‘One word to describe Rovers-Swindon: Karma’

Karma. A one word tweet from our owner, aimed at Swindon’s chairman, after our win at the County Ground on Tuesday, at the second time of asking. Sometimes one word does the job better than a thousand.

Rovers fans can’t truly believe in karma; otherwise we’d all have won the lottery as some kind of cosmic payback for the days stood in the cold, watching limp, lifeless teams wear the quarters and languish in the lower reaches of England’s fourth tier, and sometimes below, for much of this fledgling century.

But Tuesday night’s win makes you wonder… We were behind for so much of the game after their early goal, missing chance after chance. And then suddenly, in the blink of an eye (OK, 45 seconds), we’d gone from a goal down to 2-1 up, late in the day.

Scenes reminiscent of the 1999 Champions League final, except in Swindon on Tuesday night- and without Clive Tyldesley ruining it with awful lines of obviously scripted commentary. Or any frightful Man Utd fans.

They’ve had a bad few days over at Swindon. They had scored an equaliser in their home game against Bury on Saturday, only for the linesman to change his mind and rule it out as offside, over a minute after it was given!

They ended up losing by a single goal too. For me, our win was karma for the farcical decision to charge fans again for Tuesdays game, but their disallowed goal on Saturday was karma for the day this columnist stood in Twerton Park, ten years old, quite upset at losing 4-1 to the Wiltshire side, having had an equalising goal of our own in similar circumstances. Not that I’m bitter… you understand.

Speaking of tweets from Tuesday night, one of my own stands out:

Four Four Two with wide midfielders and two up front. What exactly is difficult about that

— Hodges777 (@Hodges777) September 20, 2016

I really struggle with Darrell Clarke’s constant changing of formation; in my (admittedly unqualified) view, we have the personnel to play a very simple, very English, two banks of four, wide midfielders putting crosses into two strikers.

It’s not going to get me a job at a broadsheet newspaper or a tactics blog where they like to go into much more detail; but this is lower league football – I honestly don’t think tactical genius is required. And, after all, 4-4-2 served us very well last season. So far this term, we’ve seen 5-3-2, 3-5-2, a diamond midfield, and on Tuesday, 4-3-3 was the order of the day.

I’m happy to admit (for now) that Darrell was vindicated; we won the game, and the last two results back up his strategy of treating every game as a separate project.

Plus, his double promotion in real life makes my impressive Football Manager CV look less impressive (though he’s never led Bath City into the Football League, unlike someone). But if we start losing, even though I worship the guy, expect more bleating about the merits of 4-4-2 soon.

The first of those two results was a decent point away at Bradford. As many predicted, they look a decent bet for the play-offs, and it was a game many would’ve settled for a point in.

The best draws, if you’ve got to settle for a point, are ones where your team equalises, and Charlie Colkett’s thunderous late strike certainly gave the travelling Gas faithful something to look back and smile at. Not to forget Kelle Roos’ genuinely world-class save in the eighth minute of stoppage time.

Colkett is certainly making a name for himself already – in a crowded field of candidates to start games in central midfield, he’s certainly near the top of the list. Roos, too, is winning most of us over after a start where, from my view, he was harshly judged for a couple of goals going in.

What’s telling about recent games is that the team’s fitness levels are right where they should be; we don’t know when we’re beaten and we’ve got enough in the tank to fight right until the 90th minute (or the 98th minute if your game is held up by lightweight aircraft!).

Port Vale and Sheffield United lie in wait before I write again; both teams sit in the top six. Based on nothing but gut instinct and encouragement at two good performances of late, I’m going to back us for a 2nd home win of the season on Saturday.

As for Sheffield United, Darrell will set us up like he did at Bradford (4-4- 2!) and we’ll be good value for a point in our first league trip to Bramall Lane since God was a boy. But if I’m wrong, blame the manager!