I mean Darlow wasn't exactly amazing with his feet, it was the Newcastle fans' biggest criticism of him. He was adequate with his feet so that's all we need. It's just that as the season has gone on Allsop is letting in soft goal after soft goal. Even the tiny amounts of footage I've seen of Pandur with his feet, he looks like he'll be fine.
Fingers crossed they have, but I'm not calling for him to come in as better if I haven't seen him, and Pandur has come in for the longer term. They obviously see something in him though, I accept that.
A really entertaining game to watch, first and foremost. 2 good sides who were evenly matched, though on the balance of play we certainly had the more chances and dictated the game for the majority of the time. As far as the game went, there has been criticism that we don't create enough, but in this game as with Cardiff that was not the case. But when you do commit players forward, you are always open to a counter-attack, which was the case last night. I think if Giles had been fit he may well have a good chance of stemming it, but he clearly was struggling with his groin. But as said, if Morton had not taken that extra touch and shot, then the situation would not have arisen. However, this was not the game which defined our season, if we weren't playing catch up and needed to win, it would be seen as a decent point. It has been our overall problem in not winning our games against the lesser teams that have cost us. Omur had another great game, just needs to sharpen up on his scoring. Morton was excellent, only blotting his copy book slightly by losing the ball for their 2nd goal. Tufan again was very good, puts in a lot of work on and off the ball. Jones and Greaves on the whole had good games. Allsop IMO should have done better with the first goal, not sure about the 2nd, as it may have taken a deflection. I'm certainly enjoying watching us play, particularly as we are starting to move the ball quicker. We are still a work in progress, and it is going to be an interesting summer. Nevertheless, we should keep going, as you never know what will happen in the last few games.
Just seen the short highlights (Boro posted them), and what a cracking finish that is from Seri! Where's that been?
I have a theory he can only shoot upwards, but because he was closer to the goal than usual it went into the top corner of the goal rather than the top corner of the stadium
He knows the playoff dream is gone Morton should have put his laces through it not took another touch ( story of our season). Easy opinion to have but Allsop is a poor keeper. Got to make sure we finish in the Top 10 now and beat DQPR.
Reflection... the tempo increase was fantastic, got the fans onside and the goals. As soon as the second half started you could tell that the same tempo wasn't there. Why wasn't it there or is that the MO, try and hold onto the lead rather than going out to kill it off. Even the chances created weren't as much from forcing them back, more the fact they came out and were looking for a goal / or two and there were spaces. When we needed the goal, the tempo increased.. This has been a steep learning curve for the manager the owner and his team. The waste, complete and utter waste of a place in the squad let alone the money for Furlong, Sharp, Ohio and numerous others means that a huge amount of work has to be done to even reach these 'fallen just short' levels next season. Unfortunately the manager is in some way culpable for this squad selection.
The key statement in that whole interview was right at the very beginning... 'we find a way NOT to win'...
The most annoying thing about his insistence of sticking with Allsop is that the way we play doesn’t even require a goalkeeper that is amazing on the ball, the most common pass is a 10 yard pass to either CB it’s not bloody hard for a professional footballer to do that regardless of if they’re seen as a ball playing goalkeeper or not.
Allsop also regularly pings long balls that land on a dime for one of our wingers. The fact they don't do much with it is a different story. It's why Ingram came in for so much stick at the start of the season because he had no clue how to ping the passes required.
