[Albion] Was Dunk's poor performance today...

[seagullwedgee]

Well, let’s look at the facts. CH held his hand up and admitted Dunk had only had 1.5 days training. Also, after his error for th second, Dunk tried desperately to get back to Mitrovic. The striker is no greyhound, but he actually pulled away from Dunk over 20 yards, and Dunk never even got close enough to pull off one of his trademark desperation lunge blocks. That illustrates that on tired legs Dunk had no pace at all yesterday. I’m not saying it was the wrong call, because there is only one team manager, but CH as good as held his hand up under interview. And that’s not a bad thing at all either.

 

[Stat Brother]

No. I think most of NSC were surprised that Dunk was back in after relatively little training and would have expected him to start on the bench. If Balogun hadn't performed then, at some stage Dunk would have come on. Balogun is quick and mobile and one of the reasons we frustrated Liverpool so much, was down to the speed of Balogun's recovery.
Dunk may have been superb for 5 years but he wasn't ready to come back yesterday. Hughton made a mistake and it cost us. Dunk will get up to speed but the Duffy/Balogun combo should have been left to start together. Balogun coped with Lukaku's physicality and would have managed Mitrovic as well. We knew Fulham would come at us, with pace. The last thing we needed was an out of sorts centre back.

So most of NSC has intricate knowledge of the medical staff, LD fitness level and his Friday training regime?
You'd also have been pushing for a defensive substitution when 0-2 down at home?

Hindsight nonsense.

 

[Eeyore]

Hughton gambled on bringing back Dunk and it misfired. He admitted it himself in post match interviews. He said the player had only had ' a day and a bit ' training. There was no reason to drop Balogun. He and Duffy had looked comfortable together. Dunk was out of sorts from the start and had already underdone a couple of back passes before the error that cost the second goal. Dunk was slightly off the pace and it was enough to unsettle the back line. It started to affect Duffy and he had a patchy game as a result.
Gross was also poor yesterday and to my mind, a heavily strapped and under par player should not be taking a penalty. CH was questioned after the game as to who was no.1 taker now and mumbled something about there being a choice of three. Gross is not a convincing spot kick taker and although Murray misses 1 : 3-4, he fills me with much more confidence. Who the third choice is, your guess is as good as mine.
CH got two major decisions wrong and it cost us two points.

Tomer Hemed would be my penalty taker.

Oh...

 

[Cozzy]

easy to say after the fact but Dunky would surely have benefited from not playing and having a longer break before his return in the next match. I could see no upside to his return yesterday but there was certainly the down side he wasn't 100% after so little training time. Of course easy for me to say from my sofa , CH makes the decisions based on actually being there.

 

[Husty]

No.

How can you be so sure? Powerful stuff this Voodoo. I visited a witch doctor once and I haven't been the same since.

 

[Taybha]

Witch one ?