1) It didn't seem there today. The atmosphere, the team, the energy. Just...nothing. It was like we'd packed so much emotion into Leicester and West Brom that an (on paper) easier game against a team that Boro fans told me were "crap", that this was rather, you know, listless.
2) Carrick worked us out pretty easily. Anderson puts the ball to Chair. Chair is faced with three men like the famoust Maradona v The Dutch photo, Chair passes it back because there are no alternatives. Anderson doesn't bother switching it over to Willock on the right, who had half of West London on the right time after time again. We can blame Chair all we want, but we can't expect him to be Moroccan Stanley Bowles when other teams are recognising who our best player is and doubling or tripling him up accordingly.
3) Because of taking out Chair, we ran out of ideas incredibly quickly. Boro got brave moving up the pitch...
4) And then lived in our half for the first half of the second half until the first goal. Bad defending for the goals? Well, when you've got a tired, not great, and pretty exhausted central defense to face with two pacey players - and you work out that simply whacking the ball across isn't the way forwoard, then we became easy to break down. And we were.
5) We offered nothing that second half, apart from Smyth's half chance, where I felt he was tugged back. Had he gone down....you've seen 'em given...
6) Great to see Seny Dieng back. Loved him at LR.
7) Boro did a job on us. Plain and simple.
Onto Sunderland for the latest of our must-win games.
|  |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
