So, I (like many other City fans) was well up for this game. It was a great chance to bag 3 points against a struggling side, at home and with near enough a full strength team. What a contrast I felt 2 hours later. Annoyed, would be the word I'd use to describe the feeling I had coming away from the stadium. So why was I annoyed? Well, I'm going to try and break it down. Usually I just leap into stuff and chuck out criticisms or points and leave it at that, but I'm actually going to try and work out how I came to these conclusions. So, let's begin with a bit of player analysis. Goalkeeper: I'm a big fan of McGregor, I've always respected him as a player and as a fellow goalkeeper he's somebody I've kept an eye on careerwise. He's come under a bit of criticism recently (not least my old man who doesn't rate him in the slightest) but (goal aside) tonight I thought he did alright. Granted, he didn't have an awful lot to do but he did most of it right. The goal wasn't his fault, in my opinion, he's no giant and it looped over him. Do we need a new first choice keeper? No, we don't. He's made plenty of game/point saving saves this and last season to warrant his place and an ageing Steve Harper or a third choice Jakupovic aren't going to readily displace him. Defence: Solid tonight, I thought McShane was fantastic, there's glimpses of a Premier League standard player in there somewhere, if he keeps this up till the end of the season then great. Dawson seems to get better with every game, although his headers out seemed a little short; there were a few times when his headers only managed to reach the edge of our area but he made plenty of timely interceptions when a lesser defender would've flapped. Bruce was also pretty good tonight, credit where it's due he got stuck in. However, talks of a new 2 year deal are worrying. Yeah, he's playing well at the moment, but a two year deal? Really? It doesn't really scream "Premier League progression" if you're hanging on to Championship quality players. And that's what he is to me. He's a Championship player having a good run of form in the Premier League. Every game to him must feel like a cup tie. He hasn't put a foot wrong these last few games, I'll give him that, but if he's still a regular for us in two years time there's something not right. I'll include A-bob and Elmo in this bit, both of whom were outstanding tonight. The former looked determined to justify his selection and he did so with aplomb and style we haven't seen for a long time. He still seems to get caught out a bit, but it didn't seem that much of a problem tonight. Elmo was his usual self, although there was one cross that he ended up chipping out of play. Not his finest bit of play. An underrated player if ever we've had one, he's one of the few players that when he's on the ball, the crowd get excited because you know he's going to drive the team forward. Midfield: A solid display all round I thought. Livermore was industrious if not spectacular and Huddlestone has improved massively; he was pinging balls about like nobodies business and it was fantastic to see. He has that in his locker, which is perhaps why a lot of fans were getting on his case earlier in the season because he looked like he couldn't be arsed. An on form Thudd is a vital cog in our winning machine and it was good to see him back to his usual self. Then we get to Mr Meyler. Now, much like Alex Bruce, I don't think the lad is a Premier League quality player. I pointed out last season, to much criticism, that he was perhaps a little behind the others in terms of ability but he then went and scored in the FA Cup semi and I got told to pipe down. Fast forward to today and I still have the same problem. There's no faulting his effort, let's get that clear, his commitment to the side is there for all to see and that's great, perhaps why fans endear to him so much. But his passing range (which is a key feature for a midfielder), his vision and his work on the ball leave a lot to be desired. You look at the other midfielders in our team; the likes of Quinn, Huddlestone and Livermore have the ability to think 5 seconds ahead of recieving the ball, Meyler seems to think on his feet, guess and hope it comes off. If the lad plays well, I'll always give him credit, but tonight, bless him, he was pants. I have no idea why he was playing on the left, I'd have thought Quinn was the obvious choice as Meyler seemed to stand far too close to A-Bob, thereby negating the overlap and opportunity to counter. Specific incidents that spring to mind were the two backwards passes he made while in the box, the one at the end was particularly frustrating because had he shot or crossed it we'd have had one final chance, instead he played it backwards and, perhaps indicitive of his performance, broke the move down and ended the game. The lad covers every blade of grass on the field, but if he isn't actually doing anything of sufficient calibre to benefit the team then what's the point? He didn't lose us the game, far from it, but it's quite clear that he isn't good enough, he hasn't really been since we got promoted and I honestly don't know why Bruce persists in playing him over Quinn. Forwards: A decent showing from all 3, a special goal from N'Doye that showed composure and technique. Interestingly, it was a goal from a set piece, something which we have seldom seen this season. N'Doye I noticed isn't playing much off Jelavic; he seems to want to drop deep to start a move off and then recieve the ball for a chance. Good in the sense that he gets about, but not so good if he's so tired he can't get there in time, especially with the pace of Elmo and Robertson either side. Which rather neatly brings me to my next point... Tactics: I think we set up correctly, but my God, where is the versitility? There are, for me, two big downers with the 3-5-2, one of them is the gap the WB's leave if they go forward, the other one is something that cropped up last season and that is our over reliance on crossing. Costel Pantilimon is 6ft 8, he's the tallest player in the Premier League and is therefore going to be able to gobble up crosses all day long. Which he did. So why didn't we start trying to play down the midde? Does every chance we create have to come from a cross? It seems to be hit and miss as to whether it works or not; both our front men are tall guys, but they're also pretty technically gifted, would it not be more pertinent to mix it up a little, if not only to keep the opposition guessing? We also only made one substitution, when it was painfully obvious (perhaps more so for the players) that we needed some fresh legs out there. You get three subs and fair play you don't have to use them, but when half your team are blowing out their arse and there's still twenty minutes to play, you need to change something. Sunderland were creeping into the game and a change of tactics, formation or personnel might have nullified that if done properly. And yet only Hernandez (who looked hungry for the ball, fair play) was brought on, in what I thought was a fair move. Jelavic needs to be wrapped in cotton wool, I have no qualms about him going off and he was obviously tired, but then maybe bring on Ramirez for the set pieces and maybe Quinn for the extra legs. For the Leicester game, I'd like to see us go with a 4-4-2; this is something else I've noticed about Bruce, as much as it's good to have a settled team, you should always set up to face your opposition. Burnley play the same team every week and it gets predictable (look where they are), we're pretty synonymous with the 3-5-2 so it's not going to take good managers very long to work out our weaknesses. We sent out the team that got a point away at Man City at Stoke and it backfired massively, because Brucey wrongly assumed that a team that bagged a decent result at the Champions would be able to overcome anything Stoke threw at them. Er, no. Different team entirely, requires different tactics. You'd have thought that was management 101, but apparently not, he's paid the money so he clearly knows more than me about it. Just my opinion is all. Overall: Disappointed not to get a win; we should have, we could have and there's gotta be a good result at Leicester or it's going to get a bit sticky. I'm not confident that we will get something there, I have no idea why because our squad is massively better than theirs, but somehow I just know they're going to nick a win. Maybe it's the fear of all my mates back in Leicester chomping at the bit for some 'top notch bants' (whatever the **** those are). In any case, it could have been a lot worse tonight and it was good to see Danny Graham doing what he did best, getting substituted to ironic cheers at the KC.
Great post Sterling , agree with you 100%, it's a while since I have felt so frustrated driving home after the game,a game we could and and should have won.Today's a new day, "We pick worselves up dust worselves down and get ready to go again".
Nice read Sterling Archer but the critical thing at the moment is the midfield not converting scoring chances, Livermore scoring last night would have made it 2-0 and game over. Also I don't agree with any of the comments re. Alex Bruce, amazing that people still have a chip on their shoulder about him when it's obvious there are plenty more issues that need addressing, he's not even any kind of concern to me in the top flight. Bruce is just like Delaney for Palace, people write them off years ago as Championship players but they can do a solid job at our level too.
Regarding AB, I think what Sterling is saying about him is that if we want to progress as a PL club then we need better than him, in fact any acquisitions in the future must be better than what we have. Which is what most of us on here have been saying. AB still regularly in the team, if in the PL, even next year will mean we haven't progressed to anything better than where we were in the Championship.
I would have AB in my team every week over some fancy dan (David Luiz ?) who thinks he is better then he is. You know what you get with Brucey.
Yes thought we played decent last night but was often let down by the final pass, getting that second goal was so important but we missed chances or there keeper did well. Leicester is now a pressure game one we are capable of winning however having watched Leicester on the tv a number of times this season I don't think it will be an easy game. looking at our remaining fixtures I think we need at least another 6pts making the bottom 3 needing to get 11pts to equal us even then we have a better goal difference. I do think its going to be a tight finish because of our very hard remaining fixtures but hopefully we will get at least a couple of wins from some where.
Well I agree that we don't want somebody who is not as good as they think, but I think we should be looking to bring in better quality players than we already have, that's how you improve a side. Players like Bruce and Meyler can easily be replaced by players that are twice as good and it's not going to cost an arm and a leg. We could get Mee from Burnley and Adam from Stoke, that's two improvements already.
I thought the crossing was better than usual. Robbo & Elmo were getting a lot of space & Meyler & Livermore were finding themselves in good areas as well. Yes, you can always do better. A lot of the crosses were on the floor and we had attempts on goal from them. I was quite surprised by it, and all more reason for being pissed off we didn't double the lead.
Thats fine but by your logic we should be looking to bring in a better keeper as well , something that you don't agree with
Well we probably could improve our goalkeeper, I just personally don't think it's an area we need to improve on in Summer. We need a back up goalkeeper if we aren't keeping Oxley (or Watson isn't ready), but I think McGregor wins us more points than he does costs us. Far more, in fact.
They were replaced but their replacements are injured. HBA, Snodgrass Dawson, Diame, Chester and Davies has gone to ****. They're squad players they know they're squad players they train hard & wait their turn with no complaints. Come in and do a ****ing good job to the best of their ability, give it all they've got and get called to **** in the ground and on message boards.
I agree with everything you said. The one thing you missed out which I found annoying last night was the long balls... we constantly smacked long balls to our strikers and i dont think we won a single one.. When Bruce first took over in the championship, we played the same 3-5-2 formation, but ****ing hell we could pass the ball a bit. We got a lot of credit for playing decent football. So why now, when we have much better players than we did in the championship, are we reverting to long ball tactics. As you said, mix it up a bit, but last night we were either down the wings or hoofing long balls over the top... it wasnt pretty and more importantly, it wasnt effective.
Spot on, also another thing where Meyler is concerned is that he's not really in the side just for pretty passing, he's our main midfield spoiler isn't he?
Yep, just as Ashbee used to be. In fact there was as many Asbee bashers when he played for us,as there is for Meyler now. Funny how everyone now remembers Ash as a Hull City legend.
Good post, although I would disagree about Hernandez. I didn't think he put any effort in and (for once) I was hoping for Aluko's to come on with the hope that his pace would offer a different threat. I think our biggest problem though is the lack of threat from midfield. I don't think any of them have more than 1 goal this season. With the exception of Diame, does anyone really expect any of our midfield to attack the goal? I know I don't. I fully expect them to try a poor pass to one of the forward or pass backwards or sideways. Our only real threat comes when Jela or N'Doye attack or from crosses. If I know this his then surely the opposition know this as well and can plan accordingly. Yes, things will improve when Diame is back, or next year with Snodgrass playing, but I feel this is where we need to improve most.
