Originally Posted by
AfricanBluebird
Make no mistake, we were shocking last night.
We had zero clues going forward. It was very poor. But looking at the team selection and formation - isn't it obvious to everyone that when the opposition match our formation and have very capable runners and technically gifted players that we will always struggle?
All of our weaknesses were exposed last night - dodgy defending, getting caught up field when we have a set-piece, lack of pace, no guile, low possession and low passing success rate.
I would be interested to see the stats but for 80 minutes I think the only times we touched the ball in the opposition box was misplaced headers from throws or corners. Even our usual 'routes' to goal were blocked off last night, not by opposition defending, but by our own lack of sharpness and anticipation in the box.
For their first goal you have to wonder what on earth our defence was doing in allowing their player to have huge amounts of space and able to control the ball, take and extra touch and fire into the net... I do have a theory on that though! The referee was appalling and he gave us nothing most of the night. His decision to book Pack (and also Flint for his protests) for Pack being brutally fouled was an extreme example of his uselessness, but there were many other examples of his ineptness (please have a look at a horrible foul on Moore late in the game where their player missed the ball, goes in studs up into Moores foot but then stretches afterwards to get the ball back - was an awful foul that the ref didn't even consider giving). Anyway, I suspect that our players were fully aware of this and knew that the slightest contact in our box would result in the ref giving a pen and were therefore standing off knowing any contact would result in a penalty.
Our wing-back were fully exposed and Bagan in particular was turned time and time again. On Saturday when he chased a Blackpool player back and committed a professional foul it showed huge maturity and reading of the game, last night however, for their second, he made a poor decision to go with a man who was already being closed down while leaving another free to receive a pass and score. Ng was also poor last night.
The three central defenders did 'ok' apart from the goals. In a defensive sense I though Nelson was our most composed defender last night. In midfield Ralls did ok in patches but struggled to keep up with the pace of Peterboroughs pace and movement. Pack was the pick of the bunch - his two crosses for the goals were quality, although he missed what was an open goal really when Bacuna smartly put him through (probably Bacunas only contribution in an attacking sense last night. Giles did well when he had the ball in space but those moments were rare. Collins worked hard but again was isolated and was often against a back three. There was no cohesion between the Collins and the attacking players.
You have to ask questions of Mick and TC when we seem to quite frequently be unable to muster a single shot - and I don't blame the players for that. Essentially we had 3 centre backs, 4 full-backs / wing-backs and 2 defensive midfielders in the starting 11.... with only Collins an out and out attacker. This means that in reality unless our set-pieces are working we will always struggle to create chances in open play. You also have to wonder about MM's use of subs. Often too late in games when every man and his dog can see the way the game was going. I don't know about you but at half time I mentioned to someone that we would likely lose this if we didn't change things sooner rather than later. Peterborough scored a lot of goals last year in the second half and that seems to be a theme that they have brought through to this season.
But we didn't lose and the team though deserves huge credit for digging in and coming up with two wonderful goals when it looked like the game had really gone. The subs, although made way too late, helped open up the game with Moore, Colwill and Harris all stretching the defence and putting pressure on a tired Peterborough.
However, the lack of possession, passing and ultimately creativity will AGAIN be our downfall and continue to put pressure on our defence.
A final note on the match reports coming out of Peterborough. Yeah, we all hate the way we play sometimes and know it isn't great, but it is our team and we have the right to be frustrated about it... but some of the reporting is laughable. Peterborough ARE a better footballing side than us and I would take at quite a few of their players who would walk into our team... but the pious and self righteous reporting is cringeworthy.
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