And with injuries & suspensions beginning to kick in, it's going to be a tough few weeks for the lads. If Conor is still injured for Tuesday, we may see a move from our regular 442 formation, due to our lack of numbers available for midfield. Sadly, we appear to be making individual mistakes again and again. At this level, we're being punished on a regular basis. Our two strikers finished their chances exceptionally well, though. I'll leave the blame game to others. Twelve months ago, the victim of a lot of the criticism levelled at the players in the team was Marley Watkins. Yet now he's one of the most popular lads. So if any individual is being targeted, he can take comfort that it can be turned round. After the match, Ian & I were talking to Matt Murray (the ex-Wolves goalie) from Sky Sports, in the car park. I blamed him for us losing, but he claimed he was here for the Derby match! He came across as a thoroughly decent bloke and said he's been impressed with us. Onto Tuesday night and Newcastle. It's going to be extremely difficult for us, but I can't wait. Bring 'em on!
I think on Tuesday we should play six across the back and four in midfield. That way we should keep it to -4 :frown:
We looked disjointed and missed Conor badly on the plus side Watkins and Winnall combined well again and I can't wait for Tuesday night.
No, you're right, Mario, we didn't. When we've got D'Almeida, Payne, White, Janko, Hourihane all injured and we'll be without Scowen & Armstrong on Tuesday, our small squad is being stretched somewhat. Still, we all knew there'd be periods of the season where we'd struggle with results, injuries, suspensions and loss of form. Personally, I believe this run will call for strength of character from the coaching staff, players and fans alike as much as anything to get things back on track. It's easy to get behind a team which is playing the opposition off the park and scoring a bagful of goals. At this point in time I feel Hecky & the lads will need the crowd's backing and, for me, it's still there from the vast majority.
I thought we missed his leadership qualities & organisation skills, as well as his on field abilities. However, no one else seemed able to step up to the mark today, sadly.
One of the other things that Hourihane's absence did, I think, was contribute to their domination of midfield by them not having him to worry about, giving them so much more freedom. I'm sure if he'd played, they'd have put a man on him to try and snuff out his influence. Without sounding patronising, none of our other midfielders offer what he does at either end of the pitch, or as JLWBigLil has said do they offer his leadership etc. Whilst I'd love us to keep going at teams, I'm beginning to think that one winger is as much "risk" as we can take perhaps. All of their goals seemed to come from their midfield playing a diagonal ball to the left wing. We've stepped up a huge level in football and financial terms. It showing now, but I'm right behind all of them. And I still think we'll be playing Championship football next season too.
Spot on Kev. As I said in another post there are going to be games this season when we are outclassed by a better team. Hecky said recently that to complete in this league we'd need every player on the pitch to play well because having off days and making mistakes will be punished. So far I am very happy with our season and I'm confident that there will be better to come. It will be just like us to go out and win on Tuesday.
