The Midfield

[Northamptonncfc]

I could rant all day about Referee decisions but we have to look at the team.

Not sure about the rest of you but I thought our midfield were absolutely dreadful at times today especially in the first half, there was a lot of occassions when West Broms players were not closed down quickly enough, there were gaps appearing all over the shot. They need to keep shape.

Things changed greatly in the second half but there were still somethings I didn't like, I'm not going to win any support but how many times did Crofts over hit simple passes? Taking shots when there are players in goalscoring opportunities, he didn't have a bad game but there was too much power on some of his passes why could of very easily turned into goal scoring chances.

Surman why did he start? Never been much of a fan personally. He had a couple of moments where he looked good but just appears to run around aimlessly.

On a good note Hoolahan seemed to bring another dimension to the game, he freed up Crofty we seemed better. Was impressed by Johnson too proper grafter just needs to keep away from set pieces sometimes.

 

[Dangerous Marsupial]

Surman and Bennett where two of the four players I thought did quite well that game....

Actually Johnson did ok too, but you're right, wish we'd had Chris Martin on the pitch to take some of those free-kicks!

 

[Northamptonncfc]

Bennett was good in second half, but seemed isolated too much. There is something about Surman he has the odd good spell then just drifts, but doesn't seem to be with it 100%, Wes has to start much better player.

 

[I_Clean_holtys_boots]

The one real problem i noticed from today was the amount of times we gave the ball away in the final third, so frustrating. But another problem ontop of the defensive mistakes that keep on coming!

 

[theyellowfever]

i would say the same thing about kyle naughton, his passing was dreadful in the first half, this is not premiership standard if you cant even pass the ball with the correct weight, training ground stuff really....

 

[SUPERNORWICH 23]

I am far from spitting the dummy, in all of our games we have been in a good fight until the end..........We are holding our own....

 

[Northamptonncfc]

I am far from spitting the dummy, in all of our games we have been in a good fight until the end..........We are holding our own....

We're not beaten, but we need to fine tune a couple of things. I have faith but there are some areas we need to vastly improve on.

The major thing which is pissing me off is we're still making silly defensive errors, this shouldn't be happening it's happened about four games on a trot now, even though his a great player De Laet is now at fault for a couple of goals down to poor decisions.

Midfield need to keep possession not putting too much weight on their passes, we had some golden opportunities earlier which totally went missing, we can't afford to lose the ball so often or panic by passing it back keeping the defence under pressure.

Then in the final third as mentioned we need that spark, this one is easy to address. We have the creativity in Hoolahan, two wide players capable of crossing a ball in Bennett and Pilkington you can add Tierney to that too, then we have plenty of striker options. I don't think the Holt and Chris Martin partnership is working at the moment, I would like to see Vaughan have some involvement or even Morrison in for Holt (shock horror).