Our next change needed to involve brining Smith on to
get about the defence, but instead it was Poleon, which really didn’t work.
I wonder why Hock/Cellino don't seem to rate Smith. He'd be an automatic
starter in my book now that McCormack's gone (at least until one of the new
guys or not-yet-signed guys proves his worth as a goal-getter).
Cheers!
Sean
-----Original Message-----
From: Nick <[email protected]>
To: leeds list <[email protected]>
Sent: Sat, Aug 16, 2014 12:46 pm
Subject: [LU] 'boro
I’ll take this for a win. Boro are a big, rough arsed team. Quite happy to
stick
it in, and mix it up. But with our two newest men, Cooper and Sharp, making
steady debuts we looked solid if uninspiring. At least Hunt wasn’t lining up. I
notice that someone thought before the match that Austin should be dropped -
that would have been a bad call, he was man of the match for us…putting in the
shifts of two men.
We almost scored in the first two minutes following a shot and a parry by the
keeper quite a way out of his goal which was followed up - and should have been
finished but Boro had 3 men covering and the ball was cleared off the line.
This
raised the tempo and for 10 minutes we huffed and puffed around their box
without really getting anywhere. The crowd was 24,500, the sun was shining and
Dowden turned up with the pies…my dad’s face lit up like it was his birthday;
don’t think he could remember the last time he had a pork pie. He was well
happy
at half time. All was well with the world.
Slowly though Boro took the sting out of it and began passing through our
midfield. They had more pressure without really threatening. Our two Chalfs
looked comfortable, as did Silvestri in goal - the problem was the FBacks -
Byram didn’t look interested while Warnock was all or nothing…frequently making
good challenges, but they were often desperate or last ditch, while at other
times he simply wasn’t there. To be fair to both, neither was getting much
cover
for their respective midfielders.
On 30 minutes Boro got the ball across the box…our defenders static watching
the
ball bounce and one their forwards hooked the ball over his shoulder and in the
far corner…now for some reason (possibly high feet by the goalscorer) it was
disallowed…which was extremely lucky for us. There was a certain irony given
that for the previous few minutes we’d been singing the one about “only getting
shit refs…”
Moving forward, we tried to pass our way through and sometimes there looked to
be the promise of something developing with interplay between Austin, Doukara,
Ajose and Sharp - Doukara, takes the ball well and lays it off nicely; he might
have more pace that he appears to, because he gets by the opposition, or gets
to
the ball first when you don’t expect it. He’d took quite a lot of punishment in
the first half, including a nasty scything chop just on half time - so he “gave
it a go for 10 minutes” in the second before coming off for Tonge. Bringing
Tonge on was a good call as he beefed up the midfield - and had been in good
form in the pre-season. Our next change needed to involve brining Smith on to
get about the defence, but instead it was Poleon, which really didn’t work.
in the second half we were pushed back and Silvestri did have to make a couple
of sharp stops…he also dealt comfortably with the crosses slung in.
On 75 minutes it looked like Sharp, who’d been busy without being special up to
that point, had fluffed his lines, popping a free header 6 feet out just wide
of
the near post. Then with 2 minutes to go (of the 90) a ball is cut back to the
edge of the box and Tonge belts it low and hard to the far corner, the keeper
at
full stretch palms it back into the midfield of the box, rather than out and
Sharp, showing good poacher’s skills stabbed it over his outstretched leg and
into the bottom corner in front of the Kop…and I bet he’ll take that for a
debut. He went mental ran around with his shirt off and got a booking for his
trouble.
Something like 6 minutes of tense injury time was played, but we hung on…
SILVESTRI - calm, solid, quietly efficient
BYRAM - he is a class act, but whether he’s out of position or not, he needs to
get more involved…often peripheral
WARNOCK - blood and thunder - sometimes it works and sometimes it is dreadful
foul…worked in the main today
COOPER - big, strong, decent in the air, read most of what he needed to do…not
sure about the speed yet, but we’ll see. A tendency to wander upfield with the
ball and lose it, but all-in-all a huge improvement on Wootton.
PEARCE - a good battling, all heart performance
AUSTIN - all around nuisance for Boro, tackle after tackle after tackle…decent
distribution when played short and simply but still not up to much with the
longer more adventurous stuff
MURPHY - also peripheral, the passing didn’t work, nevertheless he put in a
shift
BIANCHI - always seems to have more time than his team mates; quality touch;
needs to be on the ball more - guess he’s adjusting to the pace of the game
AJOSE - busy, nippy and lightweight
SHARP - the winning goal on the debut makes all the difference. Looks like he
could make a go of a partnership with Doukara…needs good service and that might
be the problem.
DOUKARA - I have hopes for this guy - strong, good control - a couple of goals
in the league and he’ll be away.
subs:
Tonge - had more or less 35 minutes and certainly brought more shape and
resilience to the midfield
Poleon - not much new to say about this guy…got 20 minutes and didn’t achieve
much
Cook - had about 10 minutes and got stuck in, I suppose.
Hock - team didn’t seem to have much shape for a while, looks like a diamond 4
in midfield with Austin in front of the back 4 and Ajose behind the
strikers…left a lot on Murphy and Bianchi…and Smith was the obvious sub with 20
minutes to go…but hey he has his first home win and clean sheet, so who is the
tactical genius..?
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John 'Grampa' Sykes
Rest In Peace old lad
28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013
MARCHING ON TOGETHER
_______________________________________________
Leedslist mailing list
Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist
To unsubscribe, email [email protected]
John 'Grampa' Sykes
Rest In Peace old lad
28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013
MARCHING ON TOGETHER
