Breath of fresh air to see wingers again.

I thought Cleary was fantastic last night.
Give him the right pass and he goes for it.
Some great crosses too.

 

Puts in some dangerous crosses. Reyes "The Vamp" Cleary.

 

Did we really only have 1 shot on target ? If so sort of proves we are desperate for a striker

 

I think we were guilty of overplaying it in and around their box. There were several occasions where we should have pulled the trigger but opted to pass or dribble

 

Loads of crosses that went begging and plenty of off target shots. I agree we need a striker but centre half should be priority.

 

Just from the perspective of numbers, unless we can ship out two centre halves, I think we have what we have. Granted it looks like Lopata is being offloaded but that still leaves us with Roberts, Barratt, Shepherd, Earl and DeGevigney. We need 4 in my opinion.

Up front all we have is McGoldrick. We've plenty of speed and trickery wide and in support of a front man, but it would be insane to go into a season hoping a near 38 year old makes it through all of it and then rely on playing someone else out of position when he tires, is injured/suspended. Nice to see Farrell last night. But it felt far too steep a learning curve for him.

Ironically, I did think our wide play would suit someone who is more nimble in the box and who could find space. I'd certainly have given Marsh a year extension to see if this completely different style may have suited him better.

 

To say we've now switched to play with wingers, we don't really have a target man as yet to make the most of it. Russell I suppose, hence the first goal last night, but it's asking a lot for him to be in the box for every lofted ball.

I think Keillor-Dunn prefers low crosses or balls that he can run on to - Cleary had a great game, but we'll be even more effective if the balls can be tailored to consider the teammate who will be on the receiving end - if they're below average height they're unlikely to make the most of headers and any lofted ball is harder to control or make the most of.

 

Quick and direct should av ad a penalty blatant shove in the back , gonna terrorise a lot of fullbacks this season .

 

Clearly was out on his feet last night and little surprise with the shift he put in. We had glimpse of what Hourihane wants two young wingers inverted fullbacks. The Irish Pep has landed at Oakwell, strap yourselves in it's going to be a bit of a ride.

 

Don't read too much into that stat...we played really well from an attacking point of view and on another day could have scored a bagful.

 

I liked the fact that we left Cleary and Vickers up when the opposition had a corner which meant that they had to have 2 or 3 players back to defend instead of overloading our box.
We didn’t defend the one that went in very well, but at least we weren’t 11 men in the box.

 

DKD got his low crosses last night and then missed the target.