Usually, fans bemoan a goalless draw, but after a pair of them in the past three games at the Mem, Bristol Rovers fans have what they were waiting for.
The Gas made it back-to-back clean sheets in League One with a hard-fought stalemate with Barnsley in BS7, in which Rovers both tested and handled the third tier's in-form side that had won four straight coming in. All season, a porous defence has hampered Joey Barton's side, but after a dismal run of form, they have emerged more solid than ever.
The attacking threat of the team has been compromised somewhat as a result, but Gasheads will feel the ship has been steadied after a seven-game winless run was ended at Oxford last week, with a back four and goalkeeper that are inspiring a level of confidence that has not been felt since the Gas made their return to League One.
Many difficult games remain, but with 42 points on the board and 12 to play, the Gas seem to have weathered the storm in their season.
Rovers come through their 'toughest test'
Before and after the game, Barton was quick to admit he felt Barnsley were not a good match-up for his team on paper. A bruising night at Oakwell in August that exposed naivety and insecurity in the Gas defence was clearly in the front of his mind, as were Rovers' repeated struggles against teams of varying abilities that like to get the ball from back to front quickly.
"With the evolution this group has been on, it was probably as tough a test at the junction we're at," Barton repeated in his post-match press conference. "This was the true acid test for our progress in recent weeks and I thought the lads were outstanding."
So, Rovers came through their toughest test, maybe not with flying colours but impressively enough. They minimized the threat of a team that had plundered 11 goals in its past three outings, with neither James Norwood nor Devante Cole managing to get a single shot off between them.
The Gas back four was very effective in denying Barnsley platforms in Rovers' territory, with Lewis Gibson and Jarell Quansah winning more than their fair share of first contacts, and the midfield trio of Sam Finley, Lamare Bogarde and Grant Ward mopped up the second balls.
Barton likes Rovers to have controlled possession, but in the circumstances, a scrappy game played into their hands with all the pressure on Barnsley and the threat of Aaron Collins in transition was always a looming concern for Michael Duff's defence.
Indeed, with a pass success percentage of 60 vs 66, this was a messy game – and Barton admitted the Mem pitch played a part in that – but that does not mean there was plenty to like about the performance.
Resilience was a big question mark in the past two months, but the Gas have found a defensive spirit and they have significantly improved at defending set pieces. The confidence gained from last week's win at Oxford proved invaluable as Rovers believed and showed again they go toe-to-toe with League One's best teams.
Of course, a goal proved elusive for the Gas and their best chances came from dead-ball situations, with few moments falling the way of Collins, Scott Sinclair and John Marquis. Perhaps Barton and his players have taken a step backwards in their attacking game to allow for defensive improvements.
That might seem a strange observation eight days removed from a 3-0 win, and although it was fully deserved, those goals came from five shots, one of which was a penalty.
The aim for the weeks ahead will be to maintain the new-found solidity at the back that has led to three clean sheets in four games while opening up a little more to give the lads up top a bit more to work with.
The new Connor Taylor?
For the past two transfer windows, Barton has been searching for several things. They include Connor Taylor or the new Connor Taylor, and it seems he has found a fitting player to fit the role that the Stoke City centre-back played so well in Rovers' promotion campaign last season.
Taylor returned to his parent club 10 months ago and the Gas had struggled to deal with set pieces without him. The 21-year-old's all-round skillset, of course, is varied and he can do all the things required of a modern defender, but there is an old-school, aerially-dominant streak to him that made him so influential at the heart of Barton's back four.
Barton made no secret of his attempts to bring Taylor back to BS7, including a permanent big that was knocked back in January, so he has had to look at alternatives and Quansah is doing the job well. He is a huge talent in his own right – you don't train with Liverpool's first team regularly unless you have elite potential – but at just 20 he is giving Rovers what they need.
Barnsley racked up seven corners on Saturday and the quality of the delivery was excellent, with each one being curled into dangerous areas, but Quansah was outstanding in his role as the free man in the box. With a hybrid of man parking and zonal systems in place, he was free to track the ball and get it away from the box, applying several crucial headers to alleviate the pressure just as the Tykes threatened to apply the squeeze.
Quansah's technical ability is obvious. He drives out with great effect to help Rovers progress the ball and his passing range is impressive, but his priority is to defend. Throughout a spell at Rovers hit by the turbulence of poor form, he has been largely faultless – and his budding partnership with Gibson in the past two games is a huge positive for the Gas.
In addition to height, technical ability and defensive instincts, Quansah has another thing in common with Taylor: both men should score more goals. Taylor ended up with three across a season but he would be first to admit he should have added a few more to his tally with the situations he found himself in, and Quansah already has had several good chances in his seven appearances so far, including Rovers' best on Saturday when he cushioned a volley at goalkeeper Harry Isted from close range after peeling off at the back post.
But if we are nit-picking to such an extent with a young centre-half that the knock on him is he doesn't score enough, then he is doing pretty damned well at the stuff atop his job description.
Dutch elegance but British steel
Gasheads have become accustomed to loanees playing prominent roles in Barton's teams and Bogarde is the latest youngster to do so. The 19-year-old has started the past four games for the Gas after a pair of substitute appearances following a January move from Aston Villa and he is deservedly holding down a place with more established players Antony Evans and Luke McCormick on the outside looking in.
After playing in a more advanced role at Oxford, Bogarde was in a deeper role on Saturday but he was equally effective, providing security in front of the back four and denying Barnsley regular second balls for their playmakers to latch on to.
Bogarde is elegant, economical and effortless in the way he moves with and without the ball, typical of a Dutch-born-and-schooled player, and his character on and off the pitch, we're told, is equally cool and composed. If he is feeling the pressure of his first full experience of senior football, it is not detectable by the naked eye.
But this is not a technically-gifted academy player that can be bullied by older and bigger men. There maybe be a continental flavour to his game, but there is a framework of British steel, too. Who knows whether that is innate or a part of his Villa education, but the Gas are benefitting from the use of a player who can snap into tackles and use his body as well as a smooth operator in possession.
Duff's dismay
"We weren’t quite at our best, first half particularly, but ultimately, we’ve had two penalties not given and their goalkeeper got man of the match," was Barnsley boss Michael Duff's assessment at full time when speaking to BBC Radio Sheffield. "I think we’ve fallen the wrong side of refereeing decisions again. Players’ reactions tell you everything, you don’t need to ask my opinion."
Duff's dismay centred primarily on the decision not to award a spot kick when Cole went down in the box after a crucial intervention from James Belshaw to get a palm on Nicky Cadden's wicked cross with Norwood waiting to tap it in – and the Barnsley boss believed there was a credible handball claim in a separate second-half incident.
From the ensuing scramble from Belshaw's parry, Gibson seemed to do well, doing enough to prevent Cole from having a chance from inside the six-yard box without making a blatant tug on his shirt in clear view of the officials.
One can see the Barnsley perspective of the incident having watched the footage, but Gasheads will feel they were due a decision or two like that after some of the officiating they have been on the receiving end of.
While Gasheads and the 789 travelling Barnsley fans may not agree on the penalty call, both sets of supporters will surely accept this was a poorly-refereed game by Tom Parsons. There were no glaring errors, but he did not allow the game to flow, particularly in the first half.
The worst example of that was when Grant Ward was fouled in the middle of the park but the ball had broken kindly for Collins to have a free run at the back four, only for the referee to decide against playing advantage and bringing the game back for the free-kick. Everyone in the stadium could see where the advantage was and it was not stopping Rovers' best player in full flow in favour of awarding a dead ball in their own half.
Have Rovers weathered the storm?
What a difference a week has made for the Gas, with four points added to the total, a seven-game winless run broken and more space put between Rovers – who occupy 15th spot, 10 points clear of Morecambe in 21st – and the bottom four.
After the Burton defeat, the outlook was gloomy for the Gas. They had lost their confidence and their identity, but they deserve huge credit for the response they have mustered against Oxford and Barnsley.
The loss to the Brewers a fortnight left Rovers with an 11 per cent chance of going down, according to FiveThirtyEight, but the two games that have followed have dropped that down to just one per cent. By the statisticians' predictions, the Gas need one more win from their remaining 12 games to finish above the dotted line, but Joey Barton will want three – and, obviously, several more – to get past the 50-point barrier which typically assures teams of a place in the third tier for next season.
So it seems the storm – one point from a possible 18 in a six-game run that included four of the bottom seven teams in the league – has been weathered. Harry Anderson and Jordan Rossiter are unfortunate absentees due to injury, but the squad is generally fit and key players are coming back into form. The return of Gibson from a significant layoff and the establishment of a settled back four, as a result, has been a huge positive, too.
More work needs to be done to ensure a stress-free end to the season, which seemed certain until February when, by Barton's own admission, Rovers were "s****".
That is not the case any more. They may not be at their electric best in attack, but they have become much harder to beat, as promotion-chasers Ipswich Town and Barnsley have discovered, and that should serve Barton and his players in the final two months of the campaign.
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