Outclassed from start to finish

I don't think we were. Our strikers were a match for their defenders (we scored twice). Our problem was one of tactics instead of moving scowen into hourihanes role checking bottom chose to play both our midfielder in the uninspiring and utterly ***** defensive midfielder role just a few yards in front of the back four.

It offered chuff all gong forwards through the middle, made our wingers ineffective because they could double up on them and meant that they could push so far up the pitch that we were under pressure as soon as they made a move forwards.

4 4 ****ing 2. When we play it it works. Play what was essentially 4-2-2-2 like today and you get what you deserve, chuff all

 

It will happen, you know. Up the Reds x

 

I thought we were tactically naive all throughout.

Fairplay to Winnall and Watkins for quality finishes with huge amounts of time.

But the rest of the game we got the tactics all wrong. Parker and Cairney were playing so deep, we couldn't press high up the pitch. With centre halves splitting wide, their fullbacks then pushed on to double with their wide players.

Their play was generally slow and pedestrian, yet they had such overload in areas, it didnt matter.

And when we tried to counter, we were route one and immediately under pressure.

We were lucky it was so close in the end. The most worrying thing was getting a glimpse of what life without Hourihane could be like!

We need to find a plan B to stifle this sort of approach from the oposition. If not, we're going to spend a lot of time running ourselves into the ground for little reward.