I think all this negativity around yesterday's performance is overdone. My son and I agreed at half time that it had been an entertaining 45 minutes with some attractive football and good chances created. The second half degenerated as the game went on with too much head tennis and balls lobbed up in the general direction of Polter. There's the rub: to kill off this all-too-easy tactic, JLH should have changed things after 65 minutes and brought on Washington so that we did what we did quite well in the first half: play some short sharp passing movements on the ground. JLH was also late in taking off Phillips and Gladwin, neither of whom contributed much during their time on the pitch. Gladwin, at least, is, in my opinion, worth persevering with. Phillips, we should sell.
With the familiar exception of Phillips, there was no lack of effort yesterday and several players showed a fair amount of skill and determination. Sure, Polter was almost ridiculously clumsy at times but he held the ball up well, battled away and was involved in a handful of good moves. He does a job for us and I hope we can help him to improve his technical ability. Gladwin showed some flashes; unfortunately, there were as many bad flashes as good. Phillips was his usual disinterested self and hasn't now beaten a man or put in a decent cross since the early part of last year.
Whilst he is a poor captain and leader, Onuoha also battled away, winning many decent headers, as did Hall. Kpekwa showed real promise. Perch continued his recent good form. After a few iffy performances, Faurlin was again his usual composed self and ran the game until he seemed to tire in the second half. Luongo showed great skill at times and won a handful of notable tackles. Chery was again excellent, at the heart of most of our best attacking moves. Whilst I was never a fan of Ramsay, I said to my son that he and SLF deserve credit for bringing in players like Luongo, Chery and Hall to the club.
If we exclude Phillips, I would retain ten of yesterday's starting eleven and I think these give JLH a basis for a good team next year. A couple of wise acquisitions and a decent pre-season and we should be challenging for the play-offs in 2016/17. To me, JLH has not been wholly convincing but, given time, I think he may develop these players into a useful team.
