Long drive. Man-Flu. Dull game. Freezing cold. Nice coffee at ECFC. BWP needs a break. Pritchard poor. Good Stephens cameo. Solly MOM. Hamer solid. Bird crap all over windscreen. Long drive. Back home. Chinese. Cadburys Mini-Eggs. Replete. New novel by Ildefonso Falcones. Warm bed. Warm missus. Lovely.
Ponders - Pritchard poor?! I though he was terrific today, worked his nuts off and usually played the right ball. Solly and Wiggins were outstanding, as usual. Stephens did well when he came on, showed a view glimpses of the class he has. Green - to be honest his crossing was poor, capped off by the worst of the lot, which, football being football, went in. I'm still not convinced that Waggy's a better bet though. If Kermo had scored that header that would have been a candidate for goal of the season, the build up was superb. Re making changes: it sounds strange to say it but the team does seem to have gone a little stale of late up front. I wouldn't be averse to giving Hayes a run against Bury, as they're likely going to park the bus and so we will need to play through them rather than rely on Kermo's knock downs. I would also bring Stephens back, for the same reason, potentially in place of Hollands. That's only because Hollands has played pretty much every game this season and I think Pritchard is good enough to do his job with Stephens in the attacking role.
I'd have to disagree with you as well, Ponders - he scrapped like mad and I thought his lateral passing was crisp and accurate. He doesn't drive us forward as much as I'd like, but we don't know what role he's been asked to play. I thought the lack of our forward momentum yesterday was that Hollands didn't have a particularly good game, and as I've said in an earlier post, Green was playing way too deep.
We can criticise all we want and true we havent played particularly well for a while BUT we are winning and winning ugly or with flowing football its 3 points all the same.
I dont think Hollands has played well for the last 4 games, been anonymous for most of them - if there's any chnge to be made, then it has to be him rested along with Pritchard - maybe with Stephens in short term and then also Russell when he's served his ban.
Having Stephens and Hughes replace Pritchard and Hollands for Bury might not be a bad thing. Nice that we've the ability to make this sort of change, I dont think the other four Champions hopefuls could. On a note about Bury dont expect them to sit back and soak up the pressure a la Tranmere and Oldham style, I went up to Bury earlier in the season and they're very much like Exeter, they'll come at us with a game plan to pass the ball around and if they score they will try to get another, none of this sitting back. Is probably why they're midtable just sort of Stevenage by about eight points.
Maybe I am being harsh on Pritchard: he works tirelessly and has proved he can hold his own at League One level. But, for me, he is a one-dimensional sort of player who is not going to add any vision or finesse to the midfield - unlike Stephens, whose passing ability is quite sublime at times. Pritchard is an adequate replacement, a stop-gap sort of player - but once Dale is fully fit, he must regain his place in the starting eleven. Paradoxically, young Bradley has played in the two Sheffield games, so my arguments and criticisms do fall down on many points.
Maybe Pritchard and Stephens would be a good balanced midfield pair- one workhorse and one with that bit of guile. Hughes and Hollands also worked, that's when we scored so many goals, with Hollands grabbing a few. I'm in the rotation camp.
