We looked unorganised for big parts of that 2nd half. The big plus for Marti will be that he managed to give quite a few of the players some minutes.
True, but what will Marti learn from their performance? Yet again we seemed to relax after going ahead and, with a little more luck, Cambridge could have punished us. Did Walsh, Morrison, Frey, Varane and EDB impress Marti? I was pleased once again with Lloyd, and Varane seemed solid in the middle. Walsh's loose pass gifted a goal. Up front, the rotation of strikers had no negative impact, but the experiment of having Dykes and Celar on together amounted to nothing. There was an improvement in applying a high press - now more players are joining in and forcing errors with their pressure; and there was an improvement in movement of the ball (but probably not enough). That all said, we won!
If Marti didn't know already he will have learnt that our defence is liable to mistakes, our passing is sloppy and our shooting is erratic. By the end a lot of our players were out on their feet and if we give Sheffeild United the time and space we allowed Cambridge then it could get embarrassing. Marti will no doubt come out and highlight the positives but he will be concerned that once he took Andersen off we lost control of the midfield and struggled to maintain the ball or play a straight pass.
I'm struggling to think of anyone who came out of that with any real credit. Even though he was clearly at fault for their goal, Walsh maybe? He made some crucial saves. Smyth did okay, and Andersen was decent enough. But that is about it. Was looking forward to seeing Varane, but he didn't settle, and was hurried into making mistakes. All-in-all, one to forget and move on. We won, and that's what matters in cup football I suppose.
Cambridge probably deserved to win 4-2 not lose 2-1.
I was sat in the Cambridge end and the general consensus is we were rubbish!
I think that the player Marti will be most disappointed with is JCS who was imperious last season but has been making mistakes and has lacked concentration. Probably all the talk of getting a move to the Premiership hasn't helped but at the moment he doesn't deserve his place in the team.
The other player who I thought had a real stinker was EDB who got into some good positions but his finishing was so so poor. At Championship level we need players who can finish because chances are rare and EDB never looks composed enough.
Overall we had a good first half but in the 2nd half our loss of Andersen upset the balance and our lack of quality was evident to all.
I just watched the extended highlights and it was a terrible second half. We were lucky not to lose - but we didn't but after watching that I can't help but feel we are in for a season... I want to be wrong but we looked like a team that was finishing a tough season - not starting it!
Question What has happened to field He’s been shocking the first 2 games
It's a good question and I have some stats on that for the preview show. He's been shocking.
Last night twice he went down on the edge of the box waiting for a foul and correctly the referee gave nothing and we were lucky both times. He just knelt on the ball until Cambridge stole it and nearly scored.
The main positive to take from this is that we overcame a tricky banana skin and are in the next round (despite our best attempts to throw the game in the second half!)
Worrying how few footballers are actually in this team, once Andersen went off we inept with the ball. Once Smyth went off we had no out ball. Bizarre but we won the game so
I’ll second jimjams I don’t mind Frey either. Of the three strikers we have, he’s the only one who possesses any level of intelligence. He understands how to press, he can move it a bit better and can bring others into play better than the other two. He’s not great but he’s the best of the bad bunch
Last Edit: Aug 14, 2024 14:58:43 GMT by jrperry1882
The main positive to take from this is that we overcame a tricky banana skin and are in the next round (despite our best attempts to throw the game in the second half!)
