Aye I think it gave them a boost and probably kicked our lads in the plums aswell. I think their heads were down losing him as they will know what he brings!
Ah well, bad day at the office. They were easily the better team, but I think it's more to do with us not having a single good performer rather than them being anything special. If anything, I was surprised by how little they created and how deep they sat, considering our poor play. We need to look at going back to 1 up front if Stewart is out any amount of time, though the injury to Cirkin might leave us short at left back. We'll have games like this at this level, it's just important a single game doesn't turn into a bad run.
Our passing and final ball was crap, Boro are **** all and won’t go up before us. Roberts can’t complain about not starting and Simms can’t play in his own, Pritchard or Roberts should’ve helped more by breaking forward in the first half. Clarke done well to beat his man but delivery was rubbish this time. Embleton can’t complain about not starting either. And Stewart just proved without playing that he’s the best player in this league. In my unbiased opinion.
Very disappointing performance for me. Just some really terrible decision making from players who are better than that. I think we probably got sucked into the trap of focussing on it being a derby, and we arent that sort of team. It was so manic, from players like Evans, Pritchard, Clarke, our football suffered. When you have such a poor first half turning it round is difficult as a player, you start to try too hard. Overall it was a shocking game to watch. I bet most neutrals didnt get to the end. Boro had very little quality for me, we just gifted them possession to easily in that first half. That is our first bad performance this season though. When you have 5 or 6 way off their best it will happen. Pick yourselves up lads, lots of games coming up.
In the context of the season as a whole it's not that bad a start but we all know it could be so much better
Yeah it was a foot from brilliant, however he still should have hit it with his left, worst outcome deflected for a corner.
The players just made too many mistakes and bad decisions on the pitch man, nothing to do with the manager….
If we dont end up above them at the end of the season I will be disappointed, and I did not expect to be saying that this soon OaU
They had an on day, we had an off day, it happens. Maybe it being a derby to them and not to us was an element. Didn't enjoy any of that and we need to do better but it was just one game in a long season. Let's hope for good news about Stewart, I don't think any of us weren't aware of how much he brings to the team but tonight displayed it.
If Pritchard had scored we’d have won that game. A scrappy game if ever there was one. Plenty of effort but crossing was terrible. Bart
Easily the worst we’ve played this season. Against Norwich and Sheff Utd we played well but we’re unlucky. Tonight nothing worked for us.
Our main style of play is with two centre forwards and our failure to bring another in could be disastrous. Played OK in parts but too many poor performances all over the pitch And for the love of god can we get some shooting practice in?
Better 2nd half as think neil n evans started to control the game but we were poor in the final 3rd. Losing any player during the warm up is tough to deal with but when its your main man its so much worse. Think on sat we need to switch formations n go with a 4231. Gives a couple days to work on that. Alwaye disappointing to lose a game but always cant get too down just need to bounce back
Febuary all over again this if stewart does not play on Sat i am duffing it, like the team did tonight, we are always crap at the Boro. Mowbray will be happy he helping keep them up, like we did with Wigan before last season.
This is what the season's going to be like, folks. We'll maybe win more than we lose, but not by much. Where we are now would be more than acceptable.
Poor that, I wasn’t too concerned about ST depth but I think I am now. Could’ve been a different game if Pritchard scores. I was frustrated that we didn’t change the shape to suit the players that we had
