Bristol Rovers boss Joey Barton was proud of his players for what he felt was a “proper” performance as they held the Blues to a 0-0 draw at the Memorial Stadium.

The draw ended a Rovers run of five defeats on the bounce and Barton felt it was a significant plus for his team.

“There were lots of positives to take out of the game in terms of our defensive performance,” he told BristolLive. “It was proper, it’s what we’ve been looking for.

“I felt after the game on Saturday [the 1-0 defeat at Lincoln City], in the midst of that battle being lost and the adversity of stuff going against us, I felt some young saplings really started to emerge and seeing the character in those moments is key.

“Tonight, you’ve seen them grow further. I thought there were some really good performances and it would be unfair of me to single out an individual because it was a real group and team effort. We haven’t won again, but we’ve managed to stop the bleeding against a very good side.

“You can only be proud as a coach of the players. In the adversity, to come into the stadium with what’s going on in terms of the results profile against a promotion-chasing team and to stick to the game plan in the manner they did, I’m so pleased for the group and so pleased for the football club.”

He added: “To a man today, they were superb, and that includes the lads who came into the game,

“They kept following their instruction, backing each other up and I thought it was a really good performance, what you would call a proper team performance.

“In the midst of that, I think you saw a few young boys turn into men tonight and that will go a long way to settling them into our football club and we have given them what they have come for, which is a foundation to build a fantastic career off.”

Photo: Action Images

Len_Brennan added 00:47 - Feb 15 Bristol Rovers are predominantly a footballing side, but as we have seen, when most clubs come to play us, they take a bit of a beating due to superior quality of our players & how we are set up; so Joey Barton went against his principles tonight & played a defensive formation hoping to hit us on the break when they got possession. Despite the fact that we have seen for months that this approach has worked against us & cost us multiple points against supposed inferior sides, Rovers, on a 5 game losing streak, dealt with us fairly comfortably, as we had no solution to breaking them down. Buying million pound+ players to add to a squad already deemed the strongest in the league, has not helped us address the problem

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AlanG296 added 01:08 - Feb 15 Barton is a pragmatic manager who makes the most of what he's got at his disposal. Shame we've got a coach who doesn't.
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Wickets added 07:37 - Feb 15 I would not be proud of my players in any circumstances if they had just collected their first point in 6 games .
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blues1 added 09:07 - Feb 15 AlanG296. Grow up. Constant swipes at the best manager weve had for years. Pathetic. So it's his fault is it, that we had 21 shots at goal, yet none of them went in? He can't score the goals for them can he. Wasn't there last night, so csn only go by what a mate told me, and apparently, we were poor. Yet we still had loads of attempts at goal. So clearly we were doing something right in the game, or we'd not get that many attempts. Anyone,wouldxtgink we're 4th from bottom not 4th from top, the way some of our fans are moaning. Of course, we're all frustrated thst we havent won more games recently. But let's remember, we have lost many neither. I win, 1,defeat in 2023. Just are drawing too many games. But thats a sign that teams are setting up differently against us, than against anyone else. The fact Barton apologised to Mckenna after the game last night, for doing exactly that, shows the problem we come up against, when playing these small teams. Of course, we need to find a way to break these teams down. Especially if we don't get an early goal against them. Better teams than us,have struggled against these kind of tactics thsts for sure. Have seen both man city and Liverpool struggle to break teams down before now. Yes, we're all frustrated right now. But the players need us behind them more now than when everything's going swimmingly we'll. So let's stop the negativity in the ground and give them the support they need.

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joyousblue added 09:10 - Feb 15 Blues1 if you were a god id worshipyou , its made my day to read this column , ive been called evil by that idiot robsonwark because im fed up with the constant moaning on here 10 out of10 mate
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AlanG296 added 11:23 - Feb 15 McKenna's definitely the best manager of the Gamechanger era. Given the massive enhancements to the club structure in coaches, analists, medical, fitness etc to support him and the funding of new players that we have in this new era, not to mention other things to help performance like the funding of flight to away game, hotel for a game just down the road, things that most managers in this division can only dream of, comparing McKenna to managers under previous regimes in the underfunded past is unfair on them and irrelevant. Would love McKenna to succeed here, nobody wants him to fail, if he fails the club fails. Have always been cautiously optimistic that he would succeed, but thought by now he would have learnt more about how to deal with this division and put that into practice, overcoming tactics like we face, don't see that he has. Judge McKenna against what he achieves with his resources versus the rest of the division and their resources, not against past failures.

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Carberry added 16:40 - Feb 16 Well said, AlanG296, a very accurate critique. The problem is the McK era has stalled because he doesn't know how to produce winning football in this League. As he said umpteen times in his post match interview, we have drawn too many games and that is why we are losing touch at the top and sliding down the table. He doesn't hide behind the fact that we haven't lost many, it is the fact that we can't win that is a stone around his neck. He knows it isn't working but he doesn't know how to solve it because he would have done so by now if he did. Teams have blips but this isn't one of those, it's a serious issue. Everyone (bar a few on here) have said it, he has one of the most expensive, talented squads in the division, something other coaches embarrassingly keep telling us, but he can't get a tune out of them now. He doesn't know his best team, believes he can chop and change to suit who we are playing and tries to keep everyone happy with rotation. Tactically he is trying to play Champions League football in League 1 Poor teams all get behind the ball and good ones try to bully us, just like Sheff Wed on Saturday. And it is working for them. We should be running away with this league and the fact we aren't means there's something seriously wrong.

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