I’d probably up Patterson by .5 and downgrade Manga .5
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Etheridge 8
Manga 7
Morrison 9
Bamba 7
Bennett 7
Ralls 7
Gujic 7
Paterson 7
Hoilett 7
Ken 8
Traore 8
I’d probably up Patterson by .5 and downgrade Manga .5
I agree with this, especially the latter.
I have always banged the drum for Bruno and I still think he is a very good player, but an attacking right back he is not.
Not wishing to be critical of anyone, especially after a good battling team performance but he got into two great positions in the second half and fluffed his lines miserably.
The first was when our forwards attacked a great cross from the left and the ball fell to him just inside the box and he hit it first time and skied it. He had time and space to control it and get a decent shot off.
The second was a really poorly executed cross from a good position which went straight out, miles over the bar.
Then defensively he was caught out too high up when Downing picked the ball up in his own half, ran with it and luckily for us shot wide.
We were better when Peltier came on and Bruno moved inside but that was tactical to protect our lead.
IMO it's difficult to drop Manga but unless NW plays 3 central at the back (alongside Sol and Mozza) with 2 wing backs, he may struggle to fit in.
It could work if Sol played just in front of a back four but it would be dependant on the opposition.
As I said, it is hard to be too critical, especially as they were limited to very few oppprtunities, but those few things could have been costly in such a tight game.
See Etheridge got 7.5 in one of the threads on this subject and 8 in this one, my question is why? He had barely anything to do.
He was dominate and immaculate with his catching when under extreme pressure during several set pieces. His fellow defenders must have been made up by his presence - while Pulis tore his hair out when his main attacking option was nullified.
So give Etheridge a NINE!
Also, these duplicate threads are doing my head in.......
I remember flicking through a gazzeta della sport once and looking at their ratings. In all the games, down to Serie C, there were more ratings of 2, 3 and 4 than 5, 6 or 7. Some players got 0. The highest I saw was 8 and that player scored a hat-trick.
I thought he was very commanding to be fair Bob. He has grown so much in stature this season that he now has so much confidence in coming to claim some tricky crosses towards the end. Most keepers would have elected to punch a few of them but he took the pressure off and allowed us to get up the field.
Good in the air when he was needed.
Kicked well all game, second half I noticed a few times we would play it back to Etheridge and he was cool and calm and placed the kick well up the pitch.
I'd happily score him a 7 maybe even a 7.5
I also think Manga coped well at RB. the time he was caught out of position he was coming back from an attack, as a unit Morrison was there to cover him (as Manga knew he would be)
Agree Peltier is better suited out there, but he wasn't without fault in his cameo. He gave away a silly foul not long after coming on right on the left hand side of the area (looking from family stand)
I like the fact he's not afraid to go into a crowd of players to get the ball or that he catches the ball when almost every other keeper these days will punch it. He relieves so much pressure off the defence when he does this.
Admittedly he didn't have a lot to do yesterday but what he did was to a high standard.
Controversial opinion - Etheridge is a more complete goalkeeper than Marshall ever was for us.
Marshall was a great shot stopper (you’d hope all gks would be) but he never commanded his box that well.
I just think people go over the top at times. For me Etheridge made some errors when he started with us, but then, generally speaking, settled down and did fine apart from some poor kicking from time to time and yet he was being slaughtered by some on here. Now it's gone to the other extreme and he's being praised to the hilt for making one easy save, one good catch, plus a few other decent ones, and kicking the ball okay!