Not having a pop by any means, the only thing I can pick at is thus: I think he's a little head strong, like a bull at a gate. love his enthusiasm & energy but he's young & hungry, I get that. IMO he needs to be a little more subtle, I think he has it all & he will make it(with us) You gooooooooo Mr Dike.
To be fair he was given absolutely zero to work with today. That said Morris did a bit better with a fistful of nothing.
Thought Woodrow... goal apart, was pretty ineffectual as well. Thought Rowett had done his homework well
None of the strikers had anything to work with because we spent the whole match smashing the ball aimlessly forwards. We never once tried remotely to play the slightest bit of football. I'm on the happy clapper end of the spectrum and what Ismael has done is amazing but today we were dreadful. Onwards and upwards though.
I just love all these dreadful wins Especially against teams that are unbeaten in 9 games yet even more dreadfuller
It’s hard for Dike (and any physical strikers really) because defenders will lean/climb/throw them all over and the striker will get nothing but the second they give it back, the refs seemingly can’t wait to give the foul. I thought he did okay today, caused them a few problems and distractions.
Agreed, I don't think anyone can argue with the result and the position we are in but we seriously lacked composure at times, when a simple ball to keep possession would have been the better option.
Yet we still won fairly comfortable in the end against an inform playoff rival, makes you wonder what we can achieve when we start performing perfectly.
This^ I struggle with some of the criticism when we’re ‘winning’. Measured against ‘perfection’; we’re at best decent and at worst appalling. But perfection is beyond what we should expect. We’re a bunch of mostly young, mostly inexperienced, underpaid inexpensive (for this league) players. And we’re regularly beating Internationally capped, overpaid opposition. It’d be great if we were doing it whilst playing like Brazil, but simply winning also has a value*. *if you struggle to put a value to happiness, it’s simpler than you think. If I give you a £5 for nothing, just randomly a gift; how much happier does that make you feel - there you go a tangible £5 worth of happiness. In many ways; even easier to measure than the value of ‘entertainment’.