Next up.... Barnsley

All change with Ladapo, TJJ and Davis replaced by Jackson, Harness and KVY

 

Goal!!!!!

Morsy scores on the counterattack

 

Ref is losing control of the game

 

No!!!

Barnsley draw level again with a header from a corner

 

Norwood takes a cheeky dive and gets a yellow card

 

Aaargghh!

Header off the post

 

We're doing everything but get the ball in the net

 

What a save, we should be winning this one

 

A good game that we really should've won.

Ref made some questionable decisions and allowed Barnsley to time waste in various ways, especially second half. Barnsley knew they couldn't keep up with us and resorted to the usual League One tactics of slowing the game down as much as possible. The two goals we gave away were preventable but we remain joint top and the performance was good enough to give confidence that McKenna's methods are bearing fruit.

 

In the scheme if things it's easy to temper my disappointment at the nature of today's result given our league position,points haul and overall progress.I think we need a better striker,not for their goal- scoring but for holdup and linkage play.

 

Ffs, it's as clear as day, we need a decent striker! I know it's not easy but we need to speculate....

 

We have to get a quality striker !! Ladapo looked slow, lethagic, with no sense of urgency, in fact he was anonymous and should have been subbed at half time, we looked a bit more speedy with Jackson on but he also cant score goals.
The defence gave Barnsley two free headers for their goals and even with his good form Walton cant be expected to bale them out all the time, and personally i think to find out now that we are not the finished article yet is not a bad thing.
The good news is that we are still unbeaten and right up there in the league and plenty of time to improve but we must get a quality striker who can convert chances, sure we play some good football at times and its the best for years but at times today we played pub league football, good strikers cost money i know but its costing us a fortune being in this lousy division.

 

Thought Evans had a really good game today. My main issue is with Ladapo as I’m not sure what sort of striker he is. Doesn’t win many 50/50s but also doesn’t seem to make decent runs into the box. Jackson worked much harder than him when he came on. Harkness goal - what was it disallowed for?? That would have made it 3-1 and game over

 

I was impressed with Evans too,he frees up Morsey to press forward and is always available to receive the ball from the CBs and look for a forward pass.So much better than the s£&te footie we suffered for so many Seasons.

 

Definitely not the finished article but what a way we have come in such a short time. Easy to forget McKenna has only been in post since Christmas.

I’m sure we’ll still be there or there abouts come January - the important thing is to strengthen by two or three quality signings each window.

That all said, even with deadly strikers we shouldn’t have to score thrice to win against an average at best opposition even though in consecutive games the ref has denied us a stone wall penalty and a clear goal.

 

Naturally disappointed we didn't take advantage of dominating the game. Though, similar to Bolton, feels like a game we would have lost in past few seasons. And, considering they were in the Championship last season, we can take reducing them to time wasting as a positive.

However, some concerning familiar traits are re-emerging in the season.

Can we say we've beaten a genuine promotion rival yet?
Can we unpick a stubborn well drilled defence?
Has our defence really been put under sustained pressure?

I think there's doubt about all those answers but ultimately, still joint top of the league and unbeaten. No one wins them all

 

Random question - when was the last time we were awarded a penalty? Blatant foul on KVY last week wasn’t given and although I haven’t seen a replay, live yesterday, I thought Davis was taken down towards the end of the 1st half

 

We all agree that the refereeing is dreadfall in this league. Sooner out the better!

 

This is the problem with being in a lowly division, we have 3rd division players playing 3rd division standard football and so we get 3rd division standard officials, have you noticed we dont get any young refs ? only old stagers that have got as high as theyre going to before retirement, as you say weve just got to get out of this division.

 

Can't comment too much on this season as other than highlights only seen 1 game but in terms of points and performances I don't think we could've asked for much more...other than we'd be top if we hadn't loaned one of our strikers to a competitor!!

But there's always room to be a critic, based on the minimal amount of what I've seen this season there do still appear to be some things which are of a slight concern which I saw under McKenna last season. One of which is the striking position, whatever people think we've had enough decent strikers at this level to have got more out of them than we have. When playing 1 upfront whoever our striker is, looks isolated and struggles, usually a 5 out of 10 every week. McKenna certainly doesn't play in a way to get the best out of strikers. It wouldn't surprise me at some point if he goes with a false 9. This also i believe is part of the reason why we haven't got many if any penalties under McKenna, because of our style of play we rarely stretch defences or put them under constant pressure, in addition the not having many if any penalties under McKenna we also despite the level of football don't appear to cause the opposition backline to make mistakes.

Another thing which I've seen a couple of times on highlights and saw abit particularly towards the end of last season was when Chaplin plays one of the no 10 roles because of where he plays he takes alot of the space away from Burns. I like both players but it feels like we've hamstrung Burns a little by playing Chaplin there.

Building on the point about the striker and style of play, I think we need to be able to mix it up a bit. Our style of play I would describe as like a game of chess, very precise movements moving the opposition around waiting for gaps to appear but we rarely bombard the opposition defence or stretch them or rely on a strikers instinct. I'm still unsure whether teams come to Portman Road and sit deep or whether because we take time and build from the back it means it gives the opposition time to set their stall. Under Burley and Royle we played good attractive football but both teams had the ability to go intentionally direct and stretch defences. We seem to only score very methodically well thought out goals, when do we see us score from getting on the end of a set piece, a telling cross, attacking the ball in the box, a penalty or a stretching the defense so they make a mistake. At the moment it doesn't seem to be too much of a problem because we're scoring goals but the question is will teams figure us out or will be have enough quality to keep scoring these high quality type of goals all season.