Holmes_and_Watson

He did say he picks 100 locks. That'll be in every move. By the time he's done that, we've lost the ball and probably conceded at the other end.🙂

Couldn't wait for that chancer Le Tissier to go off. 🙂

There's a do not resuscitate sign on our season?

The rehersal ended up with with the squad passing around the awards for 90mins, with none of them able to get it to a winner?

Some boos noticeable there at the end. That was really just a lesson that we don;t have the squad to play RussBall. To compound this, Martin made sure to drop the few players who are key to when it does work from the side. No engine of Downes, work rate of AA, presence of Adams. Oh, and he also shoehorned in Stephens resulting in THB having a poorer game than usual. As usual, Martin got his possession stat. The base of everything he wants. But we were never on top of either domination of play or chances. A midfield that offered no physical presence, no disruption ot opponents play, no drive and no creativity. Supported by Mara, who doesn't offer the support Martin needs to have. Fraser and Edozie had some bright moments, with Fraser's first half chance being our best effort. But that was Edozie beating his man, without anyone being there to get on the end of anything. Fraser cut in centrally to some success, but these were mostly scraps. With all that mess in front of him, McCarthy is shown not to be able to pass anywhere near as well as Baz. On the other hand, he did have to make a number of stops today. Nothing spectacular, but you always wonder if Baz would have just managed to get "close" to one of them, but not close enough. Martin has worked his way through the squad, and found he doens;t have the players who can do the things he needs. He has tried a number of things, and line up changes. But not for long. You sense the players are impacted by the chopping and changign. All the work that's gone into Martin's system falls apart when the players put out weren't the best at it, or haven;t played as aunit regularly together. There's that losing mentality around again. No minutes for the youngsters. Martin is trying to find senior personnel to make something click. But we've pretty much gone through hsi options, so it would be nice to see them get some game time. We may be depending on them a lot next season, if we don;t go up. Players takign families round the pitch. A shame there's nowhere near that feel good factor around, that flickered for a while earleir in the season. Still, it's not over yet. Leeds fell apart the other night and WBA wil be disapointed they didn't kick on in the seocond half of the season.

Last ditch cross.... hopefully someone from way back in the stand will throw that back...Thanks Bree.

'Tator worried aobut playing in the corner for 4 mins hadning the momentum back to Saints. We'd just pass momentum across the back, until it went away.

Fraser ( who I forgot was on) tries a cut back, but no one there. "They are a good team and play good football." - Stoke 'tator talking about Saints, who have shown very little "good" in anything today.

Yes! My link must have been behind. Well done Russ! 64% possession. The foundation of success!

Still just below that 60% possession. C'Mon Saints. McCarthy makes one of those save things that the Stoke keeper hasn;t had to do much of.

Aribo was in space in a central poistion. He gets the ball and we've a bit of momentum. His next pass has to be a forward one, or he has to take it forward. Instead, he passes it to KWP, who is just a little off the pass. Aribowas probably thinking he could then pick up a return. But by the time that's happening Stoke are back in plently of numbers and the move has gone. Just that lack of drive for us so often.

I was hoping Keegan was coming in as a free agent. 🙂

How to break a tactic... Stand three of your players centrally in front of our defence. Watch Saints fail to pick a forward pass through such a barrier, go wide where they have no one and give it away.

Adams effort blocked. AA coming on for Edozie.

Yeah, if we up our game. 🙂

Another non penalty. Edozie went down and stayed there. Menawhile, McCarthy makes a save from their counter.

Run from KWP but blazed over

Jarred something when he slipped?

nearly 70 mins gone. We're not exactly pushing for an equalizer here. Martin levels of possession. But still half the efforts on goal.

Ref didn't give a pen. Got a good look at it.

Mara limping off a bit. Clearly the root of all his problems today. 🙂

Mara and Brooks off Che and Downes on

Mara's pass had far too muich on it. But He did try to pick out Fraser, who was makign a good run. GOod measured pass from Aribo. From small acorns do successful play offs grow, or something. 🙂 Edozie having a lot of joy against his marker. Shame AA isn;t on to take advantage of any of them.

Lots of space for the shot. Stephens blocked it.

We tried one of those direct passes from deep, and I was just thinking that they didn;t work at all for Leeds...when we gave it away too. Aribo a bit lax in picking out his pass.