Match report

THe first thing that was surprising was the way we lined up, having seen Swansea a couple of times I felt sure we would play with two wingers and thump the ball high into the box for Lee. Gunny instead decided to pack the midfield to stifle Swansea's passing game. For reasons that will become clear this did not work at all.

Swansea dominated the opening stages - Scotland missed a couple of good chances, they rattled the bar and we were hanging on. Then Lee broke away and sent a shot just wide. This livened up our fans but then our midfield backed off, and backed off, and backed off, and our defence left Scotland alone, and Marshall didn't see the danger coming. One down, and the same old story - 692 of us let down again...

Except there was a twist, almost immediately Drury sent a long hanging cross to the far side of the area - Lee sent a looping header goalwards and... IN IT WENT. Cue pandemonium, Lee belted across the pitch to hug Gunny and finally it was game on. Swansea were rattled, and we had the better of it up to half time, without actually creating anything (obviously).

So we were in fairly good heart at half time. Level, competing at last, and other results not too disastrous.How quickly the bright dawn faded. We couldn't get a touch at the start of the second half, a long spell of Swansea passing ended with Doc slicing down one of their players, Scotland belted the penalty down the middle as Marshall jumped out of the way and that was it. Gunny sent on Crofty and Cody and they huffed and puffed, to a little more effect than we had seen previously but if there was going to be another goal it always looked like Swansea would get it.

In the past two weeks we have been beaten by two average Championship sides. But what has been depressingly clear is that both sides were simply much better than us, better athletically, better technically - better passers and tacklers. What we have put in is bags of effort, everyone turned up yesterday but they just weren't good enough.

In virtually every area of the park we were found wanting. Marshall I thought was poor for the first goal, he didn't seem to react to the danger and didn't put himself in a position to make a save. Drury did OK. Otesmobor struggled against Dyer all afternoon and probably came out level, but offered little going forward. Why we have placed ourselves in the position where our only recognised right back is a player with a heart condition is beyond me. Doherty and particularly Shackell looked solid, except that they let Scotland have too much room for the first goal, and Doc conceded the penalty. But midfield was where we lost it, we never really held the ball,never really competed which led to the defence being under a lot of pressure from which mistakes would in the end ensue. Bertrand, so far as I recall, did next to nothing, Lappin was just too slow to get near the Swansea players, Russell ran around like a headless chicken, getting into fights but seldom getting anywhere near the ball. Mooney isn't a right winger.Sammy was the best of a poor bunch, he did win a few tackles. Collectively we backed off again and again, which meant that despite facing a five man midfield Swansea had acres of space and loads of time in which to pick their passes. Frankly, and as so often recently, this was a match that was crying out for the energy and aggression of Pattison. Up front Lee battled hard, took a goal, could have had another, and was our Man of the Match. Sign him up, please.

This is not the time for f**king about. We are nowhere near good enough to play ourselves out of this. We need to turn the next four matches into battles. Whatever has gone on with Pattison everyone needs to swallow their pride and get him back in.Get Lee and MacDonald up front and get the ball in early to them. Twat the opposition on the halfway line before they get anywhere near our goal. FUCK THE BALL - GET INTO 'EM!

Posted By: Bryan Salad Surgery on April 12th 2009 at 09:10:32

Message Thread

Reply to Message

In order to add a post to the WotB Message Board you must be a registered WotB user.

If you are not yet registered then please visit the registration page. You should ensure that their browser is setup to accept cookies.

Log in