Probably controversial but, having calmed down from Saturday and reflected on what I saw, I feel that people , whilst rightly commenting on Mad's dreadful mistake for the 2nd goal it is OTT to say he was back to his usual pre break form. On countless occasions he made no-nonsense clearances uncompromisingly hoofing them into row Z, covered for errant defending from others and made numerous blocks and tackles. He was undone a couple of times by some skilful play from their multi million pound forwards but was definitely NOT the player reverting to pre.break form as some are saying and in spite of the dreadful scoreline and shambolic performance I think he was probably one of the best, if not THE best, Barnsley players on the pitch. He recovered from that early ****-up and had a decent game, got on with his job and his confidence seemed to not have taken a dent. Just my view!
I think it's fair to say that he made a major error that left us 2-0 down early in the match. Before this he's been a stand out player since he returned to the team after lock down. Others also made mistakes & had poor games. Our lack of creativity & the perceived lack of effort by several players also are worthy of criticism.Should be be dropped / rested for the Luton game? That would be down to Herr Stuber. With 7 points from 12 so far since lock down I'd say we are still in with a shout of staying up. We can't have a performance like that from the whole team again, if we are going to get out of this. Let's hope it's a one off & we can bounce back. Tough job, but we are playing a team that lost 5-0 at home in their last mach & are licking their wounds too.
Agree with all of that. Mads also picked a few good passes to feet, but the ball was coming back to defence from midfield far too frequently. I was far from impressed with Mowatt's reference to 3-0 being 2 set pieces & an individual error - that's not what I'd expect from a Captain & "3 soft goals" would have been sufficient, as everyone knows it was a Mads cockup for the 2nd. It's all about improving the performance of the TEAM in all areas of the pitch on Tuesday night & bringing home the 3pts.
I thought he was poor 1st half the **** up which lead to the 2nd goal and after that he seemed like it had got to him misplaced a few simple passes and it seemed like his head had gone. I didnt watch the 2nd half so cant comment.
I can't understand why Struber reverted to 442 and the midfield diamond, when the 352 system had worked so well. There is no doubt that Mads benefited from being one of three and the wing backs had added something as well. Back to 352 at Luton for me and Mads will be looking solid again.
Don’t buy into that. Nothing wrong at all pointing out an individual error. Mads is not stupid, he’ll know himself he made the error. He’s not being thrown under any buses. It’s not an issue to mention it - it would only be an issue if his teammates get on his back for it. They won’t though. They will rally round eachother and back eachother - they have all season. Pointing out a mistake doesn’t undermine that, and it also gives a bit of credibility to the interview as if he’d ignored it or suggested otherwise it wouldn’t have seemed a genuine view. He didn’t exactly say ‘fuxking mads again’ did he?
He wasn't by any stretch of the imagination the worst player. One mistake that led to a goal and one other that he recovered and made amends. Arguably the first mistake was possibly a result of over confidence and also partly caused by Walton not coming to help out (possibly a bit harsh on Walton).
With respect, I have to disagree. Obviously, everyone knows it was an individual error, so nobody should be thinking Alex is burying his head in the sand by not saying anything about it. In an interview situation, the top management & captains do not draw attention to errors - many examples of that with Klopp, Pep & their captains. If the interviewer ASKS, then the stock answer is that Mads isn't happy with that one etc....as I'm sure he won't be.
Terrible error for the second goal. Having watched the incident again, he was even further from goal than I remembered at the time. That said, he did have a pretty good game overall.
Not just Mads to blame imo . The error was hard to swallow because we all thought he’d learned from similar mistakes in the past and we were all pleased as punch on his performances since lockdown . However all goals were easily defended with any semblance of defending but we just hadn’t on Saturday The first goal fair enough he was unmarked and it looked easy maybe just maybe if he’d been challenged he may have misdirected or whatever but give them that goal because of their height against ours . Second goal was typical Mads before lockdown didn’t deal with the ball or follow up his back pass keeping himself between ball and attacker , Third goal I presume our defence was on a drinks break because no one anywhere near . Fourth goal criminal the amount of time Ince had in the area on the ball before he shot with no one near him and plenty of our defenders in a position to challenge him but didn’t . I agree that the defence shouldnt be overly criticised by management when we’ve still a chance (more difficult now ) and need performances to come . The feelings from the fans thankfully from a players point of view are on social media so they should be able to concentrate on the future games and not fear the wrath of the crowd . Another performance like that whilst we still have a chance won’t be excused or forgiven as if we’d lost by four good goals on Saturday then I’m sure they would have . As Alex said after game the mindset wasn’t there and the levels of concentration minimal to say the least Struber needs to make sure it’s there for next 5 games .
I'm convinced that once he gets a bit more confidence and cuts out the individual errors he'll be a great player for us, and go on to bigger things. He's looked really solid over the few games before Saturday, and every now and again he pulls something out of the bag like that crossfield pass to Ludewig against Blackburn which makes me think that we could have a really special player, given time and support. I suspect there's a reason why Struber has given him the responsibility for passing the ball out from the back, but that for whatever reason we're just not seeing it at the moment.