Hold on Middlesborough are higher than us for some reason, silly SSN Score centre ... so we are 6th ... the board can stay
i was a little worried about brum (cracking defence), but losing to derby so things really must be bad!!
My opinion of the game is a bit of a mixed one. Felt at times we were playing WELL to defensivly and not closing chaventry down. Saying that, the back 5 were amazingly solid. Danns put in a hell of a shift as did fernandes. Wellens put in a good shift although i felt could have played some balls better. Abe and pielter always in space. Nugent looked amazingly threatening up from but cause vassel got sent off, he no-one to play with. (lets hope sven plays waggy!!) I think we were lucky to come away with 3 pts as chaventry looked extremly dangerous towards the end. All in all, great atmosphere created by our fans and extremly enjoyable to see so much passion from schmicheal and danns at the end! Up the foxes!!!
A very enjoyable day and the result means job done. Nice to shut those scumbags up as well. But to be frank we were pretty shocking for most of it. Even before the sending off we let them dominate possession and gave them more space than they gave us. I was saying before the game it was a potential banana skin and it seemed almsot inevitable that we would lose until we scored, and from that point we never really looked like conceding. They dominated the first half in truth, and we couldn't string 3 passes together. The main reason for our terrible (sorry, it has to be said, it was) first half performance was our negative lineup. I thought Nugent and Danns were very poor in the first 45 but in fairness, it was probably largely not their fault, as they had almost no support at all. Playing 2 holding midfielders was a mistake IMO, we've spent plenty of money yet still seem to lack a cutting edge. I'm hopeful Sven realises this, the fact he is still looking for a striker is encouraging but it will take some convincing for me to believe we made the right decision by not going for Maynard properly (maybe Bristol's result will convince him to hand in a transfer request? ). Now, don't get me wrong, I thought Abe and Fernenades were very good today, but there's no way the both of them should be starting, simply because they are both defensive players and not creative. Essentially, this is like having 6 defenders, as the full backs did not push on very much (certainly not in comparison to Naughton or Van Aanholt - though in particular Konchesky had no options when he got on the ball). It's refreshing to see a holding midfielder doing his job well but having 2 of them is just too negative for a side that should be taking the game to the other team and creating chances. Add this to the fact that Wellens kept having to come deep to pick the ball up, yet was still the furthest forward of all the midfielders. Though Abe wasn't far behind, I think Fernandes just edged it today with a terrific display of energy and tackling, and therefore I would only start him out of the 2 next Saturday. In addition, I think our off the ball movement is still poor. Hopefully this is down to not gelling properly yet which should come in time, but it definitely needs to improve if we want to be a force this season. We started shakily all over, none of the defenders were communicating (not even the usually vocal Schmeichel) and they looked nervous and gave them too much space. However Coventry rarely looked like scoring and we were very solid in the second half. I'd say we will be much better defensively than last season. But the bottom line is, a team with our aspirations should play with far more positivity and fluidity against **** teams like Coventry. We were reduced to long balls to Nugent and even if he did win them there was no one to pick up the second ball. Creativity lacked simply because we didn't have creative players like King, Johnson, Gallagher and 'unnamed' in the team. The ref was awful - I thought both sendings off were harsh but in general he got every decision wrong. Atmosphere was cracking in the first half, mainly fuelled by the bad blood on the pitch, funnily enough it wasn't quite as good when we were winning i the second half. Though I did enjoy 'Everybody Danns Now'! I think if we'd had played a good team today we'd have been in trouble, but we didn't, and 3 points is the most important thing. I think we are crying out for a quick winger and a quick goalscorer, and I think the team selection needs to be more positive. If we do those things, I'm confident performances will be more like what we are expecting.
we did enough..thats all that counts ..i almost posted before the game...no stupid sendings off.....the chavs were an unkown quantity to us...we got the measure of them...but they won't go down....lot more communication on the pitch which is good......ps. keep your ticket stub from today, free beer if you produce it next week at the reading game...
I loved their sending off btw. We celebrated like we'd scored We weren't playing well at that point and it was a massive lift for us.
Gelson was class I think Nugent will do really well for us to be honest, considering he was isolated he looked class What a game!
