No matter what we seem to be doing others are matching It seems after every game we play we're always saying "only 2/3/4/5 points from safety now, Just feels like were getting nowhere, and with a performance like tonight it SHOULD keep us up, We made Brighton look piss poor but wasn't able to get that ball in the net! Ref didn't help but we just needed that little bit of luck. 10 GAMES LEFT Going to be a long and nailbiting finish. Drop skuse for Middlesbrough and bring in Davies and we will stand a much better chance. Now im not knocking Coles performance tonight as he played ok, But he didn't offer anything. Just a quick mention for our back 2. What a great display, Nyatanga was not getting beat tonight and fontaine ran his socks off. Loving Moloney and Cunningham as our full backs. If we can just string 3-4 wins together and stay in this league. SOD will have us up the table next season no problem!
Shiny, we will be fine, provided we beat all of the sides around us and those in poor form which we can do. Once again, in no particular order the list is: Birmingham Wolves Huddersfield Boro Sheffield Weds and pick up a draw or 2 and, THIS WILL BE ENOUGH As of tonight, we have 2 points from 2 games that not many thought we would get anything out of - I certainly didn't expect them. As for Brighton being there for the taking, the table doesn't lie, they are where thaey are for a reason, i.e. they are a very good side. The reason they didn't dominate the game was because we sacrificed a forward for an extra midfielder and worked our socks off and bugger me, it worked but it reduced our threat.
Our back four did well again by not allowing Brighton even ONE effort on target. But the back four can only do so much to keep our goal safe and the entire midfield five and Stead worked so hard according to the radio commentary to win the ball back when we lost it. I actually lost count of the times in the commentary that "City player "X" has lost it to Brighton only to be followed immediately by "And Won back by a City midfielder". I did not use any names in the previous sentence because all of the midfielders were mentioned frequently so it would be unfair to pick one out. Yes, we could have been more clinical in front of their goal, but that was a performance by everyone in the squad that would not have happened before Christmas. So the improvement may or may not keep us up, but we are now looking like a joined up football team whoever is on the pitch and it's unfair at the moment to single anyone out for unjustified criticism. If SO'D had gone out to attack Brighton, we could be sitting here saying "Why did he not pack midfield for a draw? The guy can't please all of us all of the time but he and the team have pleased most of us tonight.
After 4 seasons of open house, i am just glad SOD has made us hard to beat. This is where you start to build your team. My question is, After demonstrating such ineptitude for so long, what on earth has SOD done to Nyatanga and Fontaine to get them looking so solid ? It is a serious piece of management to have achieved this
IMO it is the solidity in midfield that is providing us with more defensive security. Alright, in the summer wherever we are, I believe we need to get four central defenders of better quality than currently at the club but even a Sherman tank there could not hold out if the midfield were still allowing everything through.
Liam Kelly to me does what a good midfielder does, and sit on the heals of their runner he does not get pushed of the ball and hurries them into decisions. Coincendance that since he came here apart from his first game we look more solid. When he went of against Barnsley the blonde midfielder than had time to play and they scored twice. He's one of those players as discussed before you don't notice him much but you miss him when he's not on the pitch. Brighton was a team coming here that I feared, I had this feeling that we won't get much and could off sneaked a one goal victory but the plan was to stop then scoring and on another night we could of sneaked that goal. My only critism of tonight's game was Stead ran his socks off and felt he should of been changed around the 70-75 minutes. But as SoD said it was one of those games where it could of been an inspired sub or a big mistake and he couldn't take the gamble, so fair play to him. Also when did we get this new defender from Lewin Nyatanga? He is a massive improve,ent on what was here before.
Best at the club at the moment ROD. Tangs looked great last night and like I said, Nothing was getting passed him.
Shame Wolves won and WTF has happened to Millwall ??? On the plus side Sheff Wed lost and most of the others only drew so we're not that much worse off.
We are a match for any team in this division & I mean any team, SOD has got the side playing as a team, Iam sure City will survive the drop enjoy the ride all, its going to be a great finish to the season, of that Iam sure of!!!
'Coincendance that since he came here apart from his first game we look more solid' Kelly hasn't done anything out of the ordinary for me, the coincidence as you call it is that McInnes has gone and SOD's in charge. Tangle and Fonts did ok again but don't let anyone be fooled these 2 are not the future.
Don't think you are watching the same Kelly as me and ROD. Like has been said. You may not see what Kelly does but you'll miss him when he's gone. He's the invisible man, He'll run at players all game making them rush there pass and when he gets the ball he knows what to do with it, He's very aware of his surroundings and like I said on a previous thread, He reminds me of Gilberto at Arsenal a few seasons back. He gets on with his job and does it VERY well. As for Tangs and Fonts. If they carry on as they are, We have a real chance. I don't know why but I have always liked Nyatanga and he gets a bit to much stick on here and is nowhere near as bad as some make out BUT as you said, They're not the future, They'll see us out of this season but I want to see 2 new faces next year, One being McFadzean who looks certain to be coming our way.
It seems that as Shiny said when I asked this question before Nyatanga seems to be able to cope being played out of position ie RCB something Fontaine wasn't able, or perhaps not able, too uncomfortable to be able to do for some reason some players can not play in positions outside of their comfort zone. Not even sure if McFadzean has even played since Jan and the aborted transfer we might have dodged a bullet there we could have been paying out wages for another player spending all their time in the treatment room.
To the best of my knowledge, having checked the Crawley web site, he has not played or been sub for their first team since his illness back last November. I cannot find any reference anywhere to the type of virus involved. He may be back training but again I can't find any reference to this either.
