Holmes_and_Watson

Mara might have got us a penalty.

Baz claims a corner, and there's nothing else on his mind that getting us forward, with good distribution.

Another nice through ball. Mara couldn;t finish. Needed to lift it, but it was close to the keeper. Aribo's follow up well over.

Alcaraz beats four players.

Alcaraz for Stu Mara for AA

Shoooooot!

Just saw "collapsed off the ball" 😞

Decent ball across, needing one of our layers to get on the end of it.

Related to his previous issues, or is it a different injury?

Fraser for Edozie Stephens for THB Charles for Downes

Stu!!!!! Patient MartinBall pays off.

Well, they got a ball through and a shot away.

Nice and direct run and pass thorugh the middle. Making them have to work, rather than passing it for small margins.

Oooh. down to 10. Blackburn will be even more dangerous now. - Nathan Jones school of tactics.

Again, AA felt he needed that touch. First time across and that was an excellent chance.

AA touch let him down there.

Paltry

Game

Cell

Wasn't sure if the confusing baking terms were continuing with "a knob of butter" or if it was an insult. 🙂

After the last game, I put up the number of points per game the teams above us would have to drop to get down to the level of the average second place finish. It shows just what a good start they've had. Leicester and Ipswich would both have to have major slumps, and Leeds would have to tail off too. It does offer up some questions on why we've not been able to reach that level. We're on an really long unbeaten run ourselves. Are the clubs above us just that bit better than we could have hoped to be? Or is the system we've built preventing us getting those wins? We have lots of possession. We're very composed at the back and comfortable with short passing moves. We are very patient. We do look to have control and look to move teams around for marginal passing advantages, each building up to creating a chance. However, when teams don't get moved around and our team can't get that extra space, we're a bit stuck. We do create the odd chance, but we're looking at slender leads, with good finishing from few opportunities. The teams around us don't have a lot of the positives listed above that we have. In varying amounts, they give up some of that control for attacking. It does make them more vulnerable, but creates pressure, momentum and pins opponents back. We launched one out wide, like we did when Sule was fit. Like then, when it didn't work, we went back into our passing shell. Second half, they had been told to speed things up. But they simply couldn't do it, within the system and personnel we had out there. Martin trying that is exactly what led to us giving away sloppy passes, a lack of control and conceding the goal. Only when Fraser came on, did we have that direct player needed to offer an alternative. We were very one dimensional up until then. Then the game became more open. Why we had to wait until we were a goal down to our comfortable opponents is something that has to get sorted. Martin can look to the chances we did create, and AA will be disappointed. But a team looking to carve up their opponents and control the game would have had a lot more before our second half efforts. That's what the teams above us do, rather than look to eek out a winning goal and get good possession stats. Were it not for the hypnotic quality of 45 minutes of sideways passing, it would be frustrating to watch a side repeat the same trained routines, knowing they were having no impact on the game.

Martin picks up a card for being animated. Which is more animated than the side he's put out.

Smallbone going for a sideways pass gives it away. Manning not able to keep up and we're back defending. There's been a deadline that tonight.

I thought that was a good chance there too. AA wearing Che's cursed boots?

Nearly. I thought of there.