Rochdale (A) The Underhill and Dale Match Thread

[Bee_Forever]

So..... Saturday sees the bees hitting the road (well some of us ) as we travel to the suburbs of Manchester (and not for the last time) to take on the recently relegated Rochdale AFC in our latest Bananarama fixture.

The Dales have recovered quickly from relegation and despite a sluggish start sit just outside the playoffs. We have had a bit of a mixed record there with one particular occasion coming to mind when Kieran St. Aimless came on for Danny Hart with us 2-0 down which caused me to raise a literal white flag.

Despite being a perennial in League 2 and having a brief flirtation with league 1 Rochdale now find themselves doing a Stockport having crashed out of the league due to poor management of their club and lack of resources. They will provide a stern challenge as they look to recover their league status at the first time of asking. A quick wiki of Rochdale suggests its most notable feature is it has the most canal locks in the country. They will be hoping to barge in to the playoffs and that they can rise to the challenge despite being slow out of the gate. Only a complete cyclepath would rule them out of contention. While Waterloo Road was also filmed there I don't feel minded to protractor paragraph with more school based puns.

And what of Barnet. We sit atop the league holding off hot favourites Chesterfield on goal difference. While it has been a fantastic start to the season and we glided past Altrincham with the same shameful ease that TK glided past the Underhill vote (never forget) we now enter a period where the midweek fixtures kick in and this will be the truest test of our strengthened squad. While we are still light a striker we have enviable cover in other positions even to the extent that the excellent Kanu and Hall-Johnson can't get in the team.

I would tweak things a bit for Rochdale and play with two holding midfielders to give us more control against a tricky opponent.

----------------------------------Walker------------------------------

-------------Collinge------------Oluwu-------------Okimo----------

---Hall-Johnson----------Hartigan------Pritchard----------Coker--

--------------Brunt-------------------------------------Kanu------------

----------------------------------Kabamba--------------------------------

Subs: Arnstrong, Potter, Wynter, Gorman, Stead

I am doing this one by train using a combination of groupsave advance fares and railcard discounts.

Hoping we can notch up a good win on the Waterloo Road

COYBs

[North Finchley Bee]

Read it and weep, look at that subs bench, what a squad, COYB

[Shmulib100]

Gorman ahead of pritchard in holding midfield!?

[foxy]

Glad to see you are actually making the efforr this week Cranners!

[jerroll]

Gorman ahead of pritchard in holding midfield!?

its where he played his best football last season, very harsh on Dale but that's where we are having more than 1 player who is good enough for almost every position.

[becbee]

There's an argument for both, just as whoever ends up on the subs bench has a claim to feel aggrieved but 3 of them will likely come on and revitalise the team. It's a great position to be in, let's enjoy it whilst everybody is fit.

[BGr]

Dale have so far only recorded victories over Oxford (bottom at the time), Eastleigh (bottom of the form table) and York (not very good!) and have been beaten at home by Ebbsfleet and Halifax. You’d like to think we have the upper hand in this one. That said, Ebanks-Landell is a handy player and Uchegbulem is a tricky customer. Hopefully we can get on top of them early and put a tricky away game to bed before letting them establish a foothold in the game.

[PBBee]

Anyone know of any commentary - doesn’t seem to be on BBC?

[mike_p]

Anyone know of any commentary - doesn’t seem to be on BBC?

I've been looking and can't find anything. The club itself does audio commentary, but you have to pay £4.49

[PBBee]

Sad times - actually at another game so just wanted a headphone in rather than figuring out trying to stream etc.

Feels weird not actually watching or at least listening to game for once. So many local games so far!

[Roy57]

Friend is watching stream on holiday and said no sound, not sure if that's just his stream or if others have same issue

[amberforever]

Dale playing some good stuff into their forwards.

[BeesKnees99]

We’re turning in another Dagenham esque performance so far, expect Dale look a lot more dangerous


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[BeesKnees99]

Wow. Absolutely shocking goal to concede


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[Roy57]

1-0 down, long ball over the top, know idea why Walker was so far off his line and there striker lifted it over Walker from outside the box into empty net