A couple of big problems from todays game

1) Elliot Ward.

Ever since he returned to the starting XI this season we have looked incredibly vulnerable at the back (yes, others are to blame as well), his tackling and reading of the game are not up to Premier League standard. Victor Moses does have the ability to make defenders look silly at times, but Ward made it so easy for him with his poor decision making and bad timing. A few times today I witnessed Ward allow long balls to bounce by either failing to react or misjudged the flight of the ball, sunday league stuff. Ayala needs to get fit soon, failing that Ryan Bennett needs to hit the ground running.

2) Andrew Surman's part in the build up to the Wigan goal which has more than likely been over looked.

Ruddy's goal kick was s**t, there is no escaping that, but the situation was retrievable. Surman has been very good recently, but his failure to go in for a 50/50 with a Wigan player (McArthur/McCarthy, I think?) before Moses' scored was unforgivable. Ruddy's poor kick comes out to Wes who misses the ball by a mile, the Wigan player gets the ball, Fox puts him under pressure and manages to nick the ball away from him which rolls towards Surman. Instead of reacting by sliding in for the ball, Surman decided to slowly amble towards the ball allowing the extra determined Wigan player to win the ball back which sets them up for the counter where they score from. A midfield player cannot be shirking their responsibilities around the centre cirlce in our half, especially in a situation like that.

Central midfield is a postion that we really need to strenghten next summer, we don't have a player who can read the game, win tackles and keep possesion under pressure, we have plenty of creative midfielders but you can't fill the entire midfield with them, there's no balance. Fox has done an admiral job as a CDM despite having severe limitations (although a great passer) which negate his effectiveness in that position, but he really needs competition and support. We don't win enough second balls in midfield, which is why we rarely have the majority of the possesion despite often filling our side with technically exquisite ball players. I believe that this is our biggest issue on the pitch.

As for today in general? Great result considering how poor we were, Wigan annihilated us for long periods of the match and we were lucky not to concede more goals. We only really created one great chance after our goal with Morison's header, which is worrying considering that we spent the first half of the season creating five or six good chances a game, more often than not. We were as creatively ineffective at Stoke as we were today, is Peter Grant taking charge of training sessions in secret?

Also, all of this loo' how far we've come' guff can f**k right off, we've been poor in three of our last four games, fans have a right to moan (although I don't advocate booing, this isn't 05/06) about NCFC players not putiing in a shift, and if they're tired? It's a squad game! Rest these players if they aren't up to it fitness wise. The worst thing for NCFC to do from now until the end of the season is to go into an Alan Curbishley era Charlton Athletic style 'we're already safe, let's mentally switch off and go on holiday' situation. Complacency is the last thing we need setting into the squad, NCFC fans may think 'oh it doesn't matter, we've ten games to pick up a respectable amount of points', but then you look at the fixture list. Gulp!

Rant over.

Posted By: Common Sense Police, Mar 11, 19:49:38