Holmes_and_Watson

Brave and accurate. Well done! 🙂

Recency bias brings up some shaky looking spells in the second half, around the time of them getting one back. But actually, there were a load of positives today. - A good range of passing, right form the start. That caused Birmingham problems, as they’d set up to expect more of a deeper possession game from us. - We used the flanks well, with both causing problems. - KWP given license to move up is only going to bring us more combinations. - They tried to exploit those full back gaps seldomly. We covered that well today. - We created chances. Better movement. AA got a goal, but will no doubt be harsh on himself for not getting more. - Their goal came from a contested header just happening to fall at a pace and position where we had to take a touch, allowing them in to take a good shot. So, meh. But we weren;t being hammered when it came. - We’ll have to work on our shape when things are going against us. It might be a tiredness issue. But we shut down a lot of the avenues and tempo that got us joy in the first half. Martin will we looking at that brittleness, where we turn a bit inward. - Subs did well again. 2 linked up for the third. Aribo was important as a target, picked out good passes, chased down their keeper. Fraser also allowed us to have a second central runner, and Birmingham didn’t like that at all. We can look a bit light in the middle, so nice to be able to change that we want to. - Lots of good work from Baz. From verbally grabbing his defence to get them up the park, to the usual good vision and a couple of cracking distributions, one where he was kind of left with it to deal with. Did well linking with Aribo too. - Tempo was good and mixed in the first half particularly. Perhaps that’s too hard to keep up, which they can work on. We could do with some alternatives when the energy is fading before any changes. Don’t really want to make changes too early in a winning starting eleven. - We did have a couple of spells of extended passing about. First half, where we were ahead and waiting for them to have to come out. We pushed it forward eventually, when they finally stepped up. It was nearly at the point, where you’d think we should be looking to create a bit anyway. Second half, when we could have picked better alternatives. We lack a bit of physical threat, so need to work on creating space for Sule, and then be more direct to him. There’s always that worry we won’t be able to step it up when we need to. But we had decent intensity throughout today, with subs on at around the right time. - AA and Smallbone stood out of work rate again and positioning again today. Stu for technical ability to bring in others. Downes put in a good performance in the middle keeping everything going as Smallbone moved into all the spaces. - Rooney may look at an offside, some pressure after their first, and a penalty (did the striker heading it away and out make the difference?). We will look at some chances we didn’t take to put us out of sight. - A bit of a scar tissue related nerves in the second half, but they will be pleased with that, and know the areas to keep improving on.

oh for .... they just took Edozie out. Yellow.

I hope Edozies' sigh when getting the ball was just him being resigned to having to stop. He's just on, so can;t be a sigh of exhaustion running for it. 🙂

Aribo has made an excellent contribution since coming on. A solid impact sub today.

THB drops off so the touch we got ends up leading right to them having a go over Baz. That would have been as annoying as their first one, undoing a lot of decent play.

Ah... that would be a nice one from Fraser. Surely, he watched the Rotherham game to watch how 'keepers are chipped. 🙂

Nice from Aribo. He's looking a bit more mobile today too.

Yessssss!!!!!!!

Well done Baz. He's been pushing us up for a while now. We've had good runners in Fraser and AA, with no spupply. So, now Baz has a target in Aribo, he's using that.

Less experience with the newer subs. But if Martin has been training them on their roles in these positions, we should be fine. Jo gets us a foul. Just need to be managing this one smartly.

Smallbone got clobbered a bit there. Every bit a yellow. Handy, as we were running out of passing options there. Getting some passing moves togetehr again though. Noting Cam's comment. 🙂

We get the foul, take a second. Sule going off for Fraser. So, Aribo and Fraser to replicate the wider threat we showed from the first half. No doubt Fraser will be keepn to take up space in the middle, so hopefully a bit of a team up with AA there. Just need the pace of play to be getting it up to them, to worry their back line.

Really good Baz clearance there.

Brave post. 🙂

His mere presence is unsettling them. 🙂

Alcaraz for Aribo. So, keeping a pacy central option then. 🙂

Yeah. Subs can;t be far away. Just to get some energy back in. But they have to come on firing, and help us keep a shape. We have brough players on and it's fallen to pieces even more. Which subs will we get today. 🙂

W aren;t a phsycial side. So we're never going to outfight a team. AA is showing that we have to outwork them, stretching the game. I was thinking Alcaraz's shot just gave back possession. But their keeper had a bit of a fumble with it in the wet.

Martin;s half time team talks seem to have this effect. 🙂

Oh, they got a chance there. I thought it was going to go through Baz there. Fortunately, it was his legs it hit and not his hands. 🙂 Good pass from them to split our defence. Anotehr effort form them, has a player in loads of space behind our centre halves. We just need to epxloit the space they must be leaving. But we're floundering a bit, with a lot of noise from their support.

THB seems to win the header, but it comes off of their guy's shoulder. DOwn to where we have to control it, in th emoment that takes, their player is in and Baz has no chance. >sigh< Noted it's another direct attack that we conced from. We just have to get back to the tempo we had first half. AA's shot hit one of their's hands. COntrol, tempo, incisiveness.

Sub makes an insta contribution, courtesy of us makign a defensive fluff up.

Imcomplete pass from Smallbone. Just to show he can do one, it seems today. Meanwhile a lovely Stu ball into the box. AA had made the run, and noone else following in on the other side (which Martin has pointed out)

Oh... another nearly one for AA. Lovely run into the middle from him. More of those for him, and the goals will come.