Phil Buckingham's player ratings... George Long 3 Robbie McKenzie 5 Matthew Pennington (starman) 6 Jordy de Wijs 5 Callum Elder 4 Leo da Silva Lopes 4 Kevin Stewart 5 Jackson Irvine 4 Marcus Maddison 5 Jon Toral 4 Josh Magennis 4 George Honeyman 5 Martin Samuelsen 6 Sean McLoughlin 6 Generous with Irvine and Maddison in my opinion.
Think Buckingham has been overly generous there, given the situation & the need for a big performance - the team performance was shocking. Utterly awful, doesn’t bode well. Terry out
One things for sure, if Terry can't get the lads well and truly fired up for a local derby against L**ds, then i'm inclined to agree
Wonder if Long should be rested a couple of games, he's looking a bit shell-shocked to me. And Irvine really needs dropping, he's got worse each time he's turned out this year and he was never that good to start with. I'd rather see Honeyman as captain, he's far better at waving his arms about. I'm not even sure I'm joking now either...
WARNING OLD SCHOOL REPLY: Stupid cow, I've never been ashamed to support them because they got beat, or the performance they put in.
That performance lacked everything a professional football team should display no matter what the quality of the starting 11 fielded - effort, determination, passion etc. The lack of skill/quality of last nights team has admittedly been the result of injuries endured and financial restraints made by the owners. However, I would have expected a performance similar to the one put in by Luton against Brentford the previous night. Their team also full of ‘League One players’ put our club to shame. I have been a critic of Honeyman but his performance at Preston showed the desire needed and didn’t even start last night! Similarly, Batty, who plays with his ‘heart on his sleeve’ and put in a MOM display against Rotherham (along with Eaves) was substituted in that game and hasn’t been in the frame since! The team’s body language from the first whistle last night did not inspire me with confidence for the ensuing 90 minutes which proved correct. Last night, with all the hype of ‘a season defining match’ should have produced a committed team performance and the absence of such can only be the result of a manager who has been dogged by the sale of his two best players and a unique set of injuries but cannot inspire the players at his disposal to ‘lift’ themselves for the club’s Championship league status and the long suffering supporters’ loyalty.
Anybody wonder what we actually do in training to look this clueless and also to get this many injuries ?
Not listened to Stewart's interview but to me (if he can get back to where he was prior to injury) he is one of our (very few) positives. Agree with your thoughts.
I don't know if others have mentioned this on previous pages, but Maddison shoudn't be anywhere near the first XI again. His performance last night was Ben Arfa-esque. Other players will look at him tossing it off and lose heart. GTF back to Peterborough.
The thing with Irvine, he does keep going and keeps trying to create, even if he does often **** it up. At least he doesn't hide - I think that's why McCann thinks he is worth persisting with.
There's got to be a limit to that though, I heard the Barnsley fans voted him their Man Of The Match.