I guess full credit to the Swans for playing average and sneaking a win, Boro were very good but thankfully didnt trouble us in front of goal,they had some chances but not easy chances. We were fortunate to get through after 90mins so that was nice i think. First time in ages ive had to mention the Ref..what a useless twat he was,lee probert i think? he was determined to not give us anything! free kicks,corners,throw ins ,penalties,sending off the last man..nothing what so ever! considering we played 12 we did well to progress!! Boro look a good team to me and i hope they gain promotion, their fans out sang our lot for much of the game and credit to the 700 for talking the long round down. Difficult to judge the players on this one, tiendalli had a good 80mins but maybe looked a bit tired in the end,in fairness to him he looked like he been playing for us for ages,he had some bite in the tackle and was useful in posession. Dyer was guilty of alot of sloppy play tonight,so was JDG who ive defended but that was one of the worst games i seen him play. Itay up front, sorry ,ive said it before and i'll say it again..goodbye mate !! not good enough for us im afraid. Luke Moore di well when he came on and was able to keep hold of the ball and give us a footing in their half. Yet again Laudrup got his subs spot on and bringing on Ki was what turned it around for us. We have to be happy with a semi final place,sometimes the result is everything no matter how you get it! if you can win by not playing well thats a good thing! i felt a bit sorry for Boro,they had a go but it wasnt to be ! Swansea city cup semi final on the way !! Well done to the players for that,the class was begining to show from the 70min onwards but it was a hard fought win tonight,i guess the pressure of being the favourite really isnt our thing! lets hope we get Chelsea in the next round! we will play better..
Very fair assessment there Norway. Tiendalli did look tired late on. It was nice to see Leon back, thought he had a good game and controlled the midfield. I defended Schecter after the Southampton game as I thought the lad showed promise, but he's not what we need up front. Moore offers us more with him bringing others into the game. Didn't think Boro really troubled us, but the do like to play football, and I do hope they can progress this season. This game looked more of a training exercise by our lads, but we did enough to win so that's a bonus. We will need to up our game for Spurs on Sunday. Forgot to add the ref was utter 5hit, gave us nothing. Clear pen and some very weird decisions!!
Leon was great tonight, i think the other players just feel more confident when he is on the field, he is the ultimate go to guy !! will always take the ball ..and keep it! We wernt really troubled at the back but they had some decent chances, it was a below par performance from us but we were lucky to get it won within 90mins, not sure why our form is fluctuating so much lately,maybe with pablo out other teams got less to worry about?? Dyer is nowhere near the form of last season, he is number 3 winger for me right now.
Dyer needs to play the pass after beating his man instead of looking to beat another man, Britton made a huge difference he is so key to our style. Looking forward to getting Pablo back we need someone with his eye for the killer pass. The defence did OK today without having too much to do but we need to be waaaay sharper from the off next time as they could have taken a goal inside one minute. worried now but as you say NJ we don't perform without the under dog tag. Don't think too many bookies fancy us for the Spurs game on recent form...
Tremmel made two good saves in the first half , second half he didn't have much to do except for a clash of heads with Chico defending a very dangerous corner . It showed tonight how much we missed Leon v Norwich , he was everywhere just being Leon ,MOM for me .Monk played well and did the simple things .We had no real thrust or penetration in the first half with a reluctance to move forward with he ball.The second half much better when Ki came on with the ball moving quicker and a lot more movement off the ball into dangerous areas.Scheter was anonymous tonight and really didn't create anything of note . 15,000 tonight with a lot of new faces around me and a subdued atmosphere at times , fair play the Middlesborough supporters they were loud for the amount they brought down 7 hours back on a bus though .
Spurs will give us a good slapping if we play like this again. The BBC had it right. They commented that we lacked intensity and desire (for me, TOTALLY unforgivable) and only woke from our slumber with 20 minutes to go. Boro, with only 38% possession, still managed more attempts on goal, 10 to our 8. That tells me the players are slipping back to the bad habits they had under Rodgers - passing without any end result. I'm beginning to think that an influx of new players is more badly needed than we think.
I dont know if we were crap,tired or nervous about a semi final but it was definatly off colour!! The ref didnt give any protection to our players today which was dissapointing,he was also one of the worst ive seen for ages,thankfully it didnt matter in the end! Im just thankful we nailed it within the 90mins, i thought the in Norwich game we may have had one eye on this tonight, but after this evenings performance im at a loss as to how our form is so patchy, maybe last month took it out on the players ??
The Ref was clearly a Boro fan!! Gave us absolutely nothing, and that kind of makes it difficult for our boys when you know your playing the ref too. Thought the game was a low key affair, with Boro offering very little for us to work a sweat over, ok some feel we played poor, but playing poor and grinding out a win, is the mark of a good team. I'm not going to get too worked up over our performance tonight, the result came when we went up a gear in the last 20 minutes, and that's what counts!..............
Don't bitch about the ref. Yes he was about as much use as a chocolate fire guard but that would just paper over the cracks. We were crap (Leon +Tremmel excepted). Some of those players need a kick in the arse after tonight's performance.
I'd go along with that Dragon TBH, if they had scored in the first minute it would have been a much more enjoyable game to watch..
Cheers aswan! What you have to remember is that some Jacks, given our injury issues, were looking at this as a potential banana skin, before the game, so thought we did ok, hell at least we didn't lose to Bradford!!!..............
Still doing very well unlucky against norwich to lucky tonight. Consistancy is the mark of the top clubs, we are not there yet, injuries, cards and not flat out for the full 90 are holding us back a bit but a few more suitable quality signings will give us the strength in depth to get consistant performance levels and crack on to beat the teams around and below us more often.
I froze my bollocks off at the Liberty tonight and saw one of the most boring games I think I have ever seen. It was a lousy game. Just glad we won and I can forget about that game forever.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This lads, listen to Stereo. Phil, worse still married mate. That's why I'm such a grumpy old twat The best entertainment I had tonight was a young lady (aged 21) from Bridgend watching her 1st ever game asking me the rules of the game. It was hard to keep a straight face and I really shouldn't have been staring at her tits so much either. It was the only thing keeping me going
