Rochdale beat Fleetwood Town 2:1 in League Two on Saturday evening, September twenty-sixth. The visitors had been reduced to ten men for nearly twenty minutes yet still managed to rescue a point from what could have been a worse outcome. Fleetwood had led for most of the match, but Rochdale's second goal proved decisive.
Dajaune Brown opened the scoring in the eighth minute, catching the home side off guard. Aden Flint doubled their advantage just six minutes later, and Fleetwood looked well and truly outplayed. Mark Helm pulled one back in the thirtieth minute, and suddenly the match had life again — and here's the thing, Fleetwood were not going to let it slip away.
The turning point came when Olutobi Adebayo-Rowling received a second yellow card in the sixty-ninth minute, having already been cautioned thirty minutes earlier. Three substitutions for Rochdale in the sixty-fourth minute suggested they were preparing for something, and Jonny Smith, K. Taylor, and Kayden Hughes all came on before the dismissal. Fleetwood responded with Adam Murphy in the seventieth minute, but they were now chasing the game.
Fleetwood dominated possession at fifty-four percent and registered one hundred and twenty-three attacks compared to Rochdale's sixty-two. They had eighteen shots, five on target, but created zero big chances — to be fair, that is hardly surprising when you are chasing a lead. Rochdale managed only nine shots but hit six on target, their accuracy telling you everything about clinical finishing.
Both sides sit on ten points after eight games, though the implications differ. Fleetwood's result leaves them fourteenth, while Rochdale remain sixteenth but have now gone unbeaten in two — a three-goal win against Liverpool U21 and this victory were encouraging signs. The red card will worry Rochdale's manager, but they ran out of legs by then and still found a way.
