We had a striker on the bench who’s limited in overall ability but thrives on putting in 100% effort for a short blitz of time. A player who’s strong, bigger than 5ft, and puts defenders under pressure and makes them nervous. Yes he might be limited when he has the ball, but we needed that kind of player to stop the ball coming straight back to us. Bassi had zero impact on the game second half yesterday. Especially the last 30 minutes. Not necessarily his fault as all we did was punt the ball 60 yards hoping he might win it - so yes it was very strange given our tactics and the flow of the game that he played 90 minutes.
Quina was a passenger yesterday, but in his defence they were triple teaming him at times knowing how much of a threat he could be, and they almost managed 90 minutes without allowing him to cut inside once. Sometimes we don’t acknowledge the impact the opposition can have on a player’s performance. But even so, you wouldn’t take him off because if he’s getting so much attention then that means there should be space elsewhere on the pitch where the opposition are lacking in numbers. Problem was we sat so deep that Quinta’s out ball was often to go back to Kitching and Madds, with little quality options in front of them, and a Reading team that quickly got their shape back because we didn’t move the ball at pace. We’re crying out for Morris to not be the #9 and to be allowed to drop deeper/wide to get more involved, but he’s also our best #9. As proven by having Bassi play the striker role second half yesterday - which made zero sense.
There was definitely a case for having an attacking midfield 3 of Morris, Quina and Vic, with Iseka up front in the second half yesterday. Given how Reading were physically too strong for us, he’s got to come up with a plan for next week, because Millwall will have all that strength but with some extra quality.
