Thoughts on yesterdays game

Extremely frustrating at times, Rusty coming on changed the game and gave us complete control. The frustration for the previous 60 minutes was due to us not taking some early chances and then the confidence was gone and we were on auto-pilot.

Marshall - Nothing to do , his distribution seems to have got better 6

Kennedy and Stefo - Solid, this partnership should grow and grow. 7

Ozzie - A little hesitant at times, stupid challenege for pen, but kennedys fault for losing the ball. 6

Berty - Usual lively and energetic self, drury won't get a sniff, unless Berty is moved to LM. Good at defending and good at going forward. Not sure I can see him breaking into the chelsea team, and fingers crossed we get him on a perm. 7

Clingan - Not great but not bad. Gave a bit of height to the midfield. Loves a sideways ball. 6

Fozzy - Lacked his usual bite and composure. Tried to get involved but looked a little off the pace 6

Patty- Played well 1st half, gave a surprising performance, played out of position but still got involved and a few good balls. 7

Hoolahan - Good but not spectaclar, a few things came off, a few things went wrong. However most of our creative sparks came from him. He's drifts across the midfied for a lot of the game and I think he may be better suited in cm. 7

Cureton - Tries but is not a first team striker for a team hoping for a play off push. 6

Lupoli - He had a poor game because of his inability to stay onside, but has got something, I'm just waiting for him to blossom and if the crowd give him time may prove to be a decent striker. 5

Subs

Rusty - MOM His enthusiasm and bite changed the game, gave the team an injection of energy, which in turn upped the performance of the rest of the team. 7

Crofty - Gave the team some much needed pace. He didn't produce the goods but did try hard. An improvement on Coventry. 6

OJ - He had less than 10 minutes but showed some nice touches. Would have liked to have seen more. 6

I would have to say we out played them even when we were being very shaky, a better team would have pounced on us. Blackpool were a crap team and we didn't have the confidence to rip them apart. We have a squad which is capable of a playoff push if we can get that striker in, maybe even 2.

Give it time and we will get better, and there are positives. I have to admit there is that Roeder's second season doubt in the back of my mind, but what I can see he is building, I can take far more positives than negatives from so just need to keep the faith and hopefully we will see the final jigsaw pieces firmly in place by at the very latest Birmingham.

The trouble for Roeder, is that the final pieces of the puzzle are in this instance the most important piece to fill, of strength & height, power, pace & conviction and the ability to finish missing from our forward line. Lupoli and OJ have the pace but lack the power & conviction at the moment and I'm hoping one will prevail. So with the strength & height and finishing boxes both need to be ticked, whether that's one or two strikers reamins to be seen. We need a minimum of 10 goals from 3 of our strikers and 20 from the other one to have any success.

Posted By: stringersrevenge, Aug 17, 21:00:06