I agree with most of this. It's early and I've nothing else to do, so I'll
add my own view on the game.
Once Derby got the measure of our defence after the first five minutes or
so, there was wave after wave of attack where the defence simply stood off
and the Derby players (Kris Commons in particular) ran at and through us.
Thier first goal was an inevitability and it came courtesy of a mistake by
Howson when he was caught on the ball, mid way in our half.
Within two minutes, however, he had atoned for the mistake, catching Derby
on the ball (Savage I believe) and squaring it for Bechio to hit the back of
the net with only the Derby keeper to beat.
Bechio started fairly brightly, but as the game wore on, he became less
effective, with a ball towards him, effectively being a wasted pass. He does
try hard and did produce one or two touches to put players through in the
second half. He does not, however, have the mobility to perform the lone
striker role.
The system adopted by Grayson is also dependent on the wide midfielders, in
particular, joining the attack and running at the defence, but this did not
really happen. White was more effective when he came on mid way through the
second half and it was possible that one of his runs could have got a
penalty, with a bit of luck.
As for Derby's penalty, it looked like a blatant dive to me. We only have
ourselves to blame though, as it arose from another poor stand off by our
defence, with Collins (I believe) at fault on that occasion.
All in all, our defence yesterday was dire. Collins and Naylor were
repeatedly exposed and it seems that Derby targeted the area being defended
by Bessone throughout the game. Connolly tries to get forward as much as
possible, but his defending and distribution of the ball was poor.
As the game wore on, we ran out of ideas and movement. Collins and Naylor
became our most creative players, with long, misguided balls hit towards a
static forward line from deep in our own half. There was one comedy moment
when they did three or four square balls to each other, which had Grayson
shaking his head in frustration.
Schmeichal was more effective in his distribution of the ball from the back.
I agree that his speed of thought and action will get us a few raided goals
this season. It was another classic comedy moment, however, when he got the
go ahead from Grayson to go forward for a dangerous free kick, only to find
that it was taken just before he arrived in the box.
It was Derby who created the most direct chances though and Schmeichal's
saves kept us in the game. The two pronged save from two well hit close
range Derby shots within seconds of each other was reminiscent of Montgomery
all those years ago. He deserved the ovation given to him at the end.
Yes, we did hit the woodwork twice. The first was from a nonchalant volley
from Bechio, which seemed to be hit in hope rather than with conviction. The
second was from a downwards header (Kilkenny?) which bounced in front of the
goal and scraped the bar as the bounce took it over the top of the goal.
Johnson was also unlucky, when his well hit free kick was deflected by a
brave (or foolhardy) header by the Derby centre half.
To summarise, the Derby penalty was dodgy and we could have scraped a draw.
I suspect, however, that they would have edged another goal had we drawn
level towards the end. Their substitutions were made to contain the game and
keep the score at 2-1.
The Championship is going to be a difficult and competive league to play in.
I do not think that the lone striker formation with Bechio will work and
replacing the goal scoring contribution of Beckford looks like being a real
problem. The defence is also looking very dodgy and I am not currently sure
if the introduction of Bruce (we now have two sons of former Man U players
in our squad - how old is Brooklyn?) will make the difference.
On a final note and in a rebuttal of The Damned United, Nigel Clough stopped
the team bus and made the players walk 200 yards along Elland Road through
the Leeds fans to the ground. Grayson is a very good and pragmatic young
manager, but it is that type of charismatic man-management (symptomatic of
old big head himself) that can make the difference, when there is, in
reality, very little between the teams.
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