I hope we can bounce back from this shocking result, there is always the odd one! but against Derby FFS I'm just glad I did not make the effort to drive up there!
On a positive note....utterly brilliant for big CI to usher a few of the team (Doyley, Dicko and Hoggy) over to the away supporters to acknowledge them and appreciate what they have been through. I love big Chris!!
Listened on 3CR, sounded like we didn't move the ball quick enough & couldn't keep poccession. Didn't sound like Murray or Yeates had good games. Dicko is not a centre back, but worked hard. On a positve noted sounded like we improved when cassestti & Bottecelli(or whatever his name is-young midfielder). Something to work with perhaps.
Murray hasn't had a great start to the season. Did ok against Palace but hasn't looked great since. I know that he's been in nightclubs regularly, as I've seen him quite a few times... so I dunno if that has anything to do with it. It was some bad defending today... but I'm sure we can fix that. Dickinson will out of the starting side, need to sort out the defensive set plays....... after the international break get everyone fit and put out a side that's solid and will win games. We've lost by 4 goal margins before, then gone on great runs...so I'm not going to dwell on this too much.
Clearly an awful lot to work on and maybe the international break has come at a good time for us. Tiny was at the team hotel last night planning to play, so whatever had been worked on had to be rethought. Dicko is not a centre back yet did not play that badly from what has been said, but he could not have had any real understanding with the rest of the defence as he had been asked to play there at short notice. Until some of the many players get to understand what the others can, or are likely to do, then there will be miss-placed passing and the ball will be given away, something that this type of system doesn't allow for. Twice now a team has pressed us high up the pitch and we have suffered. I am not sure how you can counter this as in the old GT days he employed that tactic when we came up against a team that based their game on passing the ball around and it frequently paid off.
Maybe it's because we were thrashed, but I was really annoyed with Watford Player today - constant drop-outs & every so often the strange way that sentences were repeated. Just before Derby's first goal, a drop-out made me switch straight away to the Derby commentary - where they were discussing Derby's goal! Then just after JM told us '3 minutes of added time', the final score flashed up on the Beeb's vidiprinter - how the hell does that happen? Just like Zola, they really need to sort something out as value for money it ain't.......
And when other teams pressed us in that way, we had Ian Bolton playing 30-40 yard through balls to the likes of Barnes, Blisset and Callaghan - that frequently paid off too. I still fail to see why some people object to that tactic.
Surely that tactic combined with the ability to pass and hold the ball is the ideal that most teams would like. Far too early to say, but do we have any players in the current list that can make the long pass accurately.
