well having let the dust settle but still nursing my disappointment I have to say Derby played the perfect game against us, pressed us up the pitch, forced us inside were they were extremely well organised, congratulations to them. All of the midfield were poor last night, Livermore, and Thudd proved yet again that they struggle to play together, both were guilty of giving the ball away needlessly far too often. What did we learn ? Dave just aint a left back while i have got a hole in my arse, and even when switching back to the right struggled to impose himself on the game. Thudd was his usual ponderous self, but not the scapegoat for last night as all of the midfield including Livermore, Diame and Elmo were below par. The energy in the middle is none existent and we are severely missing Meyler. Maloney, slowly getting up to speed, and showed some quality touches, can only get better, and to be fair to him he was probably one of the bright sparks creatively. Maguire improved through the game and showed our midfield how to drive forward, something which they need to copy. Hernandez stuck at his task well. linked up well with maloney and Diame when he could be arsed to get forward, and was unlucky with his effort first half, outstanding save by Carson. All in all on another night we may have rescued things, but shooting practice and actually hitting the target needs to be high on the agenda, but we dust ourselves down and move on. We will improve with the return of Robbo, Dawson and hopefully Meyler (sooner rather then later), keep the faith Tiger Nation.
To be honest, I'm surprised at you posting that, as it seems a really daft observation. My reading is that SB really does believe (before kick-off, it probably changes after about 3mins ) that his tactics and team selection was just fine, a clever use of his self-proclaimed depth of squad. That being the case it is perfectly understandable that he would see no problem in naming Snodgrass as a sub, understandable, but wrong on all counts. Is this really what we should expect from our manager - the man who put this squad together? No, it isn't and that has been the case for a long time, but it is what we are stuck with, so we move on to the next shambles.
I was at the game but watched again on Sky when I got in. They covered with Michael Dawson and Danny Higginbottom how Odubajo was at left back to nullify Ince. Ince likes to come inside but would then be doing so into Odubajo's strongest foot. Obviously that didn't work out but you can see why we started like that.
I'm not sure what was daft about that really, why name him (Snodders) as a sub if he isn't going to be used?
I posted at the time we were 2-0 down anyway with fifteen minutes to go so there was nothing to lose by getting him on and giving everybody a boost, instead the last sub was Hayden which seemed odd in itself. I was a big one last season for saying that Bruce had been let down by the players rather than his tactics or team strategy being to blame, I'm starting to re-think that now going on this season.
The type of player Snodgrass is would lead to him throwing himself about though to try and prove a point. It was probably a calculated risk not to play him because it was unlikely he was going to change the tide so dramatically that we got anything from the game.
I can accept that I suppose though its a shame we might have had somebody else on the bench available in his place with more forethought from the management. I thought bringing on Hayden at the end was fairly abject in terms of the tactics.
Roll on next week today we could find ourselves 3 pts off the top and further down the league but still not much in it, the season has a long way to go any team which loses key players will suffer. Been in the top two in May is this important thing and im sure we've got a great chance, it seems there is around half a dozen teams who are fighting for the top two the ones who are lucky with injuries or have the better bigger squads will go up. Robertson back next week should had a better balance to the team, We need to get back to winning ways quickly hopefully next week in a big Yorkshire derby game followed by two home matches were I imagine we will still be without Dawson but hopefully he will be back after that. I know last night was a set back against a team in our mini league but after the run we have been on then it had to happen sometime, 1 pt from 6 isn't a good return from the last two games so its important now we back the lads and hopefully we will go on another winning run of games.
TBH I'd rather lose to Derby than a perceived **** team, hopefully next week we'll tonk Leeds to hell & back! However with certain players missing, it does show that our "strength in depth/strong squad" isn't strong in all areas, which to me is pretty obvious so I hope SB can see it too!
Their plan worked. Forced us into mistakes try capitalised than sat on the lead. Good god. Meyler has had a handful of good games against substandard opposition. Well done. All of a sudden he is a world beater. Blaming Huddlestone for last night is a joke. Clucas caused the first goal. No body else. Meyler would have not prevented that. I'm sure Dawson would have made a big difference to the team last night. It was obvious our balance was all wrong last night. Odubajo should never have started on the left. It was a big mistake. And our fluency in the middle was all over. Not because of Meyler not playing but the fact that he had some sort of fluid rotation between Clucas, Livermore, Huddlestone and Maloney. Blame should take the blame for what happened last night. It was obvious the tactics were not working. Boo hoo we lost a game. Derby did their homework and they won deservedly. However, it was no where near how bad we were at Charlton and Brighton
Agree with you about Maloney and the role he might play. I thought he and Hernandez played some lovely interchange stuff. So maybe there is a partnership there. And on another night he might have scored more than one (actually techically could have scored more than 0!). One observation re the game. On many occasions commentors go on about how well we keep our shape, well we certainly did not last night we were all over the place with no real shape. Definitely missed Robertson and probably Clucas missed him more than we did, they work so well together. For their second goal I think it was Clucas was in the goal area with no one on the wing covering the Derby player who had the ball in acres of space, you knew a goal would be forthcoming. There is a fine line between winning and losing, on reflection the Middlesboro game could have gone the same way if some of Boro's early chances had gone in. Was not our night, just as last week Manchester City got tonked by Liverpool. Diame was well shackled by Derby where as normally he would overpower players he had the ball routinely taken off him or was dumped on the ground so his impact was minimal. When we need the killer pass from Hudds it was not there, saw Clucas standing on many occassion on the left touch line wide open with play and City players clustered on the right only to see the pass remain in the clustered area. McGuire did have some nice bursting runs but not so sure how well he carried out his defensive duties, inclined to agree with Phillip Buckinghams analysis- "Harry Maguire: Began the night with a brilliant block to keep out Christie inside the box but never looked too assured against the pace of Derby's attacking three. His persistence at least drew the appreciation of supporters. 7" Read more: http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Hull...tory-28259180-detail/story.html#ixzz3so2Vmsny Follow us: @hulldailymail on Twitter | HullDailyMail on Facebook
17 points from a possible 36 when Huddlestone starts, 18 from a possibly 18 when he doesn't. 33% win percentage when he starts, 100% when he doesn't. We're a different team without him. We've looked just like we did at the start of the season since he's come back in, it's no co-incidence. I've lumped on us to win every time we've started without him this season and on a draw/loss we have (with the exception of Cardiff away). Easy money.
