The rest of the season - My thoughts

Villa are a quality side & would've beaten us well no matter what formation we played. I'd definitely give it a go over half a dozen games or so.

 

I hope that you are right Jay.

In my defence, my concerns about the team's ability to score are more about service. I have lost patience with the way that we are playing 4-4-2. Playing the two centre midfield players so deep and restricting their support of the front two makes perfect sense defensively, but it means that the two wide players are the ones that have to create. In the first half on Saturday, when we were on top, I saw Isgrove repeatedly getting round the back and ruining that good work through inaccurate delivery into the box. I saw Hammill unable to beat his full back on the outside, and repeatedly crossing hopefully, but without a great chance of success on his right foot. I found it all very frustrating, and the fact that McBurnie had to score a goal almost unaided did little to placate me, because it reflected the lack of ability in the rest of the team. My original post was borne out of that frustration because from my opening paragraph, where I listed our best 11, it looks like we are worse off now than we were in September.

There is a chance that my disillusionment has blinded me to the merits of McBurnie. We will have to wait and see, but I am of an age when you had a big guy to win headers, and a little quick guy to take the chances in the box, and McBurnie does not seem to fit in either identikit profile.