Little of the free flowing football we've come to expect from these lads, maybe even take for granted, was on show. There were very few positives which could be taken from the match, sadly. However, I'm more than willing to cut these players and Daniel Stendel some slack, after witnessing some of our football and victories so far. I certainly won't be taking part in any OTT criticism of the club or team based on last night's performance. The defence was solid again, Lindsay & Pinnock were superb, meaning Davies could've sat with us in the Ponty End. We're still in second place. We're still unbeaten at home this season. No one has conceded fewer goals than us. We are only in February, yet have amassed 66 points already. We're averaging two points a game. We have two excellent goalscoring strikers. We have a goal difference of +31. I'm disappinted with last night, but still back these players and Head Coach 100%.
Have we ever had a season where we haven’t had at least one of these frustating types of night? Positives include, we didn’t lose, it wasn’t that cold for the time of year and most importantly Steve Croft was here. COYR
Well said my learned friend.You've summed up last night to a tee. I know forums are all about opinions but the way some folk over react is disappointing to say the least. You've stated in your post all the good things we have had and seen so far this season and one slight under performance against a stubborn Burton team shouldn't change all the good we have achieved so far.
I fully take the blame for last nights performance, first home game I’ve missed in ages, I promise it won’t happen again Kev #blamebossman
Those kind of games come along every so often and they say more about the opposition than they do about us. Burton came with a game plan and, fair play to them, they worked hard for their point. We missed Moore badly last night, but also had a number of players below par. Our tactics could have been better (e.g Hedges didn't really provide the width I thought we needed down the left) but it's a learning curve. As you say, we're still on course for promotion, so hopefully we can put this behind us and kick on again. I did wonder, given our lack of height up front, whether Stendel should have taken a flier and shoved Pinnock up top (replacing him with Jackson at the back when Bahre went off). At least we'd have been winning the long balls and possibly nicking a goal, who knows? I'm still convinced that we're going up as one of the top two.
To be honest Kev I'm surprised we haven't seen many more matches like this at home, teams coming and parking the bus to frustrate us. They know if they play football we'll beat them, Cloughie got it spot on last night but it was terrible to watch but if we had taken our earlier chances it would have been a different game. Onwards and upwards.
I'm disappointed but not too down-hearted. No, we weren't at our best but we didn't lose, had some good chances too in the first half and could easily have won. We do miss Kieffer against the more defensively minded teams but hopefully he'll be back in harness after Pompey. The important thing is that we kept up the unbeaten run despite a below-our-normal-standards performance and can go again with little damage done. I seem to remember that last time we had a drop in performance we bounced back with two cracking wins. I recall one of the managerial greats, Cloughie or one of the Liverpool 70s/80s managers, saying that even the best teams are allowed to have a below par game one in every nine or ten. Well, we've gone thirteen games and I'd say only two performances, max, have been below the normal par of the rest - and we still haven't lost one. Lastly, please give Burton some credit. They have a very experienced foundation in Buxton and McFadzean, were clearly set up to frustrate us and they didn't half work their proverbials off to get behind the ball and cover our every move. It's all about Saturday now for me. A good result at Pompey and all will be well again, COYR!
