We'd barely managed a pass to a teammate. We then had 5 minutes of dominance before conceding a breakaway goal and for the rest of the half we really didn't play well at all. Bournemouth were doing what I thought every team would do against us: playing the ball over the top, but down the flanks to stop Collins sweeping up. Our high line was bypassed by the onrushing winger and, with the new offside rules, their central forwards had no need to keep onside. They didn't go for the original ball, so they weren't flagged offside and our centre halves had to make up 5 yards or more when the cross came in to them, which of course they couldn't. See Chelsea's goal and Bournemouth's second today. For the first time in a quite a while I couldn't see us winning. The second half was the best I've seen us play for years. Williams can play much, much better than he did today and he must know it. Styles replaced him and was magnificent. Palmer didn't do a lot wrong, his passing was the best of the starting 11 but he wasn't getting stuck in like he can. Kane came on to put in his best performance since his arrival. Up until now Kane has been disappointing, but there's no way our recruitment team pay the sort of money we paid for Kane if there's not a player in there somewhere. He started to show it today. Chaplin works hard, but he doesn't have nearly enough influence on the game and his attempted tackle for their first was awful. Their player just ran through him like Chaplin was a mirage. Morris came on and looked magic as usual. It's working bringing Morris on as a sub, but can't we start with our best team, go in at half time 3-0 up and give us all a few more years of life instead of worrying us all to death. The work rate, the commitment, the one touch passing, the defending, Dike and Morris scaring the soul out of the opposition defenders, everything about that second half was magnificent. Well played Barnsley, mightily impressive.
That’s how I saw it today too. The game swung massively back to us that second half. What a ******* win that is though. In the play offs, 5 points clear, going into tail end of season - unbelievable.
There was probably one pivotal moment when Solanke (?) took advantage of Collins’ fresh air clearance, but couldn’t score into an empty goal. I think that would have been 3-1.
Well done to Collins despite a couple of **** ups he kept on with the game plan, he will come a cropper in the future and that could have been today but the pluses far outweigh the negatives on this subject.
Still no idea how he wasn’t offside. He was yards off when the ball was played. Collins didn’t touch it so how was he not flagged even with today’s bizarre offside rule
I questioned the tactics 1st half, but credit to Val, he changed it 2nd half and we played it around a bit, massive improvement, styles was a good substitution, had a great 2nd 45 as williams looked very rusty ,great that the manager is willing to change tack mid game...
Our tactics would benefit from VAR, it must be nervy for our defenders pushing up and relying purely on the linesman getting it right
Morris and Dike make such a difference to us, particularly against better sides. Have said elsewhere that Woodrow, Frieser and Chaplin have previously struggled to create clear chances against the top sides, and that showed in a poor first half. But, they were also our starting front three in Nov/Dec when we were incredibly consistent against bottom half sides, and established ourselves in mid table. For that, they deserve a lot of credit.
Those linos certainly struggled to get it right on many occasions today, so you are correct that VAR would certainly benefit us.
The beauty of it is, we knew what wer coming with Morris and Dike whereas the bournemouth players wondered what had hit em..brilliant
