Originally Posted by
Bobby Dandruff
Well, on the train and nearly home anyway.
A good effort again today but we were clearly second best from the start. I haven’t seen the match stats but they seemed to have loads of chances and would have scored more if not for some wayward finishing and superb last ditch defending. The players never gave up and fought to the end.
That said, Morrison hit the post in the second half and Murphy had a chance amazingly cleared off the line in the first half, and I always think that at 1-0 we are in the game.
Ralls’ sending off was the real turning point though as it pretty much ended the contest (a bit like Bamba giving the penalty away at Chelsea) but a red card wasn’t a surprise despite not having seen any replays.
Manga had a wretched time against Son who seemed to beat him at will but everyone put in a decent shift, just against superior players.
The experiment of Patterson playing up front worked a couple of times with Murphy latching onto his flick ons (the chance off the line in the first half, mentioned above, came from that combination) but I find myself watching more in hope than anything else.
It does seem that every loose ball goes to an opponent these days - it happened so often today (see their goal, which came from careless defending). I know that this isn’t just luck but we could do with a kind break.
Ward having to go off minutes after coming on was a shame and hopefully Gunnarson can swap in for Ralls who I assume is now banned for 3 games.
So, I’m not despondent but it was more of the same today.