by RoyalBlue »
12 Dec 2017 19:13
John Madejski's Wallet Westwood52 While it is the Players who are ultimately responsible for last nights fiasco;Stam made a critical error last night in not making a substuition at least 15 minutes before their 1st goal. Instead of which he just sat on his hands.
While I felt absolutely gutted walking back to the car-it was an exciting game, and both sides gave it a real go.For the first time in age , did Cardiff edge the possession although I think we shaded the chances.
I also think they seemed fitter than us; with a number of our players breathing out of their rear orifice.
IMHO:
Mannone 6: Didn't do a lot wrong and a couple of good saves; but those back line passes still give me concern.
Gunter 5: A poorish game; got round the back a couple of times, but his final ball was always poor .
Bacuna 6: Got a bit of a chasing & often out of position-the sooner we get him into central midfield the better.
McShane 6: Found out a couple of times, but kept battling.
Moore 5: Not usual service & that scuff after a very positive run was embarrassing,
Joey 5: Disappeared in the 2nd half & some comically bad moments
Kelly 4: Very good corners, but too often overpowered, and gasping for air 2nd half -why ?
Edwards 6: OK but nothing special.
Barrow 6: Probably our best player;but disappeared for long periods 2nd half.Gave up tracking back late on.
Kermit 4: Have we seen the best of him-total lack of pace.
Alukho 5: He really does give up easily, under any provocation.
Dadda: TBF to Stam on the necessary subs, when he did come on, he made little impact.
Ref: No wonder he hacked Colin off-he was awful.
Cardiff: Weak at the back-but pacy and powerful up front. Their fitness levels finally saw them through.
those are some seriously harsh scores.
Definitely not the scores for a team than until the 82min was 2-0 against the team comfortably in 2nd.....
Agreed. I would add 25-30% to those scores and am surprised at a lot of the criticism levelled at each of the players. I was more angry and frustrated than disappointed when the equaliser went in. And, I really enjoyed the game. As some of the neutral commentators observed, we played some football that was really good on the eyes, particularly during the first half.
Once again we paid the price for failing to convert some really good chances to put the game beyond Cardiff. I do think the subs were a bit late and would have brought Popa on for Aluko a fair bit earlier. Once again Popa showed in his short appearance last night that he is capable of producing some magic to either score or help create a goal. He really is a tremendous threat when he works his way in to shoot from corners like that and, unlike many of our players, he has the confidence and self-belief to try things like that.
What was really disappointing was that having played the possession game so well, even when under pressure in our own area, during the first half, we then stopped doing that in the second when that was exactly what was needed. I don't buy Gooding's and Williams' argument that Cardiff pushing on prevented our players from doing it. They just seemed to lose confidence and some concentration and ended up panicking and just trying to clear the ball anyway they could. On most occasions that just gifted possession straight back to Cardiff and brought yet more concerted pressure on our goal. Maybe the players sensed the nerves of the crowd? Maybe they even responded to the shouts from the crowd to just clear the ball.
Had we kept the ball like we did in the first half, Cardiff would have become frustrated and tired, which I am sure would have led to at least another goal for us. A key point of possession football is your opponents can't score if you don't let them have the ball!
