This waxing lyrical by Sky about 2young defenders

Playing Dyke out of game. They’re the same age as Dike and probably more experienced. Not knocking them at all, and whilst Dike has really done well for us, you’d think he was a seasoned pro

 

He looks much older than he is.

 

2 v 1, play Morris and Dike next leg, different story

 

Amazing some of the decisions he didn’t give Dike but then just gave Cullen free kicks for basically falling over.

 

think we should bring dike on at half time on saturday, he will run them ragged over 45 minutes

 

‘‘Twas ever thus with Dike, although he did commit more fouls tonight than any other game that I can recall

 

I'm thinking we should let Victor Freezer and Charlie run their gumballs off and play till half time at their place.

Admittedly we will not have scored by then, but hopefully they won't have scored either.

Then we bring the tanks on to replace the foot soldiers in the second half and blast them away.

 

Yeah cos he was making it personal instead of thinking football is the way to beat them

 

Looked very naive today. That pass when we were 4 against one showed a lack of vision. He's still learning and will improve no end in the next few years. He's still a big enough handful to cause them problems but Morris seems to be much cleverer going forward.

 

Don’t think it was a lack of vision just a poorly made pass

 

I thought the pass should have been made earlier but then when he did decide to pass, it was poorly made.

 

First half we just gave Dike too much to do. I’m still not sure what Frieser does, but he certainly wasn’t taking pressure off DK. Morris came on second half and we had a different game.

 

He’s certainly got a decision to make on Saturday. Not sure which 11 should start, but I’d keep Morris or Dike for the 2nd half. I’d also put Woodrow on the bench. He’s a quality player but these games are just passing him by. He shouldn’t be an automatic start.

 

To be fair, the first half their centre half’s looked up for the challenge and physically matched Dike. What I didn’t like is the **** housery and trying to get the lad sent off.

The amount of times he was fouled, he just got up and smiled it off after another decision didn’t go his way. Their lads were constantly complaining at the ref.

One things for sure, we need to go at them from the off like we did second half last night to stand any chance

 

I think he's the one that leads the line best and he's running himself into the ground for little to no reward. I genuinely don't know what more he can do with this style of football.

He can't do anything if the ball is hoofed at Dike and he fails to control it. Or it goes over his head, or he gets a head to it, but flicks it straight to the keeper. Or if it's hoofed at him with a 6ft 4 defender in his back.

Woodrow is a finisher, but he's often starved of any service at all as just about everything is aimed at Dike if he's selected. If we have a nominal good pocket of play, Woodrow is usually involved in the build up. I'd try and add to that by having Morris involved, and probably Chaplin.

 

It was odd, as you say, with them both playing the majority of the season for a team that have always been up in the top 4/5. They made out like they were novices. We played into their hands with Dike, though. It was obvious from early on that they were both up for the physical battle against Dike, yet we continued to play the same.

I was more concerned by Curtis Davies' comment after the game; something along the lines of saving the quality in Conor Chaplin, to be unleashed in the second leg. Not sure if he was getting mixed up with somebody else.

 

I agree with loads of that. He's the best link player at the Club, but we don't use him that way. He must despair at times at how he's been asked to play this season. But he's got to work within the system and he has struggled quite often and again last night. An Inability to jump off the ground and like all the forwards rarely getting the ball to feet - always into space.

There was an incident last night that summed this tactic it up for me. Ball played into Mowatt's feet, didn't take a touch and without looking just played it around the corner into acres of space where there was no Barnsley player within 30 yards. Now I love Alex but I'm screaming at him for crap football; and then he's getting loads of apologies from Dike who is acknowledging that Mowatt is simply following the tactical plan and that its his (Dikes) job to get on the end of the pass. Jesus!! When it works, it's fine but when it doesn't, it looks like the players can't control the ball or pass to a Red shirt.

 

Woodrow has lost his composure in front of goal and snatches at the efforts he does have. His touch was crap last night. He should have been clean through in the second half. Put it this way I wish that had broke to Morris.

 

It would be a big gamble, but I was thinking the same thing.

 

I watched the video sheriff posted and BFC's review of last season popped up. I only watched a couple of the games but some of the pockets of play where Woodrow received the ball showed what he can do. Think of the goals against Charlton and Brentford and the class is obvious. But you can't treat a thoroughbred as a cart horse for so long and expect all the skills we were appreciative of to still be as sharp as they were.