Is that an assessment from watching the telly, or were you at ER? I can't say I agree with your assessment - well, not all of it. Ayling was clearly told to go wide af, particularly in the second half. Heldje & Byram were inverted LBs, the point of which was lost on me. Hjelde got several shirricans from Cooper in the first half. Even I could hear him in the stand shouting "Get up the ****ing park. How many times do I have to tell you"? We knew he was off at HT. He was lost playing this new role (so was I trying to work it out!!). Another big change was that no midfielder came back to take the ball out. It was left to Coops to find the passes, but we all know a 60yd diagonal is the sum total of his creativity. And no-one was making themself available to him, leading to more swearing & shouting. I can't comment on the goals, as it was a crowded goalmouth & too far away for me to see clearly. Apart from the goals, I thought Struijk played ok. MF worked fine with Ampadu & Archie playing out of their skin. Archie's only failure was screwing up an Ayling Flop, so he'll need to pay attention to Uncle Bill's directions in future. (Ayling notched 2 this match!). The attackers were enjoyable to watch, as they passed sideways & backwards far too often. Kept possession well, bbut whatever happened to shots from outside of the box? Btw, with my poor eyesight, I reckoned we should have had 4 penalties. Too biased? Meslier - 6. Didn't have much to do and still conceded 2. Agree - 6. Same comment. Ayling - 4. Was obviously told to bomb forward but was caught massively out of position too many times. Sloppy with the ball too. Disagree - 7. He was one of our more creative players in the second half, hugging the touchline like a right winger (unlike any of the 4 wingers playing! Cooper - 6. Caught ball watching too often and dragged out of position by the lack of ability around him. Scored a really good header and subsequently off injured. Disagree 7. Most of the time there was only him & Struijk at the back, Bielsa-style. Very little support from the FBs, defensively. Was left to play the ball out himself far too often. He's not the creative sort, is he? So why did he start most of the moves? Struijk - 3. Dunno why he is still a pro footballer to be honest. ****ing ****! Hugely disagree - 6. Played out of position once again as a RCB until Coops went off injured. As solid as Cooper imo. (Can't comment on the goals). Hjelde - 2. Left back is a serious issue if he is our go to. Buy a ****ing left back! Agree - 2. The boy was comletely lost. So was I. Rightly got hooked. Clearly didn't know what he was doing. Ampadu - 7. Decent. Mopped up the midfield well and was good on the ball. Disagree-ish - 8. Was a joy to watch & directed Archie well. I think he could turn out to be a consistently outstanding players for us. After watching him, I'm happy for Adams to go now. Previously, it was a worry for me if Adams went. Not now. Still prefer to keep him, of course. Gray - 9. 17 years old. He's gonna need some help as he won't play every game. If he can give us 20-25 games like this he'll have had a great season. Agreed. Ran himself into trouble a number of times, but mostly retrieved it back. Most impressive debut. James - 6. Same frustrations as we are used to. A frustrating first half but improved after the break and drew a great save when his shot looked destined for the corner. Agree. Same comment. I'd have preferred Gnonto on the wing. James rarely hit the bye-line & cut back, which Willie does at every opportunity when out there. Sinisterra - 7. He should be disappointed he's not scored but we would be pretty toothless without him. First touch wasn't great today but most of our attacking play went through him. Sorta agree - 6. I thought he was outshone & worked less hard than Summerville & Gnonto. Perhaps I expected too much of him. Summerville - 9. Scored the equaliser. A couple of half penalty shouts. Great shot first half. Full of running and good control. Man of the Match. Fully agree - 9. MotM. Gnonto - 7. Just seemed a bit lethargic getting shots away after getting himself in to scoring positions. Linked up superbly with Summerville and Sinisterra at times. Agree - 7. I just wish he's played on the left. Far more productive there. Got right stuck in though. Loved it. Subs. Byram - 5. Did better than Hjelde but we need better. Disagree - 6. Definitely worked far better than Hjelde, & fitted in, where Hjelde was a boy lost. I forgot how strong he was (for his body type), & remembered that he used to be a secret weapon at corners. Remember? Used to ghost in at the back post with excellent headers & a number of goals ensued. Not in this game though, sadly. Cresswell - 6. The crowd liked his passion and his leadership. Brought the ball out of defence well and didn't lose an aerial battle in either area. Hopefully gets a run in the side so he can settle in. Agreed - 6. Can't get carried away in the assessment as we hardly saw them attack in the second half. They were tired & fell too far back, allowing the boy to forage forward & regularly feed Ayling on the wing, which was very productive & entertaining. Poveda - 7. Cardiff defence was tired but Poveda picked up the ball and just ran straight at them. Very impressive cameo. Might be worth moving Sinisterra to the left and playing him at 10. Agree - 7. He was desperate to impress & wasn't fazed by the brick walls Cardiff put up. They couldn't cope with him though. Gelhardt - n/a. Didn't offer too much in the short time he was on. Agree. In fact, he disappointed me, but perhaps I expected too much in the time left. Perkins - n/a. No time for any kind of influence Agree. Hope he plays in the cup. Want to see a bit more of him. Referee: ****. Owes us 4 pens in my very biased & half-blind opinion. Missed loads of handballs too. Had his cards back in the dressing room int' first half. Linesmen were his lickspittles, waiting for his directions.
Cresswell and Cooper are the only two defenders that want to defend at the club. Struijk is 6ft 3in yet isn't physical at all. He thinks he's Beckenbauer or something. ****ing 6ft 3in and about 13 stone. He should be steamrollering people. I don't know what the **** he is but it isn't a footballer. Ship him out. I don't think we can really blame Meslier for the goals but like you say, 2 shots 2 goals again. I think he could have done better with the 2nd. Same ****, different division.
Appreciate the feedback. My main gripe with Struijk was that he did the same mistakes he has done before. He gets attracted to the ball too much. 2nd half he switched off and got wrong side of his man at least twice when Cardiff countered. The Ayling thing. I'm aware that he was told to go wide. I'm also aware that for the goal he decided that Ramsey was his man which was a stupid decision. Part of that was Gnonto (who had switched to the right wing at that moment) not covering O'Dowda which threw everything. That doesn't excuse Ayling decoding he wanted to tuck inside and mark someone on the half way line while we were getting raped down his wing. The sooner Dramah plays the better, he's a better wing back and much more athletic than Ayling who is showing his age. We'll have to agree to disagree.
WJ.. this inverted left back thing is a modern phenomenon. Farke uses it… and I guess the club likes it as we don’t have a left footed left back worthy of the name
Feel the stats reflected what I witnessed, a dominating display, looked dangerous and was unlucky not to get three points
Were you at the game though? Pretty sure it would have looked different on the telly, & may account for some of our conflicting opinions. You also didn't mention the ref. Am I being too hard on him, or was I right thinking he was a ****. I'd also love to know if we really did have solid penalty claims. Only the telly can tell you that (without the crowd bias).
I was watching on the telly. Thought the ref was OK. Think he was slightly better for them than for us but it was minimal. The only one that might have been a pen was at the end of the first half where Summerville was sort of shoved to the ground. Contact was minimal but there was contact and the defender was on the wrong side of Summerville which means it's his error. That might be given by some refs but we'd be pissed off it was given against us. The others weren't penalties.
One positive from today......it looked like a challenge for the ball seems to be back in fashion, without the premier League rolling and faking
On another note. I'd fine Ampadu a weeks wages for getting booked for dissent and Summerville a weeks wages for getting booked for removing his shirt. Give the money to the local kids hospital.
Interesting two of you scored Archie as a 9 I felt 7 at best. His corner taking was terrible, he ran into trouble a couple of times. I do think he will be great but he definitely wasn’t a 9/10 for me today. I actually felt Ampadu was slightly the better of the two and I’d have scored him 7 so 6.5 for Archie
I took in to account his age and how he took the midfield by the scruff of its neck and drove it forward. Great debut by a 17 year old. Very very mature.
Archie Gray is a footballer, who happens to be 17. We can't score him any higher or lower due to his age. Our squad, especially central midfield is wafer thin. If Ampadu gets injured, we are absolutely foooked.
Ampadu stood out a mile. He seems to have the ability/sense to pop up in the right place. Not a shred of nerves and i had a chat with Whitejock after the game and we will not miss Adams.
