A silly injury to Slonina wouldn’t be any kind of disaster in my eyes. As I said in the match day thread, I’d play any of the others over him now. He might be the best shot stopper - but he’s scared to death when anyone is anywhere near him, allergic to catching the ball, and the defence have absolutely no faith in him whatsoever. Add the fact he’s useless with the ball at his feet and the occasional good shot stopping performance doesn’t make up for the deficiencies and the points he costs. I’m not really advocating for him to be hurt or injured of course but I do wonder if there’s any other prospect of him being dropped.
It wasn't the highest of bars I was judging it upon, sadly. We beat Crawley 3-0 with some canny tactics in my opinion. Very clever on Clarke's part, and with Phillips having one of his really good days which are top end Championship quality. Unfortunately, as we all know, he plays like a Morecambe laiker a lot of the time. I saw good signs against Bristol at home. Bits and pieces in other games. But generally, I've seen little to be enthused by. Tonight I enjoyed the most part. I could see the point. Literally, in the end.
It was certainly better than the other games I've seen recently (I missed the Blackpool win) and we should have won. Way more positives from that than negatives. Particularly impressed with Gent, DKD, Humphrys and Robbo.
Looking back over many years it seems to be a “foreign” thing, all this punching instead of catching. It’s as if foreign coaches drill into their keepers the mantra that the ball must not be caught, ever! I know there are exceptions to that rule but not with this lad. He is either incapable or unwilling when a high ball goes into the area and you just know he’s either not getting near the ball or he will be making a mess of it. His punching is actually as bad as his kicking so I’m afraid he’s no good to us at the moment. Maybe it’s early season nerves with him but we were deceived into thinking we had a good keeper with those penalties at Wigan.