He was excellent on Friday, won so many balls in the air, some great tackles, and his long throw will be a real asset.
I thought he played well. I remember one poor pass but I can cope with that as he was trying to play it into the final third. It’s when someone gives it away in our half like Earl has done a few times that I worry
I was sceptical about us re-signing Roberts, but having seen him a couple of times now, I can see why we've brought him in. His experience will be invaluable as the season goes on, and hopefully he helps us get more out of MDG and in particular, Earl.
Crazy how we can have different opinions. I thought he was poor and looked like he got bullied in the air quite a bit. Had a look at his stats and according to FotMob he didn’t win any of his duels on the ground 0/3 and only won 2/6 in the air. But he did make a lot of clearances, 8 from the ground and 6 headed ones!
Someone needs to tell our players he’s throwing to the near post - then maybe they can go and challenge for it rather then leaving it to the defender every time.
Hopefully his long throws start to improve too. He threw one first half and there wasn’t a single player there and it went straight out of play.
Possibly to do with the organisation of them, than the throw itself? We have someone whose role it is to work on set pieces...I would hope they improve considerably than what was delivered on Friday. Would be nice to see some invention and innovation. I also thought Roberts was excellent.
He threw it to the right of the pen area and there wasn’t a single Barnsley player in that location so I think probably error of judgement on Roberts part tbh. Difficult to see any impact the set piece coach had on Fridays showing. Same routines at corners. Cosgrove goes and stands with either the keeper or Flint in Fridays game and never gets near the ball yet doesn’t create any space or opportunities for anyone else either.
I think the idea might be that when the ball is thrown there's nobody there, but when it comes down there should be!
I also thank him for the team change after their second goal. He went straight over to Clarke and it was him telling Clarke what had to be done