Boruc 7 - Excellent saves throughout, poor for the goal, poor distribution.
Clyne 5 - Quite poor in possession and not exactly watertight at the back.
Mepham 8 - Excellent performance after having a torrid time at Arsenal. Didn’t really make any mistakes at all.
Simpson 8 - Is good enough to start for us more regularly, feel a bit sorry for him tbh. One poor header but was excellent as the middle CB. Unfortunately we couldn’t see how dangerous he can be from corners.
Ake 8 MOM - At the heart of the defensive performance; seemed to just appear out of nowhere whenever there was a hint of danger. Starting to put in some world class individual defensive displays again.
Daniels 6 - Did quite well overall marshalling Silva, but was poor with the goal. Didn’t really have the opportunity to get forward.
Smith 6 - Attempted to drive forward with the ball, but there was never an outlet. Didn’t add too much defensively considering he’s a fullback.
Surman 6 - Might be generous, but he didn’t really do anything wrong. Hard to impress with just 18% possession. Tidy on the ball.
Fraser 4 - Put more effort into winning free kicks than he did trying to attack or successfully complete pass. A failure of a performance. Needs a rest; we’ve been far too reliant on him and King with all these injuries for goals and it’s starting to show.
King 4 - One or two powerful runs, but similarly poor on the ball and constantly looking for fouls. If this was EHs main tactic, it was a s*** one. We needed these two to be at their best to carry any threat, and we finished with no shots. Really poor.
Subs:
Mousset 5 - He sort of “pressed” when he came on, won a few headers. Was gifted the ball near the City box, farted around for a few seconds and lost it with a whimper. Desperately poor.
Rico 5 - Injected a bit of spice into the last 10 minutes, pressed the defence quite effectively but not great on the ball.
Ibe 5 - Don’t remember him doing anything other than a decent run that ended in a goal kick. Still more of a threat than Fraser.
The main problem I had with the setup, was that I think EH should have started another attacker over Daniels and pushed Smith back to LB, but that’s it really. The defensive performance was almost faultless.
There was never enough there in attack for us to do anything at all though- and the stats prove this. The only attackers we had on the pitch were a possibly not fit Brooks, Fraser and King. The latter two were frankly awful.
If we employ the same tactics, but with Wilson + King up top, a competent Fraser, Lerma, and prime Brooks, then there’s something too it. Ultimately what we got was a valiantly adherent display to a game plan that was slightly off and a little bit embarrassing at times, given the stats. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it, and I’m glad it’s over
. Time to bully Huddersfield.