County v Bristol Rovers: Match Thread (24/08/2024)

Feel good factor continues
As a highly confident
County turn on the style
Taking this one 2-1

Today's game is also on Sky Sports+ on the red button.

The audio is bloody awful right now, the commentator sounds like a Normal Collier tribute (younger fans will probably need to Google him), but at least the stream is steady - for now.

Fantastic strike from Louie, 3 in 3 in the league now. Who's betting against him breaking his consecutive scoring record from last season?

Beautifully simple goal - corner, centre back heads back across goal, centre forward taps it in.
Let's hope we face static defence like this every week!

The big positive for me is that we have adapted well to the new level and we will expect other teams to have chances and we need to take ours! Really well worked goal.
I was hoping at best for five points at this stage but would have taken four. 42 points from safety…

The start (of both halves, but especially the 1st) was uncharacteristic for a DC side. Yes, Bristol was perhaps a little energetic in closing, but we were very sloppy, inviting pressure with FKs and cheap turnover. I thought it was maybe 20 in that it evened up but the quality from both sides remained average.

Diamond played off shape off the right at times, asking decent questions of their defence. They had the same completely free back post header that Horsfall later assisted from for Wootton, but they couldn't turn it into anything. It was ultimately a long ball, not cleared well, that got picked up and finished (with yet another wonder strike from Barry) that separated the two sides come HT.

After another slow start, the second half grew into a generally better performance. I imagine the tactical instructions were what was being seen - Mingi began to try to progress the ball and Camps seemed to take a few yards more advanced. Both thing established us nicely. The relatively early introduction of Fevrier seemed to inject energy and Norwood found him well from range on more than one occasion. And it was that combination which led to the corner from which we scored, after Fevrier had got off a shot from the edge of the box.

A few lapses led to chances (one looked very good) for them, but that it was hard to tell the difference between Bristol at 0-0, 0-1, or 0-2 is perhaps why it felt comfortable. There was strangely no sense of belief from them, I thought... or perhaps they're extremely good at hiding their spirit when they're losing.

A super start to League One.

Norwood has been training at Carrington for a while, Lennie, so there would have been a good few opportunities for him to practise dead-ball deliveries before actually signing.

Agree with your assessment of him today - he did really well for a first competitive match in three or four months, and his reading of the game looked spot on.