BR2 Always good to read "Back from the game" as Daily Mail described it as a turgid game and Peter Beagrie said that the first half was dreadful.
I saw our goal and Marek's pass to Armstrong looked fairly routine and not some fantastic defence-splitting ball but maybe he beat 10 men before that?
Peter Beagrie obviously hasn't watched us recently because if he thinks that aspects of last night were turgid then Christ knows how he'd describe our performances against Bristol City, QPR, Swansea et al.
IMO we were pretty damn good last night. Not an excellent performance, but a pretty good one none-the-less. Interesting to read the comments whilst chuckling at the HNA hordes self-congratulating themselves after pointing out 4-5-1 was what was needed. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that we played a one-off 4-5-1 last night simply to nullify the Doncaster threat - their ability to keep the ball and make opposition teams chase them. There can be absolutely no doubt that we would have been over-run yesterday if we'd played 4-4-2, so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if we resorted to 4-4-2 for Saturday. I hope we don't, because the formation we played yesterday allowed the beefy backline and defensive midfield partnership to pretty much dominate, and allowed our most creative central midfielder to play the game he likes.
A couple of observations:
The goal was coming. I was never in any doubt we'd score even at around 75-80 minutes. We'd created a few decent openings, three of which Harper spurned (blocked, miscontrol, over). It was a good move, instigated by none other than Jimmy Kebe. For those that are lauding the plaudits on Matejovsky for playing a relatively simple ball out to Armstrong, I'd much rather heap praise on Kebe for his preceding run with the ball, because it was he who dragged the Donny defence inside when he cut inside and passed to Marek. This allowed Armstrong to charge down the line unheeded to receive the ball from Marek, and from then on it was a simple pass, followed by simple cut back, followed by a quite brilliant finish.
Armstrong struggled all evening I felt. His distribution wasn't the greatest, he lost possession a number of times, missed tackles (one of which led directly to a clear Donny chance). His effort was unquestionable, but quality was sadly lacking yesterday. Hopefully a one-off.
Harper - his best game for a long time I felt. He is the water carrier of this team, picks it up off the defence and plays balls to instigate attacks. He hassles, he harries, he organises, he's never in hiding, he always wants the ball. Poor form maybe due to Coppell's insistence at going 4-4-2, and therefore being over-run? Harper's fault or Coppell's?
Andre Bikey HAS to start every game.
Gunnarsson CAN last 90 minutes of a match.
ALOL @ Royalee. Normally a good read if you can pick the insults out of him disagreeing with other posters views. But the comments in this thread are utterly ridiculous.
