Quote:
Originally Posted by Revived Red
A hugely disappointing performance. We seemed to be back to the old ploy of hoofing the ball down the middle and expecting a flick-on from Paul Mullin. Sadly PM won virtually nothing in the air...
...I saw no attempt to draw Bournemouth defenders and midfielders out of position. Cav made a couple of forays forward but I can recall only one from Leam. I wonder if he is fully fit. He was replaced by James Bell whose sole contribution was a dreadful foul. We rarely won the second ball - or the first, for that matter!
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This is harsh. I agree that we didn't show much of the fluency evident at Bradford and Wycombe, but this was a different sort of game. When we have teams come at us, we are able to exploit the space this creates. Bournemouth kept it tight yesterday, relying themselves on the long punt to the beanpole up front. The only exception to this was in the opening 30 minutes when they attacked down our right through Thomson, who I thought looked a good player. The opening half-hour was as poor as I have seen us play for a while, but apart from that overhead kick, which deserved a goal to be honest, for all their pressure we defended well. And for the reaction save that Kenny made, Jalal's at the end of the first-half was just as good. We could easily have gone in a goal up.
The second-half was more even, and, of course, we should have taken the lead from the pen. I agree that it wasn't the best display, and we started very slowly. Kissock was closed down very quickly and they weren't averse to a bit of needle either, so he wasn't as effective as might have been hoped. Leam didn't do much attacking, he did look a little off the pace, as did John Mullin. The arrival of McConville definitely gave us more incision.
Criticism is easy, but what other options does Coley have right now? There is a tiny bit of leeway for trying something new - Miles in the central attacking hole was a forced improvisation that happened to work okay; Ryan in the middle of midfield is one that the jury is still out on. What else? More perseverance with Turner or Grant? Back to 4-4-2 with McConville up front? Whatever you think, can you honestly assert that any of these hold out a clear prospect for an improvement in results?
If so, I'd be glad to have explained to me the trick that Coley is obviously missing.