That was a hell of a block from Dawson at the end; didn't realise how we kept it out at the time. Huddlestone's tweet they just showed, saying we were too repsectful. That's the exact word I was thinking on the way home, but should he be saying that? It's normal to say not good enough etc but saying too respectful seems like undermining the manager a bit. Isn't it his job to say if we were too respectful or not. Or am I reading too much into that?
I think it's alright to say that, he didn't contradict what Brucey said did he? I missed the beginning of his interview but I don't think what he says undermines his boss at all.
Probably not, but to clarify, what I mean is by saying we were too respectful could be interpreted as saying we were too defensive which is obviously the manager's decision he'd be questioning if he did mean that. I think he'd be right either way.
We are always too respectful of the 'big teams' we'll never compete like that, i think that memtally comes from the manager, he's been banging on about man utd having world class players and been a big club blah blah! ...thats fair enough, but i dont feel a manager should be letting his team no this! Its kinda like he's saying "i used to play for man utd, their a big club, you lot are crap, they have some of the biggest players, you dont stand a chance" He also always says"" we need to catch them off there game" i dont believe a manager should say this either, he should be instructing them to throw man utd off their game, their not gunna wake up and just not be arsed! ...its bad management, he should be instilling belief into his players, they always look like nervous wrecks!
The game reminded me of the first 10 minutes against Man City but we did it for 90 minutes yesterday. The Man City game we showed if we pressured them and got stuck in we could cause them trouble same as the Spurs game but yesterday it was like we completely forgot that.
You did press us all game, especially your front 3/4 who were trying to harry our defence. Most of the time we were able to pass and move it despite your pressing. I honestly didn't think your pressing let you down, instead I think it was how many times you gave the ball way. That was partly down to our pressing/tackling but also a lack of bite physically from your players. I'd bring it down to 3 things - Didn't win enough of the 50/50 challenges. When you had the ball your players dawdled on it for too long and got robbed. Some wayward passing instead of stringing passes together and holding onto possession for long enough.
Can't disagree with any of that, in fact yesterday showed why Brady and Chester are playing in our first team and not Utd's, both looked incredibly light weight. Further to that our ball retention was diabolical, running into space, diabolical, tackling, diabolical, distribution, diabolical, midfield.....non existent and should be ashamed when they bank their next pay cheque!
