The magic of the cup. That is what it's all about. Not sure we deserved the win but hey. Reminded me a bit about that poor 3rd round tie against Villa when Hughie Fisher got us out of trouble right at the end. The rest is history, as they say.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/60177154 If you had any doubts about the disallowed goal, it definitely was offside.
Manager moans that we pay the price for 120mins playing time. Play your strongest team get the job done early then bring in some youngsters later in the game.
I have quite a bit of sympathy for this point of view, the scale of the changes rather spooked me like everyone else. But what on earth has happened to Theo? He was much better than this last season in the first half of the season in particular, or is it just me thinking that? I can't bring myself to think all he's got to do is turn up and make an appearance on a Saints shirt. Having said that, players on the more extreme area of the fringe are going to struggle to be fully up to speed etc but honestly, his total lack of form is a total mystery to me.
Match ratings Caballero 9/10 was sceptical bringing him in and unimpressed until today's game but played brilliantly and did well to keep it only 1-1. Stopped Smalls rocket header at close range and some brilliant stops when in no mans land. Two quality saves before the eventually offside goal. Valery 5/10 almost gave away a goal with a famed yoshida failed back pass (love yoshi) and some questionable passes but tried to pass the ball forward when our cms were constantly passing back. Lyanco 5/10 thought he was playing well before he went off injured but partly at fault for their goal. Redmond 7/10 gave us another option when coming on by sitting between midfield and attack but not enough killer passes or shots for an attacking midfielder Stephens 6/10 not great not bad. Tried to organise the defence and instruct diallo but didnt have the desired affect Livramento 6/10 Some solid runs and should have shot instead of passing to broja in the second half but allowed their attack too much space and no end product from crosses or passes. Unfortuantely teams appear to have found him out by fouling him before he gets into his stride 7/10Romeu Came on at the end of 90 minutes and added some structure to our team. Cool on the ball and some good forward passes and runs Diallo please take note. Would have scored higher if on the pitch longer. 5/10 Diallo Not sure if this is under Ralph's advise but every time he gets the ball he passed backwards even when better options in front. Stephen's Redmond and Armstrong all told him to pass it to an open man in front but unfortunately it made it easy for Coventry to mark everyone else and let him have the ball. All fine when we have another cm looking for the forward pass but unfortuantely romeu and ward prowse are not the sort to drive or constantly look for the forward pass which highlights when he does it every time Ward-Prowse 7/10 quiet game, some good defensive work and a clever short corner but not enough drives with the ball or attacking play. Small 5/10 harsh to judge him on a first start surrounded by a reserve team. First couple of mistakes seemed to drain his confidence but a nice run and cross before coming off. 8/10 Walker peters Watched him during the warm up with the take a shot with your first touch. Scored every time (when all our attackers spooned them over) confident in defence, good runs going forward and great goal. Walcott 4/10 What can I say. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Clever flicks to noone. Poor control. No drives. Almost scored from corner but apart from that added nothing. Want him to rediscover his form from last season as having him as a back up should be a safe pair of hands but seems to be more a liability then anything at the moment. 7/10 Broja Ball sticks to him like glue. Initially quiet but every time it looks like he is tackled he somehow drags the ball away from the tackler and keeps going. Unlucky not to score after some good runs. 6/10Long For a striker who rarely scores he should use his experiance to help us more. Yet whenever we have the ball he is offside. I can see he is trying to lure their defence back and he is trying to step in at the last minute but results in either a) we dont pass to him as offside or b) we do and he is offside. Some good pressing and good heading but no real shot from memory which for a striker is poor. 5/10 A Armstrong I want it to work but he seems shot of confidence. For a player who is known for shooting from anywhere he didnt let RIP and instead tried to play other people in which didnt work. 9/10 S Armstrong This is the player I remember pre covid/injury Attacking driving runs, good tackles, good passes and a wonderful goal. Love the curl. Let's hope he keeps it up. 7/10 Ralph I get he needs to rotate the team and has spurs game in a couple of days time, but poor starting line up left us exposed. Some good saves from willy meant we were lucky it was only 1-0. luckily he did make changes early and we were a different team in the second half. Most importantly we are through.
Nope, you're right- I feel the same. He's anonymous every time he plays now. Real shame but he's not offering anything anymore. He can't beat a man, he doesn't hold it up well, he can't finish or cross. Just a baffling drop in form. To have him and Long in the same side put us down to 9 players basically
I think we were 3-4-3 before Lyanco went off, but it was a mess, as you say JWP was isolated in midfield, Diallo kept disappearing to inside left, Tino was standing on the right wing doing nothing, no one wanted to pass to Shane or Theo and Coventry kept by-passing our ‘midfield’ such that it was We were a better shape when Redders came on and we went 442 and obvs improved again with Stu and KWP and again with Broja Too many strangers and no shape early on I thought Stu, KWP, Valerie, Willy all played well
I notice you didn`t give Walcott a score - I`m struggling too! I don`t want to sound like a stuck record - but he makes no meaningful contribution. An empty shirt, that just gives encouragement to the opposition.
Missed his score. 4/10 probably harsh as he does try to be direct and bring others into play with flicks but it just didnt pay off. This would naturally be different if he had scored from the corner.
Even today we manage to be the last (FA Cup) game on MOTD. Someone doesn’t like us at the BBC! Ok second last… but the last game for a full set of highlights, we didn’t.
I feel the same and even though we won I didn't enjoy that at all. Except for Stuey's goal of course. Ralph has tried to play strong sides in the cup and I get it that we have other games coming up but that starting line up was just crap and that's how they played. I don't agree with st brendy when he said the team was good enough but the players let Ralph down. IMO they played to their level, they are second string for a reason. Although we turned it around later, the mood of the home crowd was already set by then and I think that's why I feel the same as Tom even after the match is over. It doesn't help when you have 5000 Coventry fans sitting in the home end (I know we are all home fans but you know what I mean). What other club gives up it's home end to away fans? Yes this has been discussed a load of times but today was a ****ing joke, the whole end filled with away supporters. It's not all the club's fault though, the police will object to anything that gives them some work but the club could push them harder to resolve this ridiculous situation. And finally, the knock-on effect of the Northam being moved was that they were in the Kingsland standing all game and made everyone else stand too. Bunch of *****.
Around the 80th min, some of our fans started to switch their mobile lights on. Started in Chapel/Kingsland corner. Wasn’t many tbh. Now maybe it was some sort of recognition that I wasn’t aware of, nor most of the stadium from what I could see but it was pretty limited & poor. Of course it was 1-1 at time so it couldn’t have been because we were holding a Championship side in FAC. Coventry sang “your just an embarrassment”. Had to agree.
The funniest thing was that the Coventry fans who started singing “You’re an embarrassment” obviously couldn’t see that quite a few of their own fans were also doing it.
Well it kind of is the clubs fault - they chose to give Coventry extra tickets and therefore the whole stand which dilutes our singing section (and causes other issues you mention). I mentioned on Friday night that I really don't understand why we've started doing this in recent years? Now we've shown we can sell out these ties hopefully they won't do it if we're at home next round.
