Emotional Night as Blues Host Bristol Rovers Monday, 12th Sep 2022 17:37 Blues manager Kieran McKenna is anticipating an emotional atmosphere when table-topping Town take on Bristol Rovers at Portman Road on Tuesday. The game will be preceded by a minute’s silence following the death last Thursday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and then the singing of the national anthem, while the players will be wearing black armbands. Fans of the two clubs are also expected to join together to show their support to Marcus Stewart, a legend both at Town and Rovers, who announced last week that he has motor neurone disease. Supporters on social media have been calling for applause and songs in the striker’s honour when the clock ticks over the 11-minute mark. The teams will wear warm-up T-shirts showing the clubs' support for Stewart and the Darby Rimmer MND Foundation, Town's bearing the number 11, which the striker wore in the Premier League with the Blues, and Rovers' number 14. “I think it will be a really good atmosphere,” McKenna said. “We’re looking forward to having the first game at Portman Road on a Tuesday night, it’s going to be emotional around the support around Marcus, emotional around the celebrations of the Queen’s lifetime. “But for us it’s really important that we keep that concentration towards doing our job on the pitch. And that’s been the message today. “It’s a difficult fixture this for clubs up and down the country because everybody had prepared for a fixture and put a lot of work in to that fixture I’m sure, and then all of a sudden that fixture’s off the table and you have to get ready for the next one very, very quickly. “That will be a challenge for all teams in this midweek fixture block and it’s certainly a challenge for us and we need to make sure that we apply ourselves really well, our concentration is really high, we manage to stay in the moment, live the game, do our details right on and off the ball and make sure that our concentration and focus is on delivering a performance.”
Rovers stormed from nowhere - they won 13 of their last 18 matches - to win automatic promotion from League Two on the final day of last season when they smashed Scunthorpe 7-0 to go up in spectacular style. They have started this campaign reasonably solidly and sit in 16th with eight points having won two, drawn two and lost three. Away from home they have won one - a 4-0 victory at Burton - and lost two, at Barnsley, 3-0, and Portsmouth, 3-1. “It was quite some run they went on, culminating on the last day,” McKenna reflected. “A brilliant story for them, a great run. “They’ve got a lot of good forward, attacking players. They had one or two really top end loanees as well at the back end of the season, so they got themselves on a great run and they’ve continued with a pretty solid start to this season. “We know they’re a difficult team, it’s going to be a good challenge, a really hard-working, high energy team. Positive in their approach, I think they’ll come and they’ll give us a game and they will try and impose themselves on the game and it should make for quite an exciting match.” McKenna says Gas boss Joey Barton is not somebody he knows: “He’s not someone I’ve come across before in football. He’s certainly done a very good job there with the promotion last season and they’ve made good additions over the summer, and have started this season in a pretty positive way. “I can see a really hard-working team who work hard for their manager and who play in a positive and aggressive spirit and that should make for a good match, so I’m looking forward to coming up against Bristol Rovers and seeing his team tomorrow night. We hope for a good match but we hope to come out on top.”
Rovers have the worst record for conceding goals at set pieces in League One having shipped five already this season. Is that a vulnerability McKenna will be hoping to exploit on Tuesday? “Yes, but, of course, we haven’t had too much time because up to Saturday, the focus was on Cambridge,” he said. “But we have looked at Bristol Rovers today and all their strengths and the things they do well. And also the things they haven’t done so well. “They have conceded a couple of set pieces this year, but they have changed their structure in the last few games and moved to a zonal system so that will negate some of the issues they have been having. And the goal against Morecambe in the last game was a 25-yard worldie from a short corner. “Like every team we play against, there are areas you want to target, but I think they are working on those areas. “It is such a small sample at this point that it is probably too early to say they are not good at that. We know we are going to have to get our routines, deliveries and attacking of the ball right if we are going to score a set piece.” McKenna is likely to stick essentially to the team which won at Accrington just over a week ago with Christian Walton in goal. The Blues boss will have to decide between Cameron Burgess and George Edmundson for the left-sided central defensive role with Luke Woolfenden and then Janoi Donacien to the right. Leif Davis will be the left full-back and Wes Burns wide on the right. Skipper Sam Morsy will be alongside Lee Evans in midfield with Marcus Harness and Conor Chaplin behind one of Freddie Ladapo, Kayden Jackson or Tyreece John-Jules with the summer signing from Rotherham perhaps getting the nod on this occasion.
Rovers manager Barton hopes his players will benefit from the extra training Saturday’s postponement - the Pirates were due to travel to the MK Dons - afforded them. “Every away game at this level is a test for us and we wouldn’t expect anything other than a tricky game at Portman Road,” Barton told his club’s official website. “However, we’ve had a good week’s training plus an extra break on Saturday and I am confident we will put up a good account of ourselves on Tuesday. “With no game at the weekend, we took the opportunity to have an extra training session and hopefully that will pay off. “There were positives from our last game against Morecambe [which they drew 2-2 at the Memorial Stadium] and things to work on. “Players that have been out are nearing a return, as well as those who have just joined but are still gearing up to speed in terms of match fitness, and it’s nice to have a headache in terms of team selection. “It’ll be another packed house at Ipswich and a partisan crowd and we’ll have to be on our mettle. There will be plenty of Gasheads there in full voice and we want to replay their faith with a performance to make them proud.” Rovers are expected to be without on-loan Everton defender Lewis Gibson, who has a calf injury, while Jordan Rossiter will be serving the second game of a three-match suspension. Defenders James Connolly (back) and James Gibbons (foot) and on-loan Middlesbrough forward Josh Coburn (knee) are also currently sidelined. Historically, the clubs are well matched with Town having won more overall and Rovers more often in league competition. The Pirates have won 15 (15 in the league) games between the clubs, nine (seven) have been draws with with Town victorious on 16 (10) occasions. Last time the teams met was in April 2021 when an opening-minute Luke Leahy own goal and Alan Judge's fourth of the season saw the Blues to a 2-1 victory at Portman Road, Luke McCormick netting for the Gas. Leahy unluckily diverted into his own net after 48 seconds, Judge added the second on 11, before McCormick brought the Gas back into the game on 18. In the preceding September at the Memorial Stadium, another Gas own goal, this time by Max Ehmer, and Jon Nolan’s second of the season saw Town to a 2-0 win over Rovers and to the top of the early-season League One table. The Blues had to wait until the 80th minute for Rovers skipper Ehmer to nod sub Jack Lankester’s cross into his own net with Nolan adding the second nine minutes later. The teams also met in the Carabao Cup at Portman Road earlier the same month when Freddie Sears scored twice and Luke Chambers once as the Blues ran out comfortable 3-0 victors. Tuesday’s referee is Alan Young from Cambridgeshire, who has shown 19 yellow cards and three red in five games so far this season, a late replacement for Tom Nield, who was originally down to cover the fixture. Young’s last Town match was the 4-0 win at Gillingham in January in which he red-carded Gills midfielder Daniel Phillips for a second bookable offence having also cautioned Janoi Donacien and one-time Blues academy youngster Stuart O’Keefe. Prior to that, he was in charge of the 2-1 defeat at Portsmouth in March last year in which he booked seven players, including then-skipper Luke Chambers, Gwion Edwards and Teddy Bishop. Young had only refereed one previous competitive Town first-team game but it was a memorable one from an officiating angle - the 0-0 home draw with Wycombe Wanderers in November 2019. Just before half-time, a Chambers header was diverted into his own net by Chairboys midfielder Curtis Thompson but Young wrongly disallowed it for offside having consulted linesman Aaron Farmer with the players already lined-up for the restart. In the second half, Blues keeper Holy stopped a Joe Jacobson penalty after Chambers had fouled David Wheeler with the offence appearing to have taken place outside the area. Earlier, Town had had penalty claim of their own turned down when Jon Nolan’s shot had struck Jacobson on the hand. Young was also busy with his cards that evening with Nolan, Donacien, Woolfenden, Kayden Jackson, Luke Garbutt and six visiting players all booked. Young had previously been in charge of Town’s 2-0 July 2012 friendly victory at Cambridge United and the 1-0 U21 Premier Cup defeat to Southampton at Portman Road in November 2014. Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Donacien, Woolfenden, Edmundson, Keogh, Burgess, Burns, Vincent-Young, Leigh, Davis, Morsy (c), Evans, Ball, Harness, Edwards, Chaplin, John-Jules, Ladapo, Jackson, Ahadme.
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