Someone Has To Explain That MOM Choice

That was the Leicester fans applauding wasn't it? Their chants of "One Stephen Dawson" and "Super Stephen Dawson" were just about the highlights of the night.

Well, that and the old bloke behind me shouting at Schmeichel "Kick it up field you German fool."

 

Steele was man of the match by an absolute country mile we would have been 4 down by half time if it wasn't for him.

 

Steele clearly man of match.

Jennings did OK - got into game as it went on.

COG & Dawson battled in vain.

Everyone else may as well have been wearing skirts & frilly knickers, apart from Mvoto, who should have donned a pair of flippers & a mask, he was so out of his depth.

 

I know I shouldn`t but that has me laughing.

 

Brilliant- that's a proper laugh out loud.

 

Dawson easily MOTM, if I was pushed to pick one. Big Chris and Dale also gave a good account. Luke had a good game, to his standard of a top Championship keeper. Could do nothing with the goals, but the rushes to feet one on one, saved it from being embarrassing. Had a couple of iffy kicks, but so did Kaspar.

 

I am assuming it was given to Dawson.

At half time I said that our best three players were Dawson, Mellis and Ramage. Ramage went off injured soon after, Mellis looked completely disinterested in the 2nd half, and although he wasn't as effective in the 2nd half, Dawson didn't give up.

You cannot defend a player who stood and watched the opposition go past him like Mellis did with about 20 minutes left. He couldn't be arsed and its an insult to the fans who have spent their hard earned cash to watch him.

 

I'll try, but you won't like it and you won't accept it.

We all have players we rate and ones we don't, favourites and those we don't care much for. But when we judge individual performances on a match by match basis, the majority of us try to put our preconceived notions aside and simply say what we see on the day/night. So, for instance, if I don't rate Kennedy, which I don't particularly, but he has a good game, I'll say so. Same for most folk. We don't always get it right, we're all subjective rather than objective, but we do try. We try to be fair and balanced, even if we don't always manage that. You don't. You watch a game with your prejudices firmly in tact and judge accordingly.

Man of the match is usually awarded on quality. Not a lot on offer from us last night from the outfield players, but Luke Steele pulled off a couple of good saves and what was most impressive was the way he came out to block in one-on-one situations. So there's your first candidate.

Then people tend to look at effort. Jennings and O'Grady worked hard, so they've had a few mentions, but the player who really ran his blood to water was Dawson. He chased, harried, put tackles in and never stopped from first minute to last. Fans of all clubs appreciate that whole hearted style of play. It'll not win you the man of the match if another player is passing the opposition off the park or beating his man and whipping in quality crosses all game or making the back of the net bulge at regular intervals, but we had no one like that last night.

A toss up between Luke Steele and Dawson then. Dawson's had his problems recently and I guess whoever chose the motm wanted to emphasise that he was forgiven, plus there were a few Barnsley players out on the field who weren't giving it all they'd got, so a message to them that the work rate Dawson was putting in is the least we expect wouldn't have gone amiss either. I guess that edged it for Dawson.

Stephen Dawson is not my favourite player, I prefer a midfield player with more skill, but I certainly appreciated his effort last night and I have no problem at all with his motm award.

I don't expect our more skilful players to run about quite as much as Dawson. They're on the pitch for different reasons occupying different roles in the team. But I expect them to put in as much effort in the role they've been asked to play. They won't expend as much energy doing that, but chasing the opposition and full commitment are two different things. Last night Dawson did the job that was asked of him. A few others on the Barnsley team did not.

 

It was Dawson for me too but had Steele won it I would have understood why.

 

Do you sit with Redstar? Because when it was announced I saw him and the lads around him going f.cking mental so I stood and applauded for at least 2 minutes.

Brilliant.

 

It was well deserved.

 

That just goes to prove tha'll clap owt. An awfully tragically limited player. I won't disagree he gave his all but his all is so below the required level its untrue. An average of four touches to control the ball then he can't do owt with it.

Don't think we went mental, probably just laughed and it probably coincided with more dubious officiating.

 

I think he's my favourite player ever.

 

Went up in my estimation when he wanted to chin a gobby fan.

Still can't play football.

 

No mate, you lot went all f.cking umbrage. Lovely to see.

I applauded his effort and his graft in the face of a midfield he was never going to beat.

 

What about Daggers?

 

I don't like my footballers to play.

He should have cracked him then I'd have given him a new contract.

 

Will you all stop getting so technical about who gets the MoM award! It was chosen by a sponsor whose wife's birthday it was yesterday and she chose Daws cos she wanted a foto taken with him. Personally I thought he did ok but as Barry Murphy quite rightly pointed out, Luke Steele should have got it! Mellis must have run a close 25th purely for effort!

 

I applauded all the team at the end. They were miles better than us and it was painful to watch at times. I think we could have been more in their faces but even then their movement was so much better than ours. The fact is that losing to Leicester won't relegate us and we have to fight on to survive. We didn't collapse as we might have done even though they did get three. In the face of the adversity of losing Cranie and Ramage and having to bring on M'Voto and Nyatanga who both look awful we held out fairly well.

I don't rate Dawson. I think he is an awful footballer. I wouldn't say he doesn't try though as that is all he has in his locker. It is just usually to little or no effect. Especially against the quality he was up against....