SEEING Rovers’ winning run come to an end against AFC Wimbledon on Saturday was a disappointment, it was certainly a bad result, writes Simon Garner.

Sometimes these results happen in football, but Rovers will have to quickly put it behind them and move on to the next game against Shrewsbury this weekend.

Tony Mowbray has spoken of how Rovers will come up against disciplined sides, as AFC Wimbledon were, and they must be better at breaking them down.

Patience is definitely needed in those situations. You need to keep the ball, but move it quickly.

A lot of teams are setting up with men behind the ball now, not just in this league, and they will sit in and make it difficult.

Rovers have done just that at times away from home and picked up three consecutive clean sheets.

It can be quite easy to keep the ball, just moving it square and sideways, which is why I don’t look too much in to possession statistics. At the end of the day it’s how many goals you score, and what you do with the ball.

You have to try and force the opposition out of position by moving the ball quickly, or by someone taking a chance and running at his man. Sometimes you will make mistakes, but you have got to take a chance and have the confidence in your ability to feel that you are good enough to breakthrough.

You would expect with the quality of players that Rovers have that they would be able to find a way past Wimbledon. But sometimes you have to give the opposition credit for the way they defend and for the way they lifted their game.

In the final 15 games of last season, Rovers drew too many games. Although going a long time without losing is good, winning four games and losing one is better than winning two and drawing three, as long as you don’t go too long without picking up points.

Mowbray stuck with the same team against Wimbledon, but admitted he had thought about making changes.

As a manager you want that stability and it makes it a lot harder to make changes when you have won four games in a row.

The pace of the game is a lot quicker when I played, so I can understand why managers do make changes. But everyone knows how the manager plays, and that should make it easier for players to come in to the side. So it is six of one and half a dozen of the other.

If you are a squad player who has been short of game-time then you will be looking to impress the manager in training to try and get in the side. You have to have a confidence and belief that you’re good enough and hope that the manager will see what you can do.

One of the biggest jobs for managers nowadays, with the big squads, is keeping everyone happy and getting all the players to believe that they are not far away from getting in the team.