Bad night at the office

adam0102 wrote…

Just got back, and part of me wishes I hadn’t bothered to spend £34 and stand for two hours in the freezing cold watching probably the worst performance of the season.

Basically, we were beaten by a team that wanted it more and that harried and pressed us into making many mistakes. So many passes straight to the opposition, so many more overhit, underhit or put behind the recipient so we always seemed on the back foot and couldn’t get any rhythm in our game. Chances in the first half came mainly from channel balls to Callum, but his finishing was off and he was generally well marshalled, and too much intricate play on the edge of the box that often just ended up going back to Tommy or Boruc.

The ‘goal’ was at the far end so I can’t say if it was offside or not, but someone said SSN said it wasn’t…..but despite that, we had ample chances to equalise and win in the second half, despite the overall play not being much better. I recall only two or three occasions when we put together a flowing passing move without giving the ball away.

Standout moment of thenight was Yann’s flick on the edge of the box that bypassed a statuesque defence and left two attackers clean through six yards out, but Callum knocked it wide. Pugh worked a good opening but hit the post, and the penalty miss summed up the night.

Not sure we really deserved anything out of the game, but I’m also sure the team didn’t deserve the boos from a few fans at the end or the bloke near me shouting ‘disgrace’. Massive overreaction, people should take a step back and look at the league table. WE CAN’T WIN EVERY GAME, PEOPLE!

Overall, a bad night, but even playing that badly, we could have won 3-1 given the number of clear cut chances we fashioned. My main worry is that our opponents seemed to have more desire than we did, and we allowed that to panic us into really poor errors too many times.

crayon_eater added…

On the way back now, thankfully only to Manchester. That was a truly awful performance. Gutless.

I wouldn’t be encouraged by the chances created that didn’t go in to suggest it wasn’t our day, Leeds were all over us before that goal – pressuring us, closing us down and playing high, and we had no reply.

It was only down to them sitting back that allowed us a sniff and then we were our own worst enemy, miss placing passes and more importantly not talking to each other. It was embarrassing at times.

Every time we approached their penalty area we hit a brick wall, not of Leeds players but one of a lack of creativity and movement on our part. We often just stopped and gifted it back to a Leeds player like he was one of our own.

Surman was by far the worst player, ineffective and often giving the ball away, quite often in dangerous areas. He also bottled several challenges. No idea how he stayed on.

Maybe I’m being harsh and will see things differently in the morning. Would like to put it down to a bad day at the office, but it feels a bit more than that from the performance put in. Couldn’t give a toss about Sunday after that.