Tonight was always going to be a tasty tie with Burnley already up yet intimating at revenge for the drubbing we gave them on Bonfire Night at the Lane. In fairness given the first twenty minutes where despite some disappointing changes bringing Norwood in for McAtee one would imagine to strengthen the middle of the park we looked like matching them and taking the draw the whole way through if not even winning the game. Individual errors lost us tonight's match and with the loss of Fodders and reliance on shit-ye-pants Davies I am just hoping he's ready now to atone for his reliable unreliability, as shown tonight.
The red card was a red card, anyday. What the fuck Fodders was doing going for the same ball Robinson had covered is anyone's guess but Fodders has that in him, if it's not tardiness with backpasses (I think Puuki almost caught him out and last season he had one catch him out for a goal didn't he?) or the puzzling propensity not to stay in his area and let the defender do the legwork. Robinson also should have put the ball in the stands like Baldock did later on. There is just no excuse for that and the end result, us matching them with eleven and then resorting to being stretched with a 4-3-2 is all their fault. They deserved to go for it, Fodders for a shower and Robbo in the dugout. They should fucking learn to get the communications right and not let one player beat two when the options were there. That said, our fallback formation did well to soak Burnley up until half time but you knew they would turn the thumbscrews in the second half and stretch up across the pitch. The back four played extremely narrow which put a lot of responsibility on Doyle and Berge to chase the nippy wingers. I do think we should have sacrificed one of the front two and gone 5-3-1 from 50 with Clark on the bench to slot in the LCB role. Staying at four at the back showed how poor we can be though with Bogle practically hopeless all night and Egan and Anel looking like their heads were spinning and deeply uncomfortable with the setup as Burnley pressed. Their first goal was another error, this time by Bogle failing to cut out a deep cross and up steps Gudmunsson to show us how to drill a ball in - McAtee, NDaiye and Sharp take note from Friday v Wigan. Second goal was classic sub goalkeeper stuff and indicative as to why we should get shut of Davies next season. Far post cross, beats him, knocked into the six yard box with three men on the line covering and Egan meekly heads it to Gumunsson again for him to batter home. Game effectively over built on shit judgements and in fact ghosts in the machine. Hecky chucked on subs but by that time we were done and dusted and deserved to be beaten.
Foderingham 1/10: Effectively cost us anything in this game, a least one point. The Premier League will definitely be less forgiving, ask Ramsdale when he was with us
Davies 5/10: Couple of decent saves but loses a point for sheer shitpantness and poor judgement for their second
Baldock 6/10: Did okay but wasn't happy out on the left both tonight and on Friday. Needs to get his old billet back
Anel 6/10: Did what he could in a stretched defence, but way below what he was on Friday attacking from the back
Egan 4.5/10: Fragile at times and clearly hates a four man defence. Gave them their second goal with a weak header back into the action zone
Robinson 2/10: Equally culpable for the red card and deservedly dragged off
Bogle 1/10: A shockingly poor game for him. Error prone and exposed. Poor going forward and poor defending. What the fuck has happened to him?
Berge 6/10: Decent workmanlike performance. Worked hard to cover for Bogle and got stuck in where he could.
Norwood 5/10: Only just. Seemed like a downgrade in CM from Doyle last match. Just doesn't have the range of skills and vision and is still a fuck up waiting to happen
Doyle 6.5/10: Another good game if limited to battling rather than using his skills to build from the back and intercept attacks.
NDaiye 5/10: Denied anything as we strove to defend and found himself back down deep at times shoring up as an auxiliary midfielder
McBurnie 3/10: Got nothing. This mark isn't an indication of his performance more the lack of supply he got after the sending off
Osula 5/10: All alone up top and tried to press and hassle but he was nowhere near anything productive
Sharp 4/10: Another performance trying to impose but robbed of involvement
Fleck 4/10: Nothing from him really
Basham 6/10: First touch a forward header on the attack and second a key clearance in our box. Just watch him. Have a look how he reads the game and exactly what he does to change it.
HJ&SMcC 5/10: Could only do what they could with what they had against on paper, afar better, more capable team across the park. They need to get back inside the players heads now and come back ready to destroy a poor Cardiff at the Lane and not struggle to beat them like we did against Wigan. We can afford to lose one more game, that's it. Second wind and dig deep.
pommpey
