I was that bored, I can barely remember how the game went so bear with me. I may have missed stuff. That said, I don't really care. Sort of Barnet match report online.

If there was ever an example of how horrible it is to watch Rochdale these days then the Barnet home match was it!  I'm a pretty negative person really but I don't think the most positive of people could have walked out of Spotland on Tuesday night happy.

It wasn't so much the result that was bad, it was bad don't get me wrong but the whole game from start to finish seemed to drag on forever.  In fact after about 20 minutes, I was praying for full time to come!

I suppose I'd best get on with reporting on it although that might be hard as I was trying to blank it out of my head at the time.  Anyway Dale went 4-4-2 again.  Tony Gallimore was dropped as expected despite being one of the best players on the pitch at Notts County and Alan Goodall reverted back to left back and Ernie Cooksey was brought into the side out of position on the left.  Scott Warner also came into the side instead of John Doolan and Lee Cartwright replaced Iyesden Christie as Parkin clicked on the "Randomize Team" button yet again that he seems to have somewhere. 

Dale lined up with Gilks, Ramsden, Goodall, Jackson, Griffiths, Cartwright, Cooksey, Warner, Jones, Dagnall, Lambert.  On the bench were Gallimore, Boardman, Kitchen, Warner and Sturrock.

Rochdale seemed to start the game later than everyone else and nearly conceded early on but Gilks managed to turn an effort away.

Barnet even had the ball in the net with just 5 minutes gone but Hatch handballed it when he tried to control it and as he put the ball in the net, the referee blew for the handball.

Rochdale did take the lead with about 25 minutes although I couldn't see the goal properly.  From where we were it looked like the last touch came off Ernie but somehow the ball seemed to go in off Chris Dagnall.

The lead only lasted about 5 minutes before the Djibril Cisse lookalike went over in the box after Griffiths stuck a leg out.  There wasn't any contact made but from where the referee was, as soon as Griff dived in, it was always going to be given.  Ian Hendon blasted the ball down the middle to make it 1-1.

Dale had a couple of chances to retake the lead but couldn't make the most of them.  Jones had a decent effort and Lambert showed some amazing skill to completely skin 3 defenders before cracking on from an angle.  His effort narrowly evaded 2 incoming Dale players and the post.

The half time break came and it felt like we'd been there forever.  The fact that there was a remaining 45 minutes plus stoppage time was annoying.

The second half was as bad as the first.

Daggers had a couple of decent efforts but they came to nowt.

In fact, I was that bored that we started talking about programmes on TV such as Dream Team and Lost.  I'd even tried to shut my eyes and imagine a different game in my head but it didn't work.

With about 10 minutes of the half gone, I was calling for another striker to come on as we seemed to be opening up the Barnet defence a little.  Sturrock was warming up for what seemed like about an hour but eventually made it on for Cartwright with 15 minute left.  I thought Carts had done alright but was just relieved we were going 4-3-3.  That was until Sven decided it would be better to put Sturrock on the right wing.  A baffling decision that left me wondering whether we had a manager at all or whether Homer Simpson was in charge, he may as well have been!

It got even stranger about 5 minutes later when it became apparent that Daggers was dropping back into midfield.  At this point we came to the conclusion that Sven was trying to make pretty shapes with his formation.  It was as confusing as the whole of Lost has been so far.

In all honesty, I gave up on the game at this point and didn't concentrate on the game so have no idea what went on in the remainder of the game but rest assured, there was bugger all worth reporting.

Photo: Action Images

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