It was good to see Ryan Mason looking so fit and well last night. Unfortunately, the appalling Wembley Stadium acoustics made it sound as if he was on Mars when chatting with Paul Coyte.
And that microphone cuts out every week, which is a bit pathetic. Great to see him getting such a good reception and I hope he can adjust quickly to whatever he wants to do next.
I was one of the 113 people in the stadium at that point, almost directly opposite Ryan Mason and could understand one word in three such was the distortion. It's no wonder that Adele has said she'll never play there again. Let's hope NWHL has massively improved upon recent stadia built in London. Frankly, Wembley, The White Elephant and The Emirates are dreadful.
was great to see Ryan Mason at Wembley ... would have been better than if we could hear him though. One thing struck me last night...there was no usual "welcome back" type comment from the announcer when Yedlin's name was read out on the tannoy system ... can't remember that ever being the case other than Campbell ... anyone know why?
One thing bugging me about the post-game is all the blogs slagging off Poch for praising Sissoko for being professional this season - even though Poch is 100% right, Sissoko could easily have bitched and moaned about not getting time on the pitch and generally acted like a stroppy teenager but he hasn't, and that certainly makes him far more professional than all manner of former (and at least one current...) players we could name. Saying somebody has been professional this season isn't the same as saying they've been a world beater, because let's be honest even if we gave Sissoko a very large club he couldn't be a world-beater in the most literal sense, but it seems that we live in a world where people mash their faces into their keyboards and hope the resulting splurge makes sense rather than take two seconds to think about what was being said.
He has his uses. When we bring him on to close out games, I'm pretty sure that he'll help us do just that. If you surround him with constructive footballing talent, you can exploit his talents and mask some of his deficiencies. Playing him in a 2 with Eric Dier or Victor Wanyama like on Wednesday severely restricts us but is that his fault? I've no complaint about his performances this season. He's given what he's capable of and seems to interact well with the group, which is pretty much all you can ask of any player. Could we do better? Sure. Should we have bought him? No. Will I cheer him on while he plays as he does? You bet.
There was no "welcome back" for Andros Townsend this season, although I do believe our regular announcer Pete Abbott was not around that day. No idea why Yedlin was ignored.
