I have travelled to a fair amount of away games this season, and most have been bad results for us, and mostly deservedly so. But today we really should have come away with at least a point, which makes it incredbily frustrating. In the first half we were poor. Couldnt keep the ball and barely made any chances of note. Their goal was a good strike - but we failed to close him down, and at first viewing I thought Kenny could have done better - although, will have to see it again on MOTD. Second half we came out alot better with an increased tempo to our game, passing was better and we had them under alot of pressure at times. However, we once again failed to make much of the pressure, and tbh I cant remember a difficult save Foster had to make. They were there for the taking tbh, we just couldnt seem to get going. A real missed opportunity, and seeing as Bolton are 2pts behind, with 2 games in hand, it suddenly puts huge pressure back on the team to beat Tottenham now. We certainly are not making it easier for ourselves. KENNY - 7 - made a couple of good saves, but was slow to pass the ball out, and kicking was often away from Zamora. TBC if he could have done better with the goal. TAIWO - 7 - defended well mostly but tbh he didnt get forward as much as normal and seemed to cut inside alot. Not a huge amount of support for Taarabt. HILL - 9 - MOM - he has been class recently, and was again today. Organised the defence well and was always there to block a shot or head it away. One stunning last minute tackle on Long after he had beaten him for pace. Real contender for POTY. FERDINAND - 7 - i must say, today i was very nervous when the ball was at his feet. just looked nervous today and often his clearances went straight back to WBA players which didnt help. ONOUHA - 6 - a poor game imo. defended poorly and lost the ball on a number of occasions. going forward, not much better. DERRY - 6 - didnt really do much, but did give the ball away alot - which is why i think he was taken off. slow going forwards aswell. BARTON - 7 - was always chasing down and tackling and passing was good. but not enough midfield dominance today, which is where i think we lost it. DIAKITE - 7 - same as barton really, but he has a great knack of getting the ball away from 2 or 3 opponents really quickly. gave the ball away a bit though. MACKIE - 6 - not brilliant tbh. maybe thats being a bit harsh but he gave the ball away at one time which almost cost a goal and was ineffective at the other end. was slow to get attacks going and was always cutting inside. TAARABT - 6 - poor game really. kept trying and got into a few nice positions, but did give the ball away alot and didnt take advantage of some decent opportunities. ZAMORA - 6 - average. hold up play was rare and lost the ball alot. wasnt helped by being on his own for the large part. when mackie was put up there he did improve but overall missed a few decent chances aswell. SUBS: WRIGHT-PHILLIPS - 5 - had two great chances and missed both. got into some decent positions but finised them very poorly. HELGUSON - 6 - didnt have much time, but as soon as he came on we looked more threatening as he was winning headers and putting them into his own players paths - unlike zamora. TRAORE - 6 - made an impact on the left with his crossing but a bit slow to get forward. Overall, we seemed far too slow in getting forwards and when we did we passed it sideways. Not sure if that was a tactic, but it didnt work. Pressure on us to win v Spurs now. Not what we needed really.
A fair summary Judo, there was no cutting-edge to our play and their defence didn't have to bust a gut to keep us at bay. Albion were no great shakes and playing as though they were going through the motions, it's a match we could and should have got at least a point from. Derry for Buz tells the tale...
Exactly - as i just posted on another thread - biggest mistake was dropping Buzz. We missed his ability in the middle.
Hughes got it wrong in the 1st half, 451 with 3 defensive midfielders who were all somehow never winning the ball. Buz should have played instead of Derry. We were way too negative. We were so much better in a 442 but I felt Hughes still got the subs wrong, Traore should have been LW with Buz in the middle and HH up front, we had so much possession but couldnt open them up and they showed what a player who can hit a 25 yarder out of nowhere can do, so why was our player like that not playing?
Flyer, are you happy living up there in the clouds you fu*king loo-la? You are without doubt the most "out there" person on the entire Blogosphere. Don't you remember the last time Buzsacky was played instead of Derry away from home? We were skinned alive inside 20 minutes. As for Helguson, he's barely out of his sick bed and you want to run him to death for an hour and a half. Every time you post, you give the air of a desperate man scratching around in the dust trying to make sense of things so you can put your racing mind at rest. Just take a few deep breaths and relax would you? Your carry-on is making everyone else on here nervous too.
**** A PENGUIN What planet is Garth Crooks on? The man could explode at any moment ... he chose a player that touched the ball 5 times in the match and went off at 59 minutes after diakite bit him Is flyer related to Garth Crooks?
Overall a good away performance all things considered. If we had a decent striker on the pitch we would of won that. We were quite franckly **** in front of goal. Unfortunately the one player we needed got sent off three weeks ago.
Yeah Zamora had a bit of a mare in front of goal, that side footed miss that hit Mackies arse was abysmal and summed up his day.
Not sure why you are both getting your knickers in a twist. We set up wrongly and got nothing as a result in spite of a lot of endeavour. The reason why we can't buy a point away from home at the moment is that we are too set on containment to do the attacking. At home we snap at the oppositon and attack with purpose, pace and confidence. Away we sit back and let the opposition knock it around at will, defending the 18 yard box. We then go forqward passing the ball sideways until somebody decides to whack it into the penalty area. If Adel is on his game he can play the incisive pass that lets someone in through the side door. Today it didn't happen for him. I still think however that he should not have been substituted as he was the only one out there not looking to lump it up in the air for Zamora. I can (just about) understand the reasoning behind bringing on SWP for the last twenty minutes when we're in a comfortable winning position already. The aim clearly is to get him into a winning frame of mind so that he delivers. However when we're chasing the game he is the last person I would put on to unlock the game for us. That was shown again by his totally pointless contribution. We do make things difficult for ourselves. However nothing has really changed. We've lost an opportunity for sure. But we still had to win our remaining home games to stand any chance even if we did get something today. I cannot therefore understand the despondency on this board from the same fans who had us beating WBA, Spurs, Stoke and getting at least draws from Chelsea and Man City barely 24 hours ago. Can we try to keep our feet on the ground?
Exactly, which is why Buz should have played because he can score a goal out of nothing exactly like they did, Derry had the same type of chance but wouldnt take the responsibility to shoot. I know buz would have.
Nobody took the oppotunity to shoot, several times we had chances to shoot but we decided to play like Arsenal and keep passing it in and around the oppositions box until we lost it. The one exception was Barton's shot which was woeful. But in saying that , I thought Barton had a good game today.
Buzsaky played instead of Derry at Blackburn and we was completely over run. You're a strange card you.
And you think that was all down to Buz over Derry? Isnt Buz having a good game last time we played more relevant than a game 2 months ago. Judging by that logic, Barton shouldnt play because of what he was like against Liverpool and we should drop any player whos had a bad game in the last 2 months.
Agree, except about 4 4 2. I had just written almost the same as your first 2 paragraghs on another thread. MH is too negative. Buz is a better attacking CM than Derry, and playing Derry when we already had Diakite and Barton was unecessarily too defensive. He should have lept the same winning, aggressive team as for Swansea if all were fit.
I really couldn't understand why we were so negative in the first half - obviously we didn't want to concede 3 by half time and the game be out of reach, but surely the Swansea game had shown how important pressing the opposition is The next 3 games surely need us to be more offensive - sitting back against Spurs and Chelsea will see us murdered
We played a 442 in the 2nd half and thats what I was referring too, not just in general. A 451 can work but only if we flood forward when we get the ball, the midfield were 5 yards away from the defence and Zamora was another 40 yards up the pitch so any clearance just went right back to them.
he only conclusion i draw from al of this is that we were to nagative, and, we need to be more positive in the remaining games For the life of me, i dont know why he changed a winning team? We always do it the hard way !
