Harper might be out for a while which could be a blessing in that we are forced to play more creative midfield, I'm not knocking Harper but we need wins now, no point being over defensive anymore.
For me our side can only get better, with experience, age and more time together we'll be a better side than dirty White ****e. They certainly lived upto expectations, fouling, sly elbows and snotgrass spat on Daws. Scum
McLean was absolutely outstanding tonight i thought, he caused them all sorts of problems and that pass for fryatts first goal was inch perfect. Yes he probably should have scored after 30 seconds but other than that he was faultless. Personally i thought pearson got it wrong tactically in the second half. Moving McLean out to the wing to try and get stewart into the game more didnt work at all and if anything made it much easier for leeds to come onto us as we had no one to win the ball up top. Fryatt seemed to tire towards the end and i think bringing simpson on for him would have been a better move than bringing barmby or belaid on. As for leeds, at least they had the balls to come and attack us at the kc. No other team has done that yet this season and it resulted in a much more entertaining game. Most other days we would have had four or five by half time if it wasnt for the quality of schmeichal in goal. I just hope more teams come and try to win the game against us at home, that is the best chance we have of winning our home games and we would have won tonight had we not conceded two poor goals (yes, the free kick was class but the way it was conceded was very disappointing defensively). Strangely i am more pleased with this result tonight than i was with our 0-0 against qpr on saturday! Three draws out of the last three games isnt a disaster as far as reaching the play offs is concerned its just disappointing that we could and really should have got 9 points out of those three games.
From the reports I've seen it could've been 8-1 to us at half time had it not been for Schmichael. Whilst it's annoying we lost the lead I think we should still look at the positives, arguably the best performance of the season and hopefully we'll continue to improve.
You may slate me for this, but i think if harper is injured we may start to win games again instead of draw. I know we havent lost when he has played for a while but his passing and vision of who is around him is atrocious. I watched him for a while yesterday just to prove myself wrong that he does work for the team etc. Not in my view, gets a foot in sometimes, but never looks up to see what pass is on if anyone is remotely near him. Then when he does pass or clear a ball its usually to the opposition. Like's to point where he thinks other players should be picking up the opposition, then sits in a gap marking no one. Koren did the same last night a few times too, but had one of his better games for us lately. I think Belaid could do a job for us, bring a bit of composure to the midfield. I think Belaid & Evans or even Koren & Evans would be a better choice. Harper as back up for me he just hasnt got it i'm afraid, apart from being NP's buddy. Come Saturday if we cannot beat Scunthorpe out of sight, we will finally get to see if we are play off contenders or not !!! Cheers lads, great atmosphere last night for a change too. Never heard the crowd so loud for a long time. Some 12th man when we want to be !! UTT
Don't think you'll find too many slating or disagreeing with you on that point. Stewart Evans Belaid Koren for me on Saturday
Not sure if anybosy replied to this as I didnt read all the posts. It bounced off the cross bar down on the line and out but then they got the rebound. I think Somma got the goal for the original shot tho??
I'd love to see dj's team and I agree that Scunny is the perfect opportunity to give it a go, with Harper probably out Nigel will have to try something new.