Terrific performance we should have won if Twine had his shooting boots on, or Connolly in the first half. Really heartening to see such a dominant display against a team fighting for promotion.
Bloody hell, we had 13 shots to 3 in the second half alone. If that's not setting up to attack I dunno what you're after.
21 fouls and the ref didn't book any of them til the 80th minute...all for letting the game flow but that was ridiculous in the first half when twine got taken out about 4 times in 5 mins and they all just got a warning.
Part of me wonders if Connolly's shot rifles into the bottom corner in the first half and we don't let one of their men free from a corner to score, does everyone magically think that was an incredible performance because we win 2-0? Suspect there's a fair amount of results-based bias.
Can you honestly say we looked good tonight? Yes second half was better, but we were at home, everyone back for their corners and set plays, not once did we leave a man on the halfway line, we play so defensive, and fair play we don’t concede many, but we have a great team, and I get so pissed off because I think we should be doing so much better. All I ask is a bit of gung ho, a bit of, **** you, we are better than you, just go for it, **** or bust. The fans will love it, they did not tonight, the North stand was mute, there was no excitement.
Yes I absolutely can. I thought we looked brilliant. No idea what people are complaining about. We regularly split the Coventry press with a great set of passes, Seri playing Delap, Connolly, Twine and Philogene through. Rosenior switched to two up top for the entire second half, so this notion that we were sitting back with a defensive line up, or that Rosenior doesn't have the balls to go attacking is utter rubbish. We should have battered them and it was only wayward finishing from Twine and Connolly that stopped that being a reality. You only have to look at the comments from the opposition manager himself to know how much dominance we had second half. I'll say again I'm convinced if their chance doesn't go in and Connolly's first half one does, everyone's over the moon by that performance, but the fact we were chasing the game for 90% of it colours people's perception of what was a brilliant performance.
Don’t know if he still is this season but my Norwich supporting acquaintance told me Rowe was on £2,000 a week last season, Only 20 but ridiculous when you think they had 5 players on £30,000+ and a couple on over £40,000 most of who got got them relegated.
Yeah I was watching on TV mate but was Mark Robins? He's said the exact same as me, but I suppose he's clueless too. You're missing my point about us scoring mate. I'm saying that the perception of the play completely changes based on whether Connolly picks the right or wrong side of the post and that's daft to me. That's sport and that's football but people need to be aware of how that impacts what they're watching. The exact same performance but with that goal going in and everyone's buzzing. Stats tell the ****ing story! Give your head a wobble. Stats show that we had 13 ****ing shots to 3 in the second half. How much more attacking do you want us to be than that?
Feeling frustrated we didn't win but good to see we kept having a go and got just reward in the end. Ref was ****e. They were 'professional' out of possession (dirty bastards). We move on. Might have to watch on tv Wednesday .
A few thoughts; Overall, we more than matched a good Coventry team who I am sure will be in the playoffs. What a talent is Philogene! I look forward to watching him develop in the next two/ three years. Seems to have a bit of everything, which logically may mean his decision making ability will take longer than most to master. I’m not sure we’ve seen anyone of his ilk at City (dare I see since JJ’s cameos)? I’m in favour of refs allowing things to flow and avoiding giving yellow cards, but I have no idea how he didn’t give out a yellow card until well into the second half. A street wise Coventry team took full advantage of a poor ref, and absolutely played him, enabling them to disrupt us when we were threatening. The foul count for the game was 7 vs 21, which tells a story. I couldn’t believe in the first half, after numerous fouls he gave an old fashioned strong lecture to one of their midfielders, and yet still didn’t book him. I thought those lectures were usually while giving out a yellow card. The fact they still ended up with five bookings (I suspect all within the last 30 mins?) highlights they were lucky to not have players sent off. I was hoping to find out from this board what actually happened with the flare up, as there was too much going on for me to take in. Btw I was stone cold sober, which Is unusual for a City game ( partly because of the traffic but yeah, DBT didn’t go tonight), It looked like Delap was getting bum raped in the middle of the pitch. I’m sure he was slapped as he was trying to get back on his feet, which seemed to signal handbags all over the pitch. There seemed to be a code word, so handbags were going off separately all over the pitch. The ref had his back to the main incident and the other handbags going off, as he had allowed play to go on. But when eventually sorting it, absolutely ignored the linesman who from his body language was trying to let him know he had a lot to contribute. There was also the bizarre incident in the second half when Christie was fairly innocuously fouled (not sure anyone was calling for it) around the halfway line. The ref (correctly) played on. Another City player was then cynically fouled on the edge of the box. He then gave City the first free kick around the half way line. It was one of those moments when all players were looking at each other as if wtf is going on. We have some bad refs over the years, but he was as bad as I have seen.
3 minutes was ridiculous but to be fair, Leicester had the exact same complaint a fortnight ago. Seems the refs have dialled back on the crackdown on time-wasting, which seems incredibly weak. Surely not bothering at all would've been better than cracking down on it for 3 weeks and then giving up. In fact, there were a few similarities to the Leicester game. Cov were very organised as an away side and played good, confident stuff at times. We couldn't press their keeper because he was happy to pass round us when we did, similar to what we do. Difference of course is we got our equaliser which Leicester couldn't against us. The story of the game turned on us giving away a **** corner and then allowing them to score a **** goal from it. We've generally defended well from corners under Rosenior, but we also never score from them and it's frustrating to see other sides able to get ahead against us as cheaply as that when no team ever seems to allow Greaves or Jones a free header like that. Must've been about 8 corners to 1 tonight and they score from theirs with a free header. Crazy. Like Syd said, there's always a result-based bias in people's perception of a performance. On the whole I thought we were excellent, really outplayed a good side who themselves looked good on the night. But that crucial opener, coupled with us being wasteful as ever in attack, cost us the win our build up play deserved. On the wastefulness, there's not many excuses now, we've got a seriously high quality front line on the pitch and you have to hope that in time the likes of Twine will start hitting the target instead of blazing it over repeatedly. In a way it felt like we missed Tufan to finish something off tonight, but then I'm conscious that he was as wasteful as anyone at times last season. Whoever is playing, we need them to start reliably making the final pass or the finish, it's been a problem for way too long. And yes, they were a dirty side, and very clever with it. Not too many really bad fouls, but certainly enough little fouls to seriously disrupt our play. I suspect the ref would have wanted to book someone earlier to get on top of it but there wasn't really an obvious candidate. Can you book a player for team-wide persistent fouling? I imagine not.
It looked like Coventry were playing rugby at times in the latter stages, and it speaks volumes when their substitutes are taking footballs from ballboys and rolling them onto the pitch to waste time. A draw was probably fair but 3 mins of 'injury time'??????? I was expecting about twelve. Hey Ho!
EFL refs are absolute ****e. Leicester fans had every right to be annoyed. The ref took the piss in that game and the ref tonight took the piss as well. Delap was fouled after beating their last defender; should’ve been a red. Binks somehow got away with sitting on Delap for ten seconds then rabbit-punching him when he finally decided to get off him. There was also the persistent fouling throughout the first half and most of the second half that didn’t even result in one yellow card. I think they got their first yellow in the 80th minute. What an absolute mockery of the game. Can’t argue with refs or make a gesture indicating the other player deserves a card though; that would make the refs look like the silly, incompetent ****s they are.
I don't really believe they're incompetent. They're trained and prepared as well as they possibly can be. I think it's a hard job at the best of times with the way the game is, but then when you've got directives to clamp down on this and that and then it's quietly reversed a few weeks into the season it's just a complete mess. What chance have they got?
New directives or not, that guy was just crap. The little time he added on at the end is so far down the list of grievances I have with how he officiated the game. He was incompetent. He never had control of the game. He let them get away with persistent fouling without sanctions so they continued to do it. He was like a **** substitute teacher. No backbone. The Delap-Binks incident was just a farce.
