A great 3 pts away, who needs a pacey left back when we have Hill!! When ever he got forward he put in a good delivery never thought I'd be praising his attacking skills! Bolton playing 3 in middle made me think we would have trouble but Barton and henry handled it well, tried to use the width well which is the way to exploit that formation. Could have had some better final balls but a very good day at the office. The interview with Barton And Hill at the end shows how Harry has change the attitude of the players, hats off, just goes to show how much a untied Dressing room is worth to a team.
Clint Hill our new wing-back! The back four were all solid today and Green made two important saves. The downside was a lot of possession with little creativity.
We had Hill at LB whos not a FB, SWP who is crap and ONeill who is not a winger out wide. Change those 3 and we will create a lot more. Philips, Hoilett and Yun will create a lot more.
Just back home. Very satisfied with seeing my first live victory since Doncaster in the promotion season! Bit of a sloppy start and we missed Hoilett a bit. Some posters saying O Neill not very good. Personally, I thought he played well and looks like an excellent signing. Always looking for the ball and trying to create space for himself and others. Some of our play was not very pretty - Hoilett's return and the eventual debut of Phililps will add to the team. Overall, very happy with a dogged performance.
A win is a win! Not the prettiest of games or performances but everyone dug in and gave everything. Hill played well apart froma dodgy start and I thought we deserved the win. Game of few chances but we did dominate. Cant see how we got 6 bookings, it was never a dirty game. Brilliant start to the season, firmly brushing off the felling from last year. It is the mark of champions to win those sort of games and we did just that.
One on one, Dunne is sometimes caught out for pace, but as the game progressed he was a stalwart in our central defence - one of his powerful defensive headers almost made it clear to the halfway line. Clint Hill - what a great wing back to slot in that cross for AJ! Some of our yellow card ref decisions were ridiculous - he very obviously favoured the home side regarding fouls.
Regarding the ref and yellows - I was very annoyed with their player Lee. He dived once (very obviously) and should have been booked, and also made a huge meal of standing next to Barton.
Yes I noticed he was often the one falling over easily. It did seem he was their creative influence and he had been targeted by us to get stuck into though!
Liked O'Neill alot O'Neill towards the end...knew how to win a game. He was the player taking it to the corner, winning throw-ins. playing off Bolton legs...how I wish we had him in extra time versus Wigan last season. He knows how to secure points...useful (something Mackie/MBia didn't have)
He did........he also gave the ball away a fair bit. But I think he'll grow on me. Always liked him at West Ham.
I thought overall he was far more effective against Ipswich when he came on, and looked quite poor at times today, but I take your point about him knowing how to close out a match. I think Jenas helped in that too. He held the ball nicely and put himself into positions where he was always going to be fouled as time slowly ran out.
That performance was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I thought we played very well at times and very sloppily at others. Far too casual at the back in the first half, trying to play it out from defence. But we strung together some good moves too and were determined and dogged which are prerequisites for success in this division. In fairness to the Manager, he does seem to have shaped a proper "team" out of last years shambles of a squad. We'll have to improve but we're progressing steadily. Its great to see a game on Sky as opposed to on a stream. They're incomparable IMO. Two more Sky Saturdays to come in the next fortnight as well so happy days.
Ah crap, the next one is the 9th of NOVember. I thought it said SEPTember! Oh well, another useless bloody stream it is then.
Do you actually think Flyer is wrong A? I don't think everything is as black and white as he suggests, but I don't think he is wrong.