2021/22 Pre-season Matches and talk

Got my points and I shall be watching. 

Chair capitalised on a mistake and finished well and Dykes slid in a Thomas shot that was heading wide putting us 2-0 up.

Interestingly Dickie is captain. Wallace who was captain on Saturday isn't involved and I would have thought Austin would be captain. I guess this confirms Austin will not be captain this season like a lot of us thought/hoped.

Barbet was in the original line up but hasn't played so he hopefully hasn't picked up anything too serious.

Well, for whatever reason, it has taken my credits but the transmission will not stay running. In the end I have given up! Not impressed with Recast!!

It was a good run out tonight. The changes in the 2nd half seemed to upset the balance but we dominated really. Shame to concede but we became sloppy and paid the price.

Dozzell looks good going forward but he needs to improve his defensive duties. These matches are about team building and getting the players fit. Warburton will know that we were exposed in midfield at times due to our eagerness to attack.

If Kelman could have scored then it would have been even better but we move onto Leicester and another match that will test us.

I agree northwesthoop but what it showed Warbuton was the naivety of our central midfield. The players got a warning just before the goal and left the same man free. 

This is the good thing about these pre season games because you hope that the younger players learn from these errors. I think we got a bit complacent and that was the kick up the bum we needed. We got away with a sloppy goal tonight because it didn't mean anything but it's something that they mustn't do in the Championship.

Totally agree! Warburton has essentially created an attacking side, but some players need to do the unglamorous (but necessary) tough defending - such as De Wijs, Field and Ball. All though should be tracking back and it was obvious (from the bits I saw) that some players were happy to walk slowly back, rather than track back players properly. In both matches we have let in 'softer' goals and these are the ones that decide victories and promotions!

The £20 admission for the Man Utd game was worth it for that 10 minute spell in the second half alone, I genuinely can’t remember us playing football like that since the early days of 13-14 when we still had McClaren and were absolutely bossing things. Simple utter perfection!

The Cambridge performance was absolutely brilliant to watch for the first 65-70 minutes, but in a way the final stages of the game shows we’re still quite light in the squad. We’re still in strange times and can’t rule out the scenario if having a covid outbreak in the squad but still having to play games. Luckily we do still have players to bring back (Amos, Johansen etc) so we will still have quality, but I still can’t help but feel we’re light in a couple of key areas still.

Either way, pre-season has been good so far and it’s been an absolute joy to getting back to watch the team play! I’ll be missing the next couple of games, so my next one will be Orient. Roll on the start of the season!