Thought Traore started really well. He adds much more in possession then Twine does, Twine however, is much more mobile so can see why when one has to play out wide he’s often preferred, but today he showed for me how much better centrally he can be when he’s given license to get on the ball and make things happen. Struggled when shifted out wide for a spell but then grew into it again before being subbed off with a few interceptions/tackles.
We had 21 shots to their 10. 9 to 4 (on target). When xg gets released, I imagine that will be more in our favour too. This was far from the performance against Sunderland. Also, it may have been chaotic, but this style of football means our attacking players get the ball more/have more chances. Surely you would agree that our attacking quality within the squad is better than our defence? If it were the other way around, then the keep-ball strategy would suit us better (and does for most away games). But not at home. We need to maintain this ‘chaotic’ style of play. I do agree that we haven’t been as clinical as we should be in a lot of games though.
In the first half he was hitting it long frequently and almost every time it came straight back. There was much less of that in the 2nd.
I knew we needed that 3rd goal after their first...Tufan should have buried that chance, but difficult angle...Therefore forgiven. Decent win vs a reasonable Blackburn.
Blackburn were better than I was expecting, bearing in mind their current form. Even though we went 2 up, and shouldn't have let them back 2-2, on the run of play I felt they deserved to be level as HT. 2nd half we were much better and should have scored more, and even though we got the one necessary to win, I felt we kept them at arms length until the sending off, when strangely we let them dictate the pace of the game again. Nevertheless, it felt like a very important win, and gets us back on track. Delap's goal was a masterpiece, and overall he was a thorn in their defence, but needs to learn that not all attempts on goal need to be smashed. Connolly took his goal well, and it was nice to see Alfie Jones get his winning goal. I thought Traore didn't have a bad game, Slater did his job well at LB, Jones apart from not quite being able to deal with their first goal was very good and Coyle was as dependable as per usual. Overall a good game to watch, and an important win, back into the playoff places, on to Massive Monday, with the hope we can turn them over.
Score one more goal than the opposition. Works everytime, tried and tested, all the best teams do it.
Reminiscent of their first game (nearly 2 years ago Where's that time gone?!). They seem to like beating Blackburn
Good post John. Blackburn surprised me too as their recent form has been very poor.We've had to work hard to put them away but it's put us swiftly back on track and in the mix.It's a topsy turvy league where a couple of wins keeps you in the hunt and a couple of defeats sees another team replacing you. It's tight at the top and there's a real possibility that if we can bring in a marquee signing or two,we'd have a real chance of going close for a play-off place...I'm probably a bit biased on my views of Ryan Kent(having seen a fair bit of him up here) but I genuinely think if we could get him on board we'd move up a gear.
