No composure in the final third, no patience or guile in the box. Just wild shooting from outside the box or hopeless punts nodded out by the excellent Shackell (whom Pearson tried to sign). Thought Burnley carved out some great chances and should have had at least another goal. Their keeper should have been booked before half time for cumulative time-wasting unfortunately the **** ref and his cock-sucking linesman seemed oblivious to it.
Again a clueless ref who chose to wait till almost the end of the game to have a go at their time wasting tactics.. Matty Fryattt is a big loss as the season ebbs and flows.. Simpson goals are beginning to dry up again and that is a worry..
Ref produced a flurry of ineffective late yellows when one after 40 mins would have done the trick. Their keeper would not have needed to put his kit in the laundry basket after today's game as he hardly had a save to make. Worrying how a big defence and hardworking unadventurous midfield closed us down almost completely and easily kept us at arm's length. A few larkers owe us a performance against Glass Palace.
I agree we weren't at the races today, but I don't think it's anything to worry about, we've seen enough this season to suggest we have goals in the team and are capable of winning games. Burnley had a plan, 11 men behind the ball, play on the counter, time waste and if all else fails commit fouls. It worked out perfectly for them today, on another day they would have been hammered. Frustrating game for sure but nothing too much to worry about as long as we move on and learn from it.
I agree about the ref, far too lenient with cards until the token yellows in injury time. Their goalkeeper was time wasting in the first 15 minutes, can't blame the player, the referee should have taken charge but was quite happy to let him carry on.
Hang on. Are you saying that fryatt is 'composed'? This is the same fryatt who when 1 on 1 you can guarantee will miss? The one who can't trap a bag of sand? Granted, when he doesn't have to think about it he's a half decent finisher but composed is not a word I'd ever associate with him. No doubt there will be the usual 'he was our top scorer'. Yes he was, but if he was composed and clinical, he would be bagging 20+ rather than scraping to 10
I thought the player we missed most from last season was Robbie Koren today actually. His role in this team is totally different to last season, and I don't think we're even getting 50% from him. He's clearly better defensively than last year, but I'd like to see him do more going forward now, he looks to be lacking a bit of confidence to me.
Him and Quinn didn't get into the areas where they can hurt teams enough, but that was mainly due to the fact Burnley figured out pushing up on us and making us have to play it long meant we was guaranteed to lose it most of the time. Oli and Meyler where both shocking at collecting it from the back four, and that meant Quinn and Koren coming deeper and deeper, Sean Dyche i salute you.
Sean Dyche is an utter ****er and anti-football teams like the ones he sets up are ruining football. Watford were exactly the same last year. ****ing ugly. The sad thing is, with a bit of common sense it could all be easily stopped. If we punished time-wasting the first time it would be the last time. If we gave a booking every time they pulled one of our players down professinally after being beaten it would soon stop. The most ridiculous one today was Danny Ings on Brady on their byline in the 2nd half. Brady had skinned him, he had a clear path to pull it back and there was a good 50-50 chance we'd score, he pulls him back just outside the area, we get a ****ing useless free kick and the ref doesn't even book the cheating ****. It's complete and utter cheating and they got away with it every time, and it isn't surprising at all because this happens whenever you get anti-football teams. The way we have referees running our game just asks to be abused and promotes cheating and anti-football. We need a big directive to all refs that this is going to stop, you'd get a load of games where a few players get sent off but it would eventually stop happening and we could finally move on from this ugly anti-football crap that English football is full of, and maybe then we'd be competing with the other nations that play football on the international stage. Sadly it won't happen, and it doesn't even get brought to anyone's attention because it isn't major things like penalties and red cards - they're the things people will talk about and so this all gets swept under the carpet. It's a massive problem, not just today we get it 4 or 5 times a season.
We miss Fryatt every game, if for no other reason than we would have more competition for the spot. We cant start Mclean over either Aluko or Simpson and Pro doesnt seem there yet.
Talking of strikers - this will be unpopular but I'm gonna stick it out there - Aluko should achieve far, far more than he actually does, particularly at home. Considering the talent he has, and how much of the ball he sees, it so often comes to nothing and is just a complete waste. He reminds me of Bernard Mendy in that he has the talent to take anyone on, but he wants to do it as casually as possible as if to make them look silly and ends up messing it up. Just a bit of urgency would make him a great player, a bit of the hustle and bustle that Simpson or McLean give you and he'd be a great player. That and being able to finish inside the area.
We were never that bad, if we were we wouldn't have been able to complain about Watford doing the exact same thing against us last season.
Except he didn't. Look at the other thread about the Watford game last year. That was one of Nige's last games and we were playing great football. NP was a boring person but we didn't set out to play boring football at all. We were ineffective at times because we didfn't have the players we do now, but we were never anti-football.
Ricardo & ISTPLT - all I am saying is give peace a chance.. not that's not what I'm saying (clears throat).. give Burnley some credit for doing their homework on us - we need to look at ourselves NOT them.. we still don't have a PLAN B - i.e. big focher who bullies the f**k out of the opposition defence.. no gentlemen Prossie isn't this type of forward.. Holt, Parkin, Carrol, Whitehurst, Fashanu, Duncan Ferguson.. big sods who put fear of God into the CBs
