That's one of the worst performances I've seen in recent times at Oakwell. Barely any creativity at all. The only player who gave us anything going forward was Scowen. The front two were dire. Rothwell & Crowley had lots of nice feints & meaningless touches in the middle of the park or out wide but created nothing. I really like Marc Roberts as a defender but he's clearly weak on the ball. Burton would constantly press our other 2 centre backs but let Roberts come out from the back with it because they know he can't do anything with it as shown when he got lucky 2 or 3 times with really poor passes. Nothing that can't be worked on though. Smith needs to work on his final ball but I can't help think he's more suited to a full back role than a wing back role. His asset is his defending not his crossing. Bree suits the role perfectly though. Good to bring Hourihane on & actually have a reminder that we're allowed to shoot from outside the box. Winnall was dreadful. Don't know if it's the blister, lack of fitness or something else but I think he spent more energy gobbing at the ref than running. Watkins was a bit of a passenger I felt, never really in the game, Matt Done like. Fair play to Josh Scowen, missed his Uncle's wedding today but weren't distracted & still our best player by some distance. If it weren't for his endeavour winning us a pen we'd have never had a clear chance all game. Worrying how little threat we have. I'm still shocked we didn't get Jabo in for a year. I'm certain he would've joined. At least he would've given us an option to hold the ball up & bring others into play. The only decent work our strikers did today was near the half way line. Ratings: Davies -7 Bree - 6 Roberts - 5 Mawson - 6 Nyatanga - 6 Smith - 5 Pearson - 6 Rothwell - 5 Scowen - 8 Winnall - 4 Watkins - 4 Crowley - 5 Hourihane - 6 Wilkinson not on long enough
wow a level head and good objective post you should be banned. but seriously, thanks for a good assessment. I was not there but the commentary did suggest we showed a good many signs of becoming a very decent side. Many on here seemed to expect a bigger win purely because "Hmmph Burton... they were L2 last season" they do not take into account that they were maybe on a huge crest of confidence having made automatic promotion, were unbeaten since Feb.... won their first game of the season in L1 (the highest league they have EVER been in ) they are also a quite settled team and have a manager that very highly regarded and respected ... and has played at some very high levels... which will have inspired their players
The good thing is I think we've got the base of a good side we just seem to lack a cutting edge. If the rumours about O'Sullivan are true, Winnall gets fit & we sign another striker who's an improvement on Watkins & Wilkinson then I think we're genuine contenders for promotion. I guess Burton are still in that stage like a lot of newly promoted sides that they feel like they can't be beaten so it wasn't an ideal time to play them. At least we got the 3 points. Rather a poor performance & 3 points than a poor performance & 0 points.
I think Roberts is a good defender I just think he's sloppy on the ball & got lucky a couple of times. I want him to be a success because we need more local lads in the side & I think he will be.
