During my long journey home Saturday, I had plenty of time to think about the game and I have come to a few conclusions.
1) I never, ever, want to see Doyle or Williamson in a blades shirt again. Doyle was absolutely atrocious, could barely even pass a ball straight to a man less than 10 yards from him. Williamson was completely and utterly lazy, whether that is a statement to Wilson that he doesn't want to play on the wing or not I don't know, but his performance was unacceptable, a complete nobody.
2) Quinn is the only one that seems to care and will give everything for 90 mins. There were 2 occasions where he absolutely laid in to two of his colleagues, and quite rightly too. The first one was MacDonald not bothering to chase down a pass that was slightly too heavy from Lowton, granted he probably wouldn't have made it, but given it still had about 10 yards to travel before it went off for a goal kick, and the second was Evans, who despite doing incredibly well to twist and turn his way through the defence, then ran straight back into that trouble instead of playing a simple ball to Quinn who was in an excellent crossing position all on his own!
3) I am absolutely delighted to see us playing the ball around, but it seems we are trying to over do it when we get around the opposition 18 yard box, when sometimes just pinging a ball into the mixer from the wing would be the far better option. There were too many times when Evans (and Cresswell when he came on) found themselves out wide doing exactly this, rather than being in the box waiting for a cross.
4) LJF - this man is heading towards becoming the next Nosworthy if he's not careful, every time the ball went near him I worried. One thing he should definitely be doing is meeting the ball in the air, rather than letting it bounce almost every time and inviting pressure from the oppo.
5) Collins - simply not good enough and Maguire actually looks like the senior player between the two of them. Sure, he may look like Beckenbauer against the lesser teams, but so could you and I. Against anyone clever enough to put even the smallest amount of pressure on him, he will piss it up, his defending for that second goal was nothing short of comical - time to give Parrino a go if you ask me.
6) That game was there for the taking, especially in the first half. Charlton offered very little and we simply didn't take advantage. There wasn't enough pressing of the ball, and there were nowhere near enough options going forward, Quinn looked isolated almost every single time he went forward with the strikers making minimal runs, and when they did make a run it was usually in the same direction into the same bit of space. This needs to be addressed quickly, Porter is nothing short of abysmal and I'd rather see Tonne playing than him any day of the week as we simply can't rely on Cresswell now, a truly awful signing unfortunately, I think I could have worried their defence more than he did.
7) Every team has a bad run at some point in the season, and I hope this is ours now and we come back stronger for the rest of the campaign. I was completely unimpressed by Charlton in truth, but they simply took their chances and that's why they are top of the league, with a 5 point cushion.
