MK Dons 0 Rochdale 1 - Match Report
Monday, 28th Jan 2008 01:47

We may have lost our top scorer but nobody seemed to have told the players that as they showed absolutely no fear as they completed the double over Paul Ince's league leaders MK Dons. Match report finally online now.

We are ace! There's no getting away from it, we are. And, if we continue to pull out results like we are doing away from home, we could well be on the verge of something special. Our last away games saw us travel to Chesterfield and record arguably our best away win of the season against the odds and against a cracking team. We went one better than that on Saturday and defeated the Franchise on their own patch 1-0 despite having 10 men for over 75 minutes of the game!

This away record really is something very remarkable. We've only been beaten away from home in the league once this season and that was away at Peterborough on the first day of the season! The sight of the league table this weekend would have had most of us reaching for the Kleenex in excitement! We now lie in 8th place with 3 games in hand over MK Franchise, Wycombe and Chesterfield, 2 games in hand over Rotherham and 1 games in hand over the others. I know writing it down doesn't really do it justice though so go out and buy the paper and look for yourself, it's a wonderful site especially when you consider that should we win one of the games in hand we have, we'll rise even further to 5th place!

Also, you look at the top teams in our league and how we've done against them and it's very easy to start thinking about the P word and how big a season this could actually be. We've beaten the league leaders twice, beaten Rotherham, Chesterfield, Wycombe and Darlington when we've played them and taken a point from Hereford. The only team we slipped up against was Peterborough but we get a chance to make up for that on Saturday. We've got an away trip to Chester before that and I'll bet there's not many Dale fans going thinking we'll get beat. And, I'd put money on us taking at least a thousand fans quite easily.

As I discussed with DorsetDale on Saturday, even the most pessimistic people like myself are starting to believe!

I think it's fair to say that this trip was met with a slight expectation that our awesome away run could end given that we've just sold our leading goalscorer to Brighton and I think if you'd have offered any of us a point before the game, we'd have snapped your hands off for it thus making the victory all the more special.

The trip down was pleasant enough, until of course to get into the living hell hole that is Milton Keynes. I'm not being funny but it's a truly awful place. It's just full of roundabouts and car parks with hardly any actual signs of civilization! It's just so plastic that it makes Lego Land look real. It's very poorly signposted and the new ground isn't even finished yet!

We asked a MK fan where the nearest pub was and he directed us over a couple of roads and roundabouts and made it look like it was relatively far away so we headed off and after about a week's searching for it, I finally got a phone call telling me to go round the massive lake that the guy had neglected to inform us of and it's there!

A couple of drinks were had in there and it was off to the ground. Like a lot of these horrid new stadiums, we purchased a ticket from a ticket office about 5 yards away from the turnstile but this time we had to put our tickets into some machine type thing! Whatever happened to a turnstile that obese people struggle to fit through and an actual human being on the other side of this turnstile accepting money and letting you in! If this is what the Premiership's like then I'll stick with the lower leagues! The world has gone mad! It seems to be the way football is heading though and I don't like it! To make it worse, we were given comfortable seats! Sorry MK, I'll still stand up thanks! There, rant over with!

Onto things pitch side and Hilly had kept the same team apart from Rene How replacing Glenn Murray meaning that we had Russell in net, Ramsden at right back, Kennedy at left back and Stanton and McArdle at centre back. Higgy was on the right, Perkins on the left with Sloop John D and Jones in midfield with Howe and Le Fondre up front. On the bench were Spencer, Holness, Thompson, Rundle and Muirhead.

Mk started the game off well and put pressure on our defence from the off with Ramsden being forced to brilliantly clear the ball off the line.

With just less than quarter of an hour gone, the game turned massively in favour of the Franchise when the ginger haired, over-rated Dean Lewington decided to do his Olympic class dive over Nathan Stanton's foot which was proven beyond any shadow of a doubt after the game. The referee was conned and MK were awarded a penalty but to make matters worse for Dale, Nathan Stanton was furious with the decision and understandably so but he managed to talk himself into a yellow card and that was soon followed by a second for dissent as well and he was sent off.

Keith Andrews stepped up to take the penalty but Sam Russell provided a fantastic save down to his left to keep the scores level!

It was going to take a minor miracle for us to get anything out of the game I thought.

Le Fondre was sacrificed just like at Accrington as Holness came on to add to replace the dismissed Stanton.

MK piled on the pressure and Andrews was guilty of missing another great chance when he hit over from a couple of yards out after the yellow booted Johnson put the ball across the face of goal.

Quite unbelievably though, Dale took the lead on 33 minutes. Rene Howe linked up well with Jones who set Higgy off down the right, he skinned Diallo with ease and rather than shooting himself, he squared the ball brilliantly across the box to Jones who was left with a tap in as the near 600 Dale fans celebrated like it was 1999! Credit to Jones as well for making the run from his own half to finish the move off!

Doolan went close as he struck a free kick from distance but Gueret saved it as the half came to a close.

The second half was surely going to be backs to the wall stuff with MK throwing everything at us and they did just that.

Dale did get a couple of chances, the best of which fell to Higginbotham who smashed an effort just past the post and I mean JUST!

It was down to the solid Dale defence to win this game for us and with McArdle continuing his immense form, helped by all of his defence, we managed to keep MK out!

With just less than half an hour left, Wilbraham hit the woodwork for the home side and the follow up was smashed over by O'Hanlon.

Rene Howe, still lacking in match fitness had run himself into the ground and worked extremely hard before being replaced by Joey Thompson with 20 minutes left.

MK continued to look for the equaliser but kept coming up against big obstacles in the form of the Dale defence. Sam Russell, already a hero from earlier in the match produced arguably the greatest save I've ever seen! From point blank range, he reacted quite brilliantly to a Gallen header from 6 yards out to push it wide. Absolutely awesome!

The ginger haired Olympic diving cheat Dean Lewington continued to show himself up as he blazed over two good chances to the sound of the fantastic Dale following chanting "You are embarrassing!"

We had a bit of a break with about 10 minutes left as the sprinklers came on and play had to be stopped for a short time but when play resumed, it was more of the same as MK came at us!

The last good chance of the game fell to O'Hanlon as he rose highest from a corner to head goalwards but a fantastic goal-line clearance from Higgy kept it out just before he was taken off and replaced by Rundle. Higgy had sustained cramp and in a rather amusing moment, Flitcroft came and took him off the pitch by slinging him over his shoulder and plonking him on the bench.

The referee then signalled 5 minutes of stoppage time with us thinking he must have a home win down on the coupon!

He even played well over that as he let at least 6 minutes go before finally blowing up to signal one of the best away wins I've witnessed as a Dale fan, especially given the circumstances!

What a magnificent rearguard performance and what a win. I'll bet a few of those who weren't going to go on Tuesday will be there now and who can blame them!

Player Ratings:

Sam Russell - 10

Simon Ramsden - 8

Tom Kennedy - 8

Rory McArdle - 9

Nathan Stanton - 7

Kallum Higginbotham - 8

David Perkins - 7

John Doolan - 7

Gary Jones - 8

Adam Le Fondre - 7

Rene Howe - 7