A foo more thoughts on last night

Whilst I really wanted us to win last night and with the draw opening up further after Arsenal went out its really disappointing we must not lose sight of the bigger picture. There is a reasonably good chance that we will win on Saturday an Aston Villa will lose. If that happens we will probably be in the top 8 of the league and they will remain rooted in the bottom three. I was enraged by lambert's exagerated fist pumping after their third goal last night but I am quietly confident that we will have our chance for revenge when we play them at home at the end of the season and we could potentially inflict pain on them that day which is far worse than what happened to us last night.

I also thought that whilst we were poor by our recent standards last night, even with us playing averagely and having several key players missing it was still a pretty even game and it should be noted that we still could quite easily have scored 4 or 5 goals despite playing poorly as we pened them up at the back on a reasonably regular basis. We can and will play and defend a lot better whereas I suspect that display is being lauded on their messageboards as one of their best of the season so far.

So for me its disapointing but we move on and if we get 3 points on Saturday then last night will already be a distant memory. That said there are some points to be taken from the game which are in my view:

1. We are not yet good enough to be missing 3 or our most important 5 players and it not have a significant effect on our performances.

2. Tierney and Barnett are not good enough to feature regularly at this level. In fairness to Tierney he's hardly played but Barnett has done and looks a bit of a liability every time he does. personally i would be looking to offload and maybe sign another CB in January.

3. When Pilkington is up for it he is excellent. When he is not he goes missing. Most of the time he is up for it. Last night he was not (especially first half). He didn;t look like he gave a toss and should have been taken off.

4. Hoot is an excellent coach and a very good manager but my one gripe with him thus far (and he's doing well because I always have a couple of gripes with any manager) is the lack of substitutions and willingness to adapt/change during the game and last night it was really winding me up. It appeared to me that Bradley Johnson injured himself after about 15 minutes. He came over to the banch holding his hamstring and was clearly told to run it off. This he did to a certain extent but he went on to have a very poor game by his standards, pulled out of several tackels and generally did not seem to have proper mobility. It appeared to me that he couldn't get around the pitch like normal. This, combined with Pilks going missing meant Howson and Snod were basically having to work overtime just to keep the midfield afloat. We had Bennett and Fox on the bench both of whom could have come on and done a job yet no change. Mid way through the second half I thought it was crying out for Bennett and Jackson to give us a bit more pace and mobility yet no change. I can kind of understand he "have what we hold" and "if its not completely broke don't fix it" attitude in the league but making subs so late made no real sense to me lst night. I also worry that it means hat when they do come on players like Bennett are completely rusty as 5 minutes here and there don't enable them to build up any form or confidence. I guess we are all still learning and improving as a club in general so perhaps as part of that process Hoot will improve in this area. i hope so as he needs to.

5. I remain strangely unconvinced by Bunn. He made some great saves, he didn't make any obvious errors yet I just don't feel we are as secure or in control as when Ruddy plays. Maybe that just because Ruddy has matured into an excptional keeper and Bunn is just a very good keeper. i do however feel he has a bit of a Paul Gallagher vibe about him.

Anyway onwards and upwards. A win Saturday and all is well with the world again.

Posted By: Jim, Dec 12, 09:13:42