I’m not sure why so many have tipped us for a promotion tilt. The leagues stronger & we’re weaker. All I can say is you must have a lot of confidence in the recruitment team to find us a couple of quality forwards. We’ve lost several of our best players & then the weakest regular starters from last year - O’Keefe, Earl & De Gevigney are all still starting. I thought we were really poor for the first half hour. The change in formation was needed. I would’ve preferred him to take O’Keefe off rather than the LWB but I appreciate Earl has experience playing left back & De Gevigney doesn’t have experience playing right back so it made sense. Bizarrely we were a lot better with Connell & Russell as ‘8’s’ in a midfield diamond than we were playing 3-5-2. Craig seems a decent enough player but it does seem strange that we’ve now got 3 sitting midfielders & are going to play Connell further forward to accommodate Craig. Surely we would’ve been better off signing a natural replacement for Kane & playing Connell in his natural position? Hourihane also seems to want to play a deep role. So we could see a scenario in which Connell & Russell play further forward all season. I’m not sure I’m ready for a season of watching Russell shoot from distance! Shades of signing Pearson on loan & pushing Hourihane & Scowen further forward & then finding out we were a far better team without Pearson & dropping the other two further back? Maybe, who knows. Not a slight on Craig, he seems talented enough. I just don’t think that was a position we needed to strengthen & I assumed he was more of a box to box player. As poor as we were early doors we did deserve to get something from the game. All of Watters, Marsh & Cosgrove could & probably should have scored. On Watters, he didn’t play great or anything like that & I wouldn’t insult anyone’s intelligence by claiming he did but it was nice to see him involved in the game, linking up & making runs & gambling on where the ball might go. There was none of that last season. It was probably a lack of confidence than effort but last season he went into hiding & didn’t seem to want the ball. Tonight he was a lot better albeit he didn’t fetch his finishing boots. Prices are a disgrace. I hoped they just put them up for the boxing but £4 for tangfastics & £6.50 for a Madri? Really? And lastly why did the Ponty End look so white? It could have been a Leeds or England end looking at it from the East Stand. Normally even in the winter months there’s still a lot of red. Tonight everyone seemed to have white on, were you all in your best white tops to go straight in town? Just looked unusual.
Agree on prices. I've seen far bigger queues in the east stand when there has been many less people there. Hopefully they get the idea that fans will not let them be taken for fools. With such a good crowd I expected queues to be by the turnstiles but it was nothing near.
I’m moaning but then we went & had a beer apiece although it wasn’t £6.50 Madri! If I was taking my kids I wouldn’t feeding them at Oakwell that’s for sure
The Hourihane signing seems more pointless the more I think about it. Clearly just a ploy from the club to up season ticket sales. Recruitment has been awful yet again.
Craig was arguably our best player last night and Connell looked far better further forwards... once them two went off we lost our creativity and drive going forwards.
My main thought on the evening was that Clarke dresses a bit too much like Joey Barton for my liking. Concerning.
Longer, we knew Cole was leaving months before the end of the season & McAtee was only on loan so was always likely to leave.
To what? I still think the same as I did a week ago. We haven’t addressed our weaknesses & need better forwards
Not sure about Craig, I thought there were a few better but Connell definitely played well. It just seems a strange carry on to have Russell & Connell playing as 8’s instead of signing a natural box to box midfielder
It was his first game for us and he looked very good to me... always looking for a forwards pass starting attacking plays up.
I didn’t think he played badly. Just didn’t think he was anywhere near man of the match. I thought that was clearly Connell.
