Jangleberry has come out of retirement to write the match report for Saturday's win over Macclesfield Town. Full match report with his player ratings online now.

After only 1 win in 14 games, a betting man wouldn't have put money on a Rochdale win at Macclesfield, but the betting man would have been wrong as Dale cruised to a 3-1 win, with Rickie Lambert running the game throughout. 

The victory became Dale's third 'double' of the season after beating both Shrewsbury and Torquay in both games. The win taking Dale up to 44 points and probably a couple of wins from guaranteed safety. 

4-3-3 was the formation of choice for Dale as Chris Dagnall returned to the side. Rory McArdle returned to the side in place of Jon Boardman, and it was to be a special afternoon for the on-loan defender. 

Dale had the better of the opening exchanges and Christie went close with a shot he had to stretch for, but Fettis watched it go narrowly wide of the Macclesfield goal. 

Macclesfield came into the game a bit more then and had a lot of the ball but in all honesty couldn't force Gilks to make any sort of save. 

Dale took the lead when a corner was only half cleared and the ball found its way to Rickie Lambert out wide. His deep cross was headed into the net by Rory McArdle, who up until the goal had put in one of his trademark 'shocking' performances at the back. But that was all to change. From the moment the goal went in Rory was transformed and played his best 70 minutes or so of football whilst he has been at Dale. 

The first half seemed to fizzle out and Dale went in at half time a goal to the good. The second half got off to a great start for the visitors as they doubled their lead within minutes. Lambert had a low effort parried by the keeper from the edge of the box, and Iyesden Christie stole in from a tight angle to smash the ball in off the inside of the post and a combination of 3 Macc defenders trying in vain to keep the ball out. 

Dale sat back on their lead and were punished a few minutes later. A scramble in the box somehow saw John Miles hook a shot from a couple of yards towards the bottom corner as Galli and Gilks got in each others way trying to keep it out.

Bad almost turned to worse a few minutes later as Macc had the ball in the net again. Giant striker Matt McNeil stormed into the box, and put the ball into the net, thankfully the ref saw a push on a Dale defender in the build up and the goal was disallowed. 

At this point most were expecting Dale heads to drop and Macc to grab an equaliser and probably go on and win the game, but today it just wasn't to be, as Dale went on and grabbed a winner. 

Despite numerous attempts by Dagnall and Christie to seal the game, it was left to Rickie Lambert to show them how its done, as he grabbed his 16th goal of the season. A strong run from Ernie Cooksey down the right wing produced an inch perfect cross for Lambert to guide the ball into the net with a glancing header. 

Finally a win for Dale, and a much deserved one at that. Play-offs still a possibility? Probably not, but we are edging our way to that magical 50 points mark to stay up. 

Ratings: 

Gilks - 6 - Rarely called into action, kicking was improved today 

Ramsden - 8 - His best game for the club since joining 

Gallimore - 7 - Glad he is back, he has been missed 

McArdle - 6 - Up to the goal he was awful, but improved no end after that 

Bayliss - 7 - Another consistent performance, very intelligent defender 

Cooksey - 6 - Failed to get into the game at times, but set up the 3rd goal 

Doolan - 6 - Played some good passes around 

Jones - 8 - Ran the midfield, full of running and effort 

Dagnall - 7 - Poor in the first half, but was excellent in the last 20 minutes 

Christie - 7 - Gets some unfair stick, causes a lot of problems for opposing teams 

Lambert - 9 - MOTM - Set up two and scored the other, a great return to the Moss Rose for Rickie. 

Photo: Action Images

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