There's summat special about Tuesday nights at our place isn't there? We were at 'em from the off and a couple of late tackles and throwing ourselves about got the crowd well up for it. We set up to attack them and there's no doubt about it, however, I still think Mellis is wasted wide. If we're playing 442 (which is fine considering our squad) we've got much better options out wide than shoe horning Mellis in there. Cywka/Jennings/O'Brien etc. We still need a left back, quite obvious they were targeting Kennedy and Butland made a save where they played their right winger in because Kennedy had come too central, exactly the same as the Leicester goal Saturday. But it was about attitude and getting stuck in - said before the game I wasn't expecting us to win last night or on Saturday but the performance was absolutely key and that was 'Flitcroft's' Barnsley again and I reight enjoyed it. Although the lack of width in the second half worried me, especially with the likes of Pedersen & O'Grady in the middle we're always likely to create if we put cross With Pedersen coming back, Perkins & Fox looking ok and Ramage/Cranie playing well we have some good combinations in the middle. Let's hope that gets us out of trouble. Oh, and Paddy. Paddy, Paddy, Paddy. A new hero. http://t.co/OMszVSmGWl
I agree, Kennedy was being targeted. He seems to have lost his confidence. He also tired towards the end . We also seem to sometimes leave big gaps on the wings which get exploited. Terrific game though and pleased to see our lads back to attacking and some really good passing and football.
Once again it falls upon me to bring a touch of realism to proceedings. I liked our shape in the first half, but when McCreary beat Wiseman to the bye line and squared back, I was reminded of Anya the week before. Fortunately, Wiseman's bacon was saved by Crainey and the ball was scrambled away. I had visions of the same sort of abuse as he usually gets, but imagine my shock when I arrived home, switched on my computer and read poster after poster praising him to the heavens. Funny old world really. It cannot be doubted that McCourt was our most influential player in the first half. His game in that half could almost deserve a 10. However, in the second half, he was worth only 4. Like many, I wondered if he had tired. In his full time comments the Adkins, the Redding manager claimed a change in shape to a diamond had worked the change. Our shape also changed as we loaded the right side leaving no-one ahead of Kennedy down the left side. Whatever the reason, the space around McCourt became very limited and he was less effective as a result. Of course, there will be more space for a player of McCourt's ability away from home, but I do think that we will have to deny QPR players the room in mid-field, else the consequences may be heavy in the goals against column. I expect a change to 4-5-1 with more disciplined players than McCourt and Mellis out wide. The Redding goal arrived as a result of the space granted to Robson-Kanu and showed exactly what the consequences are of not staying with the system. For a while after Redding scored, we abandoned all pretense of staying in the system in order to chase the equaliser. During this period, we were very fortunate not to have conceded again. It all worked out for the best in the end, the the team needs to be able to attack within the framework of a system or the consequences will be more of the heavy defeats that we have witnessed in previous weeks. It was nice to see that we had picked a substitute keeper, but I wondered why he did not warm up with the other keepers.
