One thing that's disappointed me over the last few years with our club, is the complete lack of youngsters coming through and playing a few minutes here and there. We had that Buebo a couple of seasons ago, but other than that, we've not had one on the bench this season or last. Today would've been the ideal game to give one or two some experience
Agree that it'd be nice to have some more of our own, I see it more as a symptom of the speed of our rise up the leagues, the 1st 11 can barely keep up with requirements, let alone youth products that didn't really make their mark in L1.
I thought the first half particularly showed how far we've come in such a short time that we can throw in a number of fringe players,a debutante etc and sweep aside a team we only drew with not so long ago.Confidence building all round (with a noteable exception-no name,no pack drill!!).
Just watched the bbc highlights. Fantastic commentary before Ali took his penalty saying he had 2 assists. The “assist” for clarke’s goal was a completely shanked shot - did give me a laugh though
It was a bit of a stroll quite honestly, our reserves v a lower Lg1 side and apart from the Blue Action section the atmosphere was flat. Muric reminded us why he is no longer No 1 keeper by passing directly to an opposition player on the edge of the box but fortunately they didn't score, also Woolfy was waving him out to collect a through ball but he stood rooted to the spot and the ball had to be cleared by a defender, Al Hamadi continues to look out of his depth and blasted a penalty yards wide and with Hirst back he will surely go on loan to a lower league Club. A crowd of 27660 with fans taking advantage of the cheap tickets made for a nearly full P R so excellent support today.
Very good performance, as BigAl said I think it reflected how far we've come. Very assured performance with what was made of mainly our second string. Muric highlighted to me made the case for being 2nd in line to Walton, slow distribution, casually giving the ball away and poor decision making to come for the ball. I thought Godfrey had a good game and highlighted to me why we've brought him in. Strong defensively but also offers dynamism going forwards. O'Shea has been great but he's a proper CB and if we're going to play more defensive minded we need our wide CBs to offer more on the ball. It'll be interesting to see how we line up at the back, as pretty all have been superb all season. I'm guessing McKenna will favour his newer signings. I do feel though Woolfenden brings something which our other CBs don't and that his ability on the ball...I know the standard of opposition wasn't great yesterday but I felt he controlled the game...which I've never seen a CB do before. I thought Townsend came in and did well in the role as LWB, particularly from an attacking sense. Part of me feels we still haven't replaced the role Leigh used to play, i.e if we were winning he'd come on the sure us up a bit physically at the back, after the penalty we conceded against Fulham I wonder whether having someone more like that to come on would've been useful rather than Townsend who seems a more like for like replacement. I thought Phillips on the ball yesterday was outstanding, showed real high quality in his passing, touch and shooting. However again perhaps I'm being overly critical but for a defensive midfielder I've seen very little from him in breaking up play or tenacity (which Luongo showed in bucketloads) and neither did he try to control the game and against league 1 opposition he should've been setting the tempo. Luongo was doing more of this and think did not show the technical ability of Phillips but tried to impose himself more on the game and given he hasn't played many minutes looked very good....although I think he looked knackered second half. Burns had a fairly solid if unspectacular game, the positive for me is he looks to have got the aggression back in his game which I felt was missing after the Liverpool game. Still thought the forward positions looked a little disjointed, Al Hamidi had a mixed game though the touch to put Taylor through was sublime (even if it was miles offside). He needs to go off and get some minutes elsewhere now, despite the criticism I don't think he's done badly coming on as a sub for us. I've always thought Taylor could do a job for us in the 10 but thought he looked rusty there actually and he's clearly suited to a deeper role (maybe more of an 8 than a 6 though) but still had a few good moments. Overall a decent performance infact pretty much perfect. Probably the best second string performance I've seen (ever potentially) the players just slotted in and particularly first half knew their roles which is impressive given many haven't played much recently. The caveat to that is the standard of the opposition, I was surprised how open Bristol were given they were playing a PL team, was expecting a flash back to a couple of seasons ago when we used to play teams whod just sit deep and wait for us to break them down, Bristol didn't do that but not sure what they were doing but it didn't work.
A good, positive summary ptc! The way they all played reflected a strong whole squad togetherness, training, spirit, and could have competed well against weaker Prem teams. Great to see Hirst back, and as you’d expect - by no means match fit but showing glimpses of his old self. On his day Hirst is great, and Delap's a right beast, but we do need 3 strikers. If 1 of them is crocked, we will be stretched. And we all know that Ali Hamadi needs decent games in the right league for him to restore his confidence.
