Baaarnsley

[grafikhaus]

No sour grapes but that was robbery. Not that United were great - we weren't - but Barnsley are a niggly, spoiling team who will go nowhere playing like that.

It's a long time since I saw a poorer player than Devante Cole - utterly crap.

Still, it's good to be reminded what a well-paced, accurate cross to a bloke who doesn't need a step ladder to get on the end of it looks like.

How Campbell-Ryce re-appeared after HT is a mystery. He's so predictable. Goes round the outside of the FB and chucks over a pretend cross with no hope of any of our undersized 'strikers' reaching it.

Apart from that, it was a Blades game in reverse. Started well and deserved to go in at HT ahead. The final phase of the game saw us become desperate and prone to panic and errors. If the board had gone up with '14' instead of '4' it wouldn't have made any difference. We have plenty of pretty, tiki-taki sideways and backwards build up, but the 'killer ball' is never there.

God, we need a striker.

 

[Hague Blade]

I travelled 6,451 miles to watch that. Fair to say I'm disappointed.

Endlessly passing the ball sideways, with the only tactic being laborious and predictable efforts to get the ball out to two very hit and miss wide players, who'd usually lose the ball but occasionally cross it into a penalty area notably vacant of attackers. No penetration in the centre at all. Scougall too deep, Wallace too unfit, and Doyle mostly interested in moaning to the ref. Howard alternating between hoofing the ball forward for Baxter to lose it in the air, and rolling the ball out to defenders who aren't good enough to set up the play.

Enjoyed the atmosphere on the Kop, and admired the well respected minute's silence. But I really thought we might have moved on from playing no strikers at home, and then desperately throwing on Chris Porter for the last 10 minutes.

Bad day at the office, I hope, but that wasn't a top two team I watched today.

 

[yorkshirecoast]

I travelled 6,451 miles to watch that. Fair to say I'm disappointed.

Endlessly passing the ball sideways, with the only tactic being laborious and predictable efforts to get the ball out to two very hit and miss wide players, who'd usually lose the ball but occasionally cross it into a penalty area notably vacant of attackers. No penetration in the centre at all. Scougall too deep, Wallace too unfit, and Doyle mostly interested in moaning to the ref. Howard alternating between hoofing the ball forward for Baxter to lose it in the air, and rolling the ball out to defenders who aren't good enough to set up the play.

Enjoyed the atmosphere on the Kop, and admired the well respected minute's silence. But I really thought we might have moved on from playing no strikers at home, and then desperately throwing on Chris Porter for the last 10 minutes.

Bad day at the office, I hope, but that wasn't a top two team I watched today.

Alas, that was no bad day at the office. Been to every home game and the odd away game and that's how we normally play - just no late goals to save us this time.

 

[Guesty]

Barnsley won the game as soon as they won the toss. Our entire game is based around scoring with a late push - these are far less effective when we're not going towards our own fans.