Rovers no. 2 Gavin Strachan talks about making waves on Saturday's trip to the seaside.
Doncaster Rovers Assistant Manager Gavin Strachan believes that Doncaster Rovers can draw confidence from their impressive home form when they hit the road to Blackpool on Saturday.Rovers are unbeaten at Keepmoat Stadium this season and on a run that stretches back ten games to late March when the Tangerines won 1-0 in South Yorkshire.
“I’d like to think we showed a different aspect to the way we play,” Strachan said on reflection of Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Colchester United.
“So far this season we’ve shown we can play some good football, entertaining, we can score lots of goals but I think in any division, in any team, you have to have that ability to win when maybe you’re not at your best or some way from your best.
“We took that positive from the game and tried to address the other things that we wanted to work on in training.
“For any team to be successful you have to go on runs of wins or not getting beat and, as the manager says all the time, it’s very much an environment of improvement and trying to get better and that’s how we spend our weeks.
“We had found it difficult to win games and I think that was probably shown up by this being the record number of wins at home. It shows that there have been tough times over the years and I think, from what I’ve seen, the board were keen with the manager’s ideas and stuck with it.”
Rovers continue to be without top scorer Andy Williams who has been ruled out until December and youngster Liam Mandeville has been tasked with stepping up to the plate in his absence.
Strachan said: “I think it would be a miss for any club in this division to lose someone of Andy’s ability and what he brings to the team in general in terms of work rate and another dimension to our play with his strong running in behind. Sometimes you don’t realise how good they are until they’re not available.
“The other side of the loan rules now means it opens up opportunities to young players and Liam has done fine. We think there’s more in the tank there as well if he really develops a selfish streak and realises how good he can be. As a manger has shown time and time again during his career, he will give young players a chance and then it’s down to them if they grasp it.
“Blackpool maybe haven’t started off how they wanted or how some of their performances have merited. We watched them when they were at home to Portsmouth and that was probably the best performance I’ve seen out of possession from a team.
“There’s players that we know really well in there, they’ve got a selection of strikers – (Kyle) Vassell, (Armand) Gnanduillet, (Mark) Cullen, (Jamille) Matt- so they’ve got riches up front and Jack Payne in midfield who we had at Peterborough. They’ve got some really good, solid players and a good manager who’s very organised so it’ll be a tough game.”