revealed a possible weakness of ours. I suspect we may be done by teams that run at us at pace if we let up on closing play down in all areas of the pitch. Still, the boys are still learning and this will be another game to look back on constructively to see what could have been done better. We are going to need the whole squad to step up to the challenge of consistency.
It was the first Reds game I have seen for a while today and was expecting great things. I thought that Coventry 'out-Barnsleyed' us. In their dominant stages, they constantly harried us into mistakes, which gave the ball back to them and some of their one-touch passing and quick-sharp off-the-ball running had us chasing shadows. They did to us what we try to do to the opposition. Credit to them for that. The stats lie a little, as Coventry were the more coherent of the two teams, although we had our fair share of chances and should have stuck at least one (really Jacob's 1:1 with the keeper) away. Credit also to the Coventry goalie, Burge, who had a blinder. Always amazes me what really good players there are at Leagues One and Two level. It was an outstanding performance overall by Burge and his save from Thiam was world class in reflexes and agility. We certainly are a strong and muscular team who will bulldoze a good many sides this season, but we will need something more to be sure of getting out of this league. We need a bit of guile to go with the muscle. Bahre provided it best today and I was surprised when he was taken off, as he has the skills to unlock defences. We particularly lack those higher skills in the wide areas of the pitch, in which we have pace in Thiam and Brown, but, on today's evidence, not enough skill to put in a telling final ball. This lack of final ball skill also extended to our set pieces, which were poor. We have plenty of tall players in their and couldn't find them. Dougall looked jet-lagged still, which didn't help us establish control of the midfield. He'll bounce back and have better days, no doubt. Moore was well marshalled by Willis and Hyam today, which left us without much of a plan B, as, although tippy-tapping about at the back, it usually culminated in a lump forwards to find Kieffer. We need Woodrow fit asap as a second striker and second option if the Kieffer route is not working, as it didn't much today. Players who impressed for me today were Cavare (apart from his shooting), Pinnock and Bahre. No one had a mare, but a good number of the rest couldn't get into the game enough to make the impact they would have wanted.
