achieve promotion!  At least that was my attitude on the way out.

No more of it please Rochdale!!!

Player Ratings:

Matt Gilks 4 Couple of decent saves but a horrendous error costing us the second goal

Warren Goodhind 5 Poor, stupidly sent off in the second half

Tommy Jaszczun 4 Awful game from Rock On Tommy.  Not sure he passed one to a yellow shirt all game

Gareth Griffiths 6 Had a positive impact and we looked better with him

Tony Gallimore 6 Not too bad, can't blame him for the goals

Lee Cartwright 6 Uninvolved second half but looked quite good in the first

Alan Goodall 5 A poor game for Gooders

GARY JONES 7 Man of the Match by a country mile.  Not great technically but he showed he wanted to win unlike the others

Neil Brisco 4 Blooming awful.  When does his contract expire?

Rickie Lambert 5 Poor and ineffective throughout

Grant Holt 4 Not even going explain why, see the full report!

Sub:  

Jamie Clarke 6 Did ok when he came on

Blair Sturrock 6 Ran about a bit, but uninvolved

Paul Tait 6 On for about 20 minutes and had a better impact than the other two!!

Photo: Action Images

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