Dale’s opportunity to redress Gills defeat

ROCHDALE take on Gillingham today looking to redress the 4-1 home defeat they suffered at their hands just before Christmas.

Dale were beaten 1-0 at Doncaster on Tueday having shared 20 goals with opponents in their three previous games before the loss at the Keepmoat, a display boss Brian BarryMurphy felt warranted a point.

“The performance was calmer than what we’ve seen in recent weeks, in terms of the goalscoring exploits,” he said. “We were playing against a high calibre opponent but we matched them and went toe for toe.

“We had no fit defenders available apart from Haydon Roberts so there was never any other thought in my mind than to be as aggressive as possible and to try and go for the win. That’s something that the lads really reflected, so to not get the goals I thought we deserved was disappointing, but in terms of the overall performance if we can reproduce that on a weekly basis we’ll all be very happy.

“Throughout the team the lads didn’t feel sorry for themselves at any stage [after going behind]. We went behind against a good team and managed to create good chances in the second half. I feel as if I want more for the lads and I think there are standards that we can reach higher, irrespective of how limited our numbers are. I just felt that we could have been more clinical in the final third and that’s fine margins.

“We made several chances. I’m not saying we deserved to win the game by any clear cut manner but I felt against a very good team that we implemented our game plan really well but we didn’t quite get the last bit of detail in the final third right.”

After today’s game at Gillingham, Dale are at home on Tuesday against Oxford.