Hard fought draw away from home certainly showed a much higher competitiveness and battling spirit. Makama's second goal in his first start was part of that. Mattsson's ball through to Stacey, who crossed perfectly for Jovon to finish. Their goal off a rebound as the first shot was blocked was well taken and a draw was a fair result.
Another point gained, not a great half but the boys put in a shift. We seemed to try to overload the left hand side, with Gibbs in the 10 definitely being more left side focus. Passing still needs to be sorted out, several times we seemed like we could start an attack similar to the one we scored from, but the second pass kept being misplaced or sloppy or aimless. We seemed to set up in a mid block but the distance between the front 4 and the midfield 2 seemed too big and it leaves a lot of space and a lot of running for the 2 in there. Several times there seemed to be too much space between those 2 and Stoke were able to play a single straight ball through the middle to an unmarked attacker
I thought it looked like Darling was dragged to the floor in the build up to the goal which left him out of position and Medic being drawn to the left, it put the whole defence out of shape
So we've played the top 3 teams. 2 score draws away from home and a narrow 2 - 1 loss at home to the league leaders.
"Ridiculously unambitious"; "Pathetically poor, beyond ridiculously bad" -- post-match views from a couple of our dedicated travelling fans. "More likely to finish in the bottom six than the top six" -- Connor Southwell in his video 'Verdict" after the game. "We were in the ascendancy from the off and to a man we were outstanding; that is probably the most dominant we have been in games this season. They were hanging on; the only downside was we didn't take the three points": Mark Robbins in his post-match interview.
The playing style is not easy on the eye & doesn't generate many points or goals. There seems to be a recurring pattern of scoring in the first half then collapsing second half . Some of the problem is down to new players settling in but the boring pass backwards & sideways approach is extremely boring & frustrating to watch. I think we have improved our defence slightly but with one clean sheet not dramatically & any attacking flair has dried up . Stoke probably deserved the win
The backwards / sideways passing is not a consequence of Manning joining the club it's something we've been doing over a number of seasons / managers.
