That's a superb result! Also puts us 5 points clear of the bottom 3
Could it be argued that it's now 6 bonus points we've picked up this month?
If we all look back to the start of these series of games I think we would have been delighted to be 4 points up at this stage. Instead we are 6 points better off and, importantly, we have a defence that works well together. Forget Kane and Wallace, but the Back 3 and Ball & Johansen work hard together to prevent shots - and Dieng is just superb!
That's a superb result! Also puts us 5 points clear of the bottom 3
Could it be argued that it's now 6 bonus points we've picked up this month?
If we all look back to the start of these series of games I think we would have been delighted to be 4 points up at this stage. Instead we are 6 points better off and, importantly, we have a defence that works well together. Forget Kane and Wallace, but the Back 3 and Ball & Johansen work hard together to prevent shots - and Dieng is just superb!
I thought Dieng and Dickie were very good today but I shall give my MotM award to Barbet . I thought he played as well as I've seen him and his partnership with Dickie is getting better by the game. Dickie made a tremendous block in the 2nd half that kept us in the game.
Dieng pulled off some brilliant saves but he did spill one in the 2nd half that was cleared by Wallace .
The thing about this 5-3-2 formation is that it does give us more stability and Kane does benifit from that extra cover. In fact in the first half Kane was getting forward and at one stage he was in the box when the ball fell to him and he will be disappointed to have put his shot wide.
Whilst I think we look more stable at the back with 5-3-2 it does mean we give up space in the midfield which Blackburn took advantage of and this allowed them to create plenty of chances that luckily they wasted or our goalkeeper and defence kept out.
Overall a good result only marred by the head injury to Dykes although according to Warburton he is in the dressing room eating a burger So can't be too much wrong.
If we all look back to the start of these series of games I think we would have been delighted to be 4 points up at this stage. Instead we are 6 points better off and, importantly, we have a defence that works well together. Forget Kane and Wallace, but the Back 3 and Ball & Johansen work hard together to prevent shots - and Dieng is just superb!
I thought Dieng and Dickie were very good today but I shall give my MotM award to Barbet . I thought he played as well as I've seen him and his partnership with Dickie is getting better by the game. Dickie made a tremendous block in the 2nd half that kept us in the game.
Dieng pulled off some brilliant saves but he did spill one in the 2nd half that was cleared by Wallace .
The thing about this 5-3-2 formation is that it does give us more stability and Kane does benifit from that extra cover. In fact in the first half Kane was getting forward and at one stage he was in the box when the ball fell to him and he will be disappointed to have put his shot wide.
Whilst I think we look more stable at the back with 5-3-2 it does mean we give up space in the midfield which Blackburn took advantage of and this allowed them to create plenty of chances that luckily they wasted or our goalkeeper and defence kept out. Overall a good result only marred by the head injury to Dykes.
Barbet for MotM is a good call although, as is often the case these days, there were a number of good performances today. Chair was superb up front and never stopped chasing the ball in defence, and you are right to mention Dickie and Dieng. Some good news: According to Warburton he left Dykes tucking into a burger in the changing room, so other than the usual concussion checks he is OK. That is good to hear as I feel his time is coming!
We rise 1 place to 16th with the win against Blackburn
We are now only 1 place and 2 points below where we were after 27 games last season
It's crazy that we've won 4 from 5 and if we hadn't we'd be well and truly in the bottom 3. It's all gone a bit bonkers.
We only won 4 from the first 22 games of the season. Followed by 4 wins in 5. Yet our position over the bottom 3 has not improved (after Match 22 we were also 5 clear of the bottom 3)! The crazy madness of The Championship!
Our big improvement this season has been defensively. As mentioned previously we now have 8 clean sheets compared to just 6 in the whole of last season, and we have 19 games left.
At this point last season we had conceded 51 goals. This season we've conceded 32.
We've only conceded 9 goals in the last 11 games
Since a run of 3 straight defeats into December we've only lost 3 of 11 since.
It is the first time we've won 4 games from 5 since September 2019, when we won 4 in a row. We haven't won 3 in a row since that run in September 2019 and of course have another chance to do that next week against Rotherham.
Match winner Yoann Barbet has started all 27 games this season - he only played 27 games in the whole of last season. Ilias Chair also keeps up his record of starting every game this season.
According to LondonFootballNews, Melton Mowbray the handsome manager of Heartburn Rovers decided that Dickie was the weak link in the defence and set Armstrong up against him because of his speed. Two problems with this: Dickie has been vying each week for MotM awards, and Mowbray mentions 'both central defenders' so he obviously was not aware we had a back 3! I can only recall one occasion during the match where Armstrong sped past Dickie and others came to intercept/block. I know which manager I would always select!
“You put speed against no speed and I think we damaged them. We got into some great areas, we just didn’t take the chances. It’s what you do; you wouldn’t put your super-fast striker against their fastest defender. You put him where their slowest defender is. If he (the striker) has to move a little bit to do that, that’s what you do. We tried to expose the lack of mobility of both central defenders of QPR."
