I went to the Wednesday game on Sat, one of my few away outings every year and sat with a Wednesday supporting friend in their main stand (just inside our half in the first half). I've been interested in how different my perspective on the game was from so many of our fans up in the away end. Here's 5 things I took from the game:
1. Ulloa - was interested to see him play after not going to the Arsenal game and hearing such glowing references on NSC. But oh my days he was poor. He was not, as some have suggested on here, given some 'rough stuff' by the Wednesday players, he was just comfortably out-muscled by them. His theatricality in response to this was embarrassing. I fully understand why he got such stick and can only hope that this was a BIG off day. He certainly didn't look particularly sharp.
2. The ref and our discipline - the ref wasn't that bad. Barnes' challenge was NUTS. A definite red. Their bad tackle on Calderon was a yellow, a bad yellow, but not a red. The ref certainly didn't favour any one side and he wasn't helped by some of our players who go down too easily and who complain too much. Frankly they need to concentrate more on beating teams who they are palpably better than. I'm convinced this is a major problem for us in this division. BTW - I think CMS was offside in the original attack which brought us our goal.
3. Our general performance - Shocking. The goalkeeper had a mare, the defence looked clueless, the midfield were sloppy (our passing was at times abysmal) and our strike force just got no change from Wednesday. Poyet reckons we were better than the scoreline. I would suggest that we only lost 3-1 because Wednesday really aren't very good.
4. CMS - we were better up front when he came on. Livelier. He does have the ability to look clueless sometimes though. If in doubt about a forward pass, he should keep the ball and play a simple pass back, not just aimlessly pass it back to them. He gives us impetus though and I'd be starting him whenever possible.
5. The random Poyet team selection - Poyet doesn't know his strongest team. This is a weakness. These guys need to get used to playing with each other game after game, we just seem to line up differently every time. I can't for a second believe that this isn't a bad thing.
In terms of the season overall, I said at the beginning of the season that if we didn't get into the play-offs then Poyet would have failed. I'm sticking by that. I really do think we have a terrific squad and days like this are so frustrating because we're so obviously the better team (even if we fail to show it!).
1. Ulloa - was interested to see him play after not going to the Arsenal game and hearing such glowing references on NSC. But oh my days he was poor. He was not, as some have suggested on here, given some 'rough stuff' by the Wednesday players, he was just comfortably out-muscled by them. His theatricality in response to this was embarrassing. I fully understand why he got such stick and can only hope that this was a BIG off day. He certainly didn't look particularly sharp.
2. The ref and our discipline - the ref wasn't that bad. Barnes' challenge was NUTS. A definite red. Their bad tackle on Calderon was a yellow, a bad yellow, but not a red. The ref certainly didn't favour any one side and he wasn't helped by some of our players who go down too easily and who complain too much. Frankly they need to concentrate more on beating teams who they are palpably better than. I'm convinced this is a major problem for us in this division. BTW - I think CMS was offside in the original attack which brought us our goal.
3. Our general performance - Shocking. The goalkeeper had a mare, the defence looked clueless, the midfield were sloppy (our passing was at times abysmal) and our strike force just got no change from Wednesday. Poyet reckons we were better than the scoreline. I would suggest that we only lost 3-1 because Wednesday really aren't very good.
4. CMS - we were better up front when he came on. Livelier. He does have the ability to look clueless sometimes though. If in doubt about a forward pass, he should keep the ball and play a simple pass back, not just aimlessly pass it back to them. He gives us impetus though and I'd be starting him whenever possible.
5. The random Poyet team selection - Poyet doesn't know his strongest team. This is a weakness. These guys need to get used to playing with each other game after game, we just seem to line up differently every time. I can't for a second believe that this isn't a bad thing.
In terms of the season overall, I said at the beginning of the season that if we didn't get into the play-offs then Poyet would have failed. I'm sticking by that. I really do think we have a terrific squad and days like this are so frustrating because we're so obviously the better team (even if we fail to show it!).
