Joey Barton insists there’s plenty more to come from his Bristol Rovers side as they continued their strong run of form in October with a 4-1 hammering of Gloucestershire neighbours Cheltenham Town.
Rovers extended their unbeaten run to five games in all competitions with a blistering first-half display as they took a 4-0 lead, completely tearing apart a lacklustre Robins backline.
Aaron Collins claimed two with further strikers added by Antony Evans and Bobby Thomas to kill the contest off after 45 minutes, and give the 1,430 travelling Gasheads the perfect afternoon, but Rovers then showed great composure and maturity to see the game out after the break as Cheltenham tried to rally.
Wade Elliott’s side did claim a consolation via a debatable Liam Sercombe penalty but the Gas’ game management kept the attempted comeback to a minimum as they rose to 11th in the League One table.
After a challenging start to life in the division, amid injuries and new signings being integrated, Rovers are now firmly looking a team, with Barton possessing an increasing number of squad options evidenced by the five substitutions he was able to make.
“It’s a young team in its maturation stage. We’ve had a little bit of a shot of confidence after recent results and performances and it allows us to come to a notoriously tricky place - they’d won four on the spin here - and to put them away with such ease is really pleasing”, Barton said.
“I still think we’ve got gears to go, I think we can certainly play lots better than that but there were lots of good performances and lots of steps in the right direction.
“There’s just more elements of control. We’re still a work in progress. There was lots of good stuff today. The lads, in a very short space of time have gone from playing a certain strategy where we’ve been a bit more direct because of the opponents today.
“We asked the lads to control the ball a lot more because we felt there were some vulnerabilities in their team we could expose.
“We didn’t do much (in training) on Thursday. We spoke about it and practised it yesterday and credit to the players we’ve gone out and executed it, that’s why we were so comfortable. To a man, they implemented the strategy and gameplan superbly.
“I spoke to the lads at half-time and we knew Wade would get a reaction out of his boys because they’re a proud team, and you don’t have the success they’ve had unless you’ve got a good core group. They’ve just had a bit of an off-day or you’d have to say we’ve been really efficient with our box entries and our finishing.
“For us, there was no thoughts of 5, 6, 7 - that would be disrespectful - it was about three points and having as comfortable a second period as was possible.”
Rovers have a Papa John's Trophy assignment against Swindon Town on Tuesday, where the manager will naturally have to make a few changes to protect some bodies but this run of form, in which the Gas have accumulated 10 points from a possible 12, has set them up nicely for the next three league fixtures.
Rovers host league leaders Plymouth Argyle at the Mem next Saturday followed by trips to third-placed Sheffield Wednesday and heavyweights Derby County to close the month out.
With confidence and performance-levels high, though, Rovers can go into those games with a sense of excitement rather than trepidation.
“You can only beat what’s in front of you and Exeter away, Cheltenham away, they’re very, very difficult places to come and to take four points out of those games," Barton added. "MK Dons, I get are in a bit of a weird space at the minute in terms of losing some of their top talents but you’ve got to go and put on an away performance, Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday to win games.
“Cheltenham had a free week but you’d have never had thought that with the energy we started the game so I’m really pleased with our group. Tougher stadiums and tougher teams to come but, again, we can only beat what’s in front of us and they’re going to be open and trying to play themselves and I think that’ll suit our team.”
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