I am not as unhappy and down as Rich W in his report but we do have problems - problems which we all including McDermott knew before yesterday. Burnley are now up to second so they are no mugs, and even though they just about deserved the victory we could have easily taken all 3 points - we missed plenty of chances and for me, Kenny was badly at fault for both goals.
I was happy with the line up thinking that White and Byram could give us more pace and penetration going forward. I also thought that we would be putting McCormack up front where he belongs and letting Diouf take the spot at the tip of the diamond. However I had trouble working out exactly what formation we were playing. Burnley started well and the faults we all knew we had came to the fore, lack of pace, lack of width and lack of creativity. Having said that Varney came close when he could not quite get over the ball to head it downwards. McCormack also had a chance. Varneyalso had a excellent turn and shot but it was aimed straight at the keeperThen came the first of the Kenny blunders (to be fair he also made a few good saves during the course of the game) the ball went to our far post and it looked like Byram had made a great tackle but the ball ran loose and the forward was first to react as Kenny stayed pinned to his line and then his shot went between Kenny and the post - poor keeping. This put them firmly on the front foot and they controlled the game, then a cross came in Vokes headed and Kenny instead of catching it or pushing it round the post, palmed it staight back to the unmarked Vokes who poked it home as Kenny was very slow getting to his feet again. In pre match discussions we spoke about Kenny and his inability to come for crosses etc to quote my mate "don't give me that 'he's a good shot stopper' rubbish - he is a f-ing goalkeeper being able to stop shots is the very minimum requirement" I used to defend Kenny not coming out for corners etc on the basis that at least the defenders know what he is going to do as opposed to those keepers who come sometimes and stay on the line at others but to be honest I am rapidly losing patience with him - albeit he does pull off the odd cracking save. Just before half time we should (according to some)have got a foothold into the game when Aidy White powered forward and went down in the box - I thought he was looking to fall over and that is what he did, a number of those around me claimed it was a nailed on penalty Second half we made changes - again I differ from Rich here, he was critical of the fact we waited 10mins to do it, I was impressed that we made the changes so early - but although Poleon caused them problems with his pace and direct running things did not change much. Then the last throw of the dice , on came Matt Smith. This substitution worked as a free kick from Diouf was well flighted into the box and Smith rose well and headed home - a good finish. Tonge missed a chance to equalise from 6yds out, the keeper made a couple of saves, Austin blasted wide when set up by Diouf, he should have done better. If any of these had gone in we would have had a point but we made things hard for ourselves - the bit of play that did annoy me came a few minutes after our goal, - we got a corner , Diouf went over to take it and instead of putting it into the box for Smith we played it short and made a total mess of it - ridiculous decision. So 2 home defeats on the trot and 3 in 4 - the honeymoon is over, I just hope all fans keep on behind the team and Brian McDermott - things will come right, and of the 8 games 5 have been against teams now above us in the league including the top 2. I am 100% convinced that McDermott will get it right but he needs support, both from the fans and from GFH. Assuming we get nothing at Newcastle the Millwall game next week and the home game v Bournemouth on the following Tuesday are massive Dave _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email leedslist-unsubscr...@gn.apc.org MARCHING ON TOGETHER
