Postives ( for Tina ) and learns from yesterday

The main postives for me are :

We didn't totally fall apart when we went 2 1 down

Reid sending off - in that he will miss some games so we will be able to try Howard or ANO as captain which we badly need ( nothing against Reid - but when you are struggling with your own game captain's responsibility is too much ).

Reid sending off in that we changed formation and really started to play passing and move total football and yes we could have won if a certain header towards an open goal 2nd half had gone in.

Souza - he is looking like a great buy. He can defend , get forward , thinks and this week played in the right position . Looks like class .


Christensen - not on for long .I saw enough to say this guy will be good. He can hold the ball , fight for it , is tall , dummies defenders and I cant wait to see him play again

Odejayi - this lad has real promise if paired with the right forward and there is another player in " the hole " just behind them getting forward.Well that is what I would do if I was
manager

Mc Cann - looked sharper and improved in last season . Gives us options if we need to alter our game .

Howard - battled for 90 minutes . gave his all and went up another gear when he got the captains arm aband . My MOTM because of goals with Souza close second.

Psychologically we came away with a point which sets us up nicely for next game .

Teddy Sheringham - was awesome . every time he got the ball it went to one of his team mates. He ran our defence ragged and showed that if you have the ball skills, committment , play with your head and passion to win you can compensate for not being the fasted (still faster than our defence of course !)

Kozluk looked promising and with Reid out and maybe Hassel back , plus Lewin N and Souza with Muller behind him we just might have the foundations for a stronger defence so that we can lose the record of letting more goals in than anyone in this division

For the first time I saw Ferenczi make a difference , when Christensen came on .

Muller tries to command his area and generally did well . First goal could have been a bit sharper , however there could have been a nasty deflection . Anyone seen the goals on sky yet ?. I feel more confident about him, he does not feeze like a rabbit in the head lights like Colgan does .


The main learns for me are :

We effetively only had 10 men when we started . Werling was a non entity so the GK sending off simply evened things up . With Sheringham drawing 2 defenders we were not able to take advantage of the extra man .

11 against 11 we had v few chances created I do not recall shots on goal apart from the
penalty in the first half .. I stand corrected on this one if I am wrong .

SD tactics questionable . Ricketts needs to be on the wing , running at defenders crossing balls in to Olejayi , Ferenczi et al , We have no width without wingers and also no cover for the full backs down the flanks to defend .Ricketts in Middle of midfield was a waste and he did not play at all .

Defending against set pieces , yesterday especially corners is woeful . They teach you that in the first coaching lesson .This is how we almost lost the game .We only learnt how to so it after 85 minutes.

Togwell or Mc Cann should play a bigger role in the midfield which SD has yet to sort out .

Andy Johnson , was ok but I expect more from someone more experienced .Could be good cover though . Not sure yet where he will best fit .

Overall we cannot say we played well . We salavaged a point after gifting them 2 goals from set pieces . We have a lot to do to become a footballing side who scores and does not leak goals . However I came away feeling more positive than after Coventry and am hopeful that the team have gained confidence to build on for the next few games.

We have 44 x 3 =132 points still to play for and we can still finish my prediction 13 th if we build the defence and ensure the strikers score more goals than we concede .

We are building height and physical strength into the team - something we have not had for a few seasons - all this should help us compete against the strong sides in the championship league

Simple - lets do it

Freya

 

He also knows how to look after his hair

 

Sounds fair to me...

Didn't go yesterday but from what I've seen before I think that's a pretty good summary.

I really believe we have better players, we just need a bit of time to sort ourselves out - hopefully not too much.