KPTF
New member
I'm not a fan of his and have frequently posted here that he should have gone some time back but he did well today.
For the first time in god knows how long, we actually looked like a football team. The shape and balance were right (particularly when Mayo came on & we reverted to 4-4-2) and Chippy & Hammond looked up for it from the word go and carried on where they left off last week. El-Abd had a stormer - one challenge he won in the second half was Paul Clark-esque!
The central defensive pairing of McShane & Hinshelwood has been crying out to happen for some time now. Butters has been a great servant and has done incredibly well to play 40 odd games this season but the last few weeks have seen him get skinned too easily too often and it was a brave decision by MM to play the younger pair; another one he got right.
I'm a big Reidy fan and he was superb today (one dodgy pass back early on being the exception). I've no idea why he's been frozen out recently -(couldn't be because he had the audacity to question MM's team selection at Crewe, could it?)- and he showed today what we've been missing over the last few weeks.
The main difference is GNW. He leads the line & brings other players in so well. He's also having a big impact on CKR's game, the latter being very inexperienced he's been crying out for a more experienced strike partner to learn from all season, less we forget, his first at this level. CKR looked like he enjoyed himself today with the showboating and winding them up (not sure how Whitbread stayed on the pitch as the ref clearly saw him kick out at CKR but bottled the red one - didn't even give him a yellow).
The one down side for me was Lynch. He will undoubtedly make an excellent left sided central defender but he aint a left back and was a liability there at times today, particularly in the first half. His passing isn't great and his crossing is generally poor; he doesn't seem to have any real conviction when he puts the ball over.
Any way, back to positive stuff and, whilst it probably is too late to stay up, today has given us back a bit of pride and a superb away day. Well done again MM; I just wish you'd made some of those changes earlier (Reid/Butters).
For the first time in god knows how long, we actually looked like a football team. The shape and balance were right (particularly when Mayo came on & we reverted to 4-4-2) and Chippy & Hammond looked up for it from the word go and carried on where they left off last week. El-Abd had a stormer - one challenge he won in the second half was Paul Clark-esque!
The central defensive pairing of McShane & Hinshelwood has been crying out to happen for some time now. Butters has been a great servant and has done incredibly well to play 40 odd games this season but the last few weeks have seen him get skinned too easily too often and it was a brave decision by MM to play the younger pair; another one he got right.
I'm a big Reidy fan and he was superb today (one dodgy pass back early on being the exception). I've no idea why he's been frozen out recently -(couldn't be because he had the audacity to question MM's team selection at Crewe, could it?)- and he showed today what we've been missing over the last few weeks.
The main difference is GNW. He leads the line & brings other players in so well. He's also having a big impact on CKR's game, the latter being very inexperienced he's been crying out for a more experienced strike partner to learn from all season, less we forget, his first at this level. CKR looked like he enjoyed himself today with the showboating and winding them up (not sure how Whitbread stayed on the pitch as the ref clearly saw him kick out at CKR but bottled the red one - didn't even give him a yellow).
The one down side for me was Lynch. He will undoubtedly make an excellent left sided central defender but he aint a left back and was a liability there at times today, particularly in the first half. His passing isn't great and his crossing is generally poor; he doesn't seem to have any real conviction when he puts the ball over.
Any way, back to positive stuff and, whilst it probably is too late to stay up, today has given us back a bit of pride and a superb away day. Well done again MM; I just wish you'd made some of those changes earlier (Reid/Butters).
