pommpey
THE FUTURE ... AS IT USED TO BE
- Banned
- #1
'Kin 'ell. Win dirty, on a dirty night in a dirty match. Three points ... barely deserved yet thoroughly deserved. Right up to NDaiye's stolen goal we looked pisspoor, disorganised and back to some below average outfit, but after that we suddenly gained some hope and dug deep. What a win.
Okay, resting McB and welcoming back Wes 'safe hands' and with other minor tweaks such as playing a 3-1-4-2 was somewhat risky but in an odd sense it worked. We rode our luck, we had the frame of the goal thoroughly rattled and parked the bus with two clearly struggling players out on the park. It's the stuff of SUFC legend where that three points may count toward what could end up a brilliant season for us. Certainly last week, and given how we were actually playing you'd have looked at new-manager WBA and a feisty, capable Brizzle City and thought a point from either game might be favourable. But we have six, a game in hand and goals for pressuring Blackburn and all to play for next game vs a challenging Burnley at the Lane. I feel it is all on Heck and the team to get the selection right, get players conditioned and ready to do 90 and for the fans to turn up and make BDTBL a blistering cauldron of noise for the clarets to fail at.
Tonight's game though was somewhat underwhelming for a long spell. We were second best much of the first half, resorting to aimless lumps up the pitch into empty grass and unable to play round or behind their press. In short they were exactly the team we don't like playing against and they knew it. The more we passed, the more likely we were liable to cough it up and less likely to get anywhere. Khadra was ineffective ... anywhere ... and Fleck played duty traffic cone. Even hooking Khadra for McAtee ... a real gamble ... gave us nothing. With only two notable breaks in 45 and BCFC constantly nipping at us it needed a HT rethink or an early goal to change our fortunes.
So it came. Okay Billy was offside but didn't touch the ball and NDaiye stole the chance with real poachers ability but we hung on and hung on resolutely even if the full time whistle seemed a million miles away. Some decent, timely subs gave us some leg-up capability to deal with Bristol City's incessant need to pull one back and get something deserved from a filthy game of filthy temperament. With eight long minutes to endure we admirably managed the win ... something we have failed to do so many times. Really happy Blades fans are heading back home tonight on a pretty shitty route happy we have got six from two and remain viable promotion contenders into the dreaded WC break.
Foderingham 7/10: Welcome back Wesley. Did well with crosses and shots tonight. Hate seeing him go down injured though.
Baldock 7/10: Did well handing the ever present threat of Dasilva and Scott bombing down his flank and having a yard of pace more than him at times. Needs to replace the hand grenade pin in feisty moments though. We can ill afford to lose him to a red card
Basham 6/10: It's not nice seeing your favourite player now in his autumn years and losing his flair and touch. He's also easily beaten for pace too which he may need to step off attackers to give himself a yard to defend. Some errors tonight in a pretty solid game where he was involved until pulled for a hopefully fixable injury
Egan 7/10: Defended well tonight in large stretches and made key blocks and tackles when needed especially when they were in and around our box
Robinson 6.5/10: Decent full return for JLT. The long throw wasn't used at all but his much improved endeavour and tenacity dealt with Wells to a large extent.
Osborn 5/10: 3/10 for his struggling first sixty as LWB. Thought he was ineffective and over-ran and did his typical runs-about-a-lot-yet-doesn't-achieve-much schtick. When repositioned vice Fleck's hooking became a lot more involved and valuable, though not by much
NDaiye 7.5/10: First half - for fuck's sake, this player is NOT a right sided midfielder. He needs to be being active and terrorising opposition defences and nabbing goals. For the fist thirty he looked like he didn't know what to do. He isn't built or wired up for that shit. When switched alongside Billy up top suddenly he's our main (and only) outlet and conduit to goal. And so it came to pass. Hope he is okay and it is just fatigue/cramp because it looked like he was running on stumps near the end
Norwood 7/10: A pretty solid, if unspectacular workmanlike performance. Less hollywood and more graft but still at the heart of a midfield which can't create, connect or move up the pitch as a unit without overplaying it or surrendering possession. Lucky not to end up with a red for his tackle
Fleck 3/10: Never really in the game tonight and correctly hooked
Khadra 1/10: Simply dreadful. When he nabbed that goal at Swansea away I ... like many ... thought we have a baller on our hands here. Since then he's given us nothing. Bench him now until January to bring on late as a stop gap and send him back.
Sharp 4/10: Was never going to make much of an impact and never expected to do the full 90. The simple reason is that the system we play doesn't suit his 'feeds off scraps' or 'feeds off half opportunities' style. The midfield tonight was characteristically toothless with no ball carriers or creativity, even with McAtee on the pitch. Sharp had one half chance and that was it.
McAtee 5/10: Don't really think it was him who marginally affected our output when Khadra was hooked more so the movement of NDaiye and reorganising of the midfield. Hope his injury from that fucking horror tackle isn't serious
Stevens 5/10: Good to see him getting minutes on the pitch and a more robust, redoubtable option than the diminutive Osborn
McBurnie 7/10: very involved in leading the line especially when NDaiye dropped deep and struggled late in the game. I like this McBurnie
Clark 5/10: Nice to see him back but he looks short of match awareness at times. Its basically a system reset for him
HJ&SMcC 8/10: Congrats to them for two good, valuable away wins back to back. They did game manage tonight quite well and did the right things to the end.
pommpey
Okay, resting McB and welcoming back Wes 'safe hands' and with other minor tweaks such as playing a 3-1-4-2 was somewhat risky but in an odd sense it worked. We rode our luck, we had the frame of the goal thoroughly rattled and parked the bus with two clearly struggling players out on the park. It's the stuff of SUFC legend where that three points may count toward what could end up a brilliant season for us. Certainly last week, and given how we were actually playing you'd have looked at new-manager WBA and a feisty, capable Brizzle City and thought a point from either game might be favourable. But we have six, a game in hand and goals for pressuring Blackburn and all to play for next game vs a challenging Burnley at the Lane. I feel it is all on Heck and the team to get the selection right, get players conditioned and ready to do 90 and for the fans to turn up and make BDTBL a blistering cauldron of noise for the clarets to fail at.
Tonight's game though was somewhat underwhelming for a long spell. We were second best much of the first half, resorting to aimless lumps up the pitch into empty grass and unable to play round or behind their press. In short they were exactly the team we don't like playing against and they knew it. The more we passed, the more likely we were liable to cough it up and less likely to get anywhere. Khadra was ineffective ... anywhere ... and Fleck played duty traffic cone. Even hooking Khadra for McAtee ... a real gamble ... gave us nothing. With only two notable breaks in 45 and BCFC constantly nipping at us it needed a HT rethink or an early goal to change our fortunes.
So it came. Okay Billy was offside but didn't touch the ball and NDaiye stole the chance with real poachers ability but we hung on and hung on resolutely even if the full time whistle seemed a million miles away. Some decent, timely subs gave us some leg-up capability to deal with Bristol City's incessant need to pull one back and get something deserved from a filthy game of filthy temperament. With eight long minutes to endure we admirably managed the win ... something we have failed to do so many times. Really happy Blades fans are heading back home tonight on a pretty shitty route happy we have got six from two and remain viable promotion contenders into the dreaded WC break.
Foderingham 7/10: Welcome back Wesley. Did well with crosses and shots tonight. Hate seeing him go down injured though.
Baldock 7/10: Did well handing the ever present threat of Dasilva and Scott bombing down his flank and having a yard of pace more than him at times. Needs to replace the hand grenade pin in feisty moments though. We can ill afford to lose him to a red card
Basham 6/10: It's not nice seeing your favourite player now in his autumn years and losing his flair and touch. He's also easily beaten for pace too which he may need to step off attackers to give himself a yard to defend. Some errors tonight in a pretty solid game where he was involved until pulled for a hopefully fixable injury
Egan 7/10: Defended well tonight in large stretches and made key blocks and tackles when needed especially when they were in and around our box
Robinson 6.5/10: Decent full return for JLT. The long throw wasn't used at all but his much improved endeavour and tenacity dealt with Wells to a large extent.
Osborn 5/10: 3/10 for his struggling first sixty as LWB. Thought he was ineffective and over-ran and did his typical runs-about-a-lot-yet-doesn't-achieve-much schtick. When repositioned vice Fleck's hooking became a lot more involved and valuable, though not by much
NDaiye 7.5/10: First half - for fuck's sake, this player is NOT a right sided midfielder. He needs to be being active and terrorising opposition defences and nabbing goals. For the fist thirty he looked like he didn't know what to do. He isn't built or wired up for that shit. When switched alongside Billy up top suddenly he's our main (and only) outlet and conduit to goal. And so it came to pass. Hope he is okay and it is just fatigue/cramp because it looked like he was running on stumps near the end
Norwood 7/10: A pretty solid, if unspectacular workmanlike performance. Less hollywood and more graft but still at the heart of a midfield which can't create, connect or move up the pitch as a unit without overplaying it or surrendering possession. Lucky not to end up with a red for his tackle
Fleck 3/10: Never really in the game tonight and correctly hooked
Khadra 1/10: Simply dreadful. When he nabbed that goal at Swansea away I ... like many ... thought we have a baller on our hands here. Since then he's given us nothing. Bench him now until January to bring on late as a stop gap and send him back.
Sharp 4/10: Was never going to make much of an impact and never expected to do the full 90. The simple reason is that the system we play doesn't suit his 'feeds off scraps' or 'feeds off half opportunities' style. The midfield tonight was characteristically toothless with no ball carriers or creativity, even with McAtee on the pitch. Sharp had one half chance and that was it.
McAtee 5/10: Don't really think it was him who marginally affected our output when Khadra was hooked more so the movement of NDaiye and reorganising of the midfield. Hope his injury from that fucking horror tackle isn't serious
Stevens 5/10: Good to see him getting minutes on the pitch and a more robust, redoubtable option than the diminutive Osborn
McBurnie 7/10: very involved in leading the line especially when NDaiye dropped deep and struggled late in the game. I like this McBurnie
Clark 5/10: Nice to see him back but he looks short of match awareness at times. Its basically a system reset for him
HJ&SMcC 8/10: Congrats to them for two good, valuable away wins back to back. They did game manage tonight quite well and did the right things to the end.
pommpey
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