kirsikka
UTC Legend
A night at the theatre of recurring nightmares, and after a lacklustre performance against West Ham a chance to either heap pressure back on ourselves or get within touching distance of safety.
We went back to the formation used v Spurs, with Smith again dropping out.
Tavernier was regularly in acres of space but we didn't find him enough. When he did get the ball, he was mostly wasteful with it first half, although he made up for it in the second with the goal. Fingers crossed the injury is only a little niggle.
It was a weird atmosphere. No major backing from the home fans, but also a complete lack of toxicity from them. More an air of mild disgruntlement. Bizarre. It seemed to translate itself to the pitch where things were mostly tepid as well.
First half we had more of the ball but lacked creativity when we got near their goal. They had the better chances but lacked confidence. There wasn't all that much in it. Frustrating in a way as they looked so hesitant and poor that I think if we went after them we could put them to bed.
Second half we came out and dominated them, had them totally on the rack until Tavernier finally made one of the half chances count. A well deserved lead.
When they made some subs, they suddenly had a bit more forward energy and started to control the game without looking all that threatening. GON was pretty cautious, happy to soak it up and trust to his luck rather than trying to seize back the initiative with some tactical changes. He was a pretty close offside decision away from throwing it away, but fortune was on his side again.
Whilst that VAR was purely factual on that one, we were once again denied a penalty when subjectivity came into it. Arm out from the body and moves it towards the ball to block the cross, the kind that has been given against us numerous times this season. Still not a single penalty for us. It's getting beyond a joke.
A word on the coverage. Match commentary was provided with all the excitement and charisma of a John Major policy announcement and backed up with Chris Sutton as the pundit. Sutton comes in for a lot of criticism on here for never rating us, but I can now understand it. He's never seen us play. Here's two nuggets from him as examples to prove it:
"Dominic Solanke has had a tough couple of seasons but he's much improved this one." You know, the guy that scored 29 league goals last year.
"Lerma has the range of passing and Rothwell is the more robust one in the Bournemouth midfield to make a good pair". I don't even know where to start with that. He can't ever have watched us.
BT Sport really is utter guff.
I have to say, I've seen a lot of football down the years. I can't recall a team that seemed to care less when they should be fighting for their lives than that lot. Genuinely one of the worst efforts I've ever seen from a team in the mire but still with a chance to save themselves. They really were awful. Unless things change, if they play like that next season they could easily go straight down again.
At the end, it's three points in a match we normally contrive to mess up. It's likely relegation avoided. It's close to job done. Can't complain at that.
----- Positive Performances -----
Solanke - Ran, harried, harassed, and caused their defenders all sorts of problems. Was only missing one thing... he needs to miss out on the missing. Excellent performance though, and you could see the difference in their forward compared to him.
Kelly - Restored more centrally and looked all the more comfortable for it. Stopped a breakaway with some excellent shepherding and stepped into midfield very confidently a couple of times first half, and made a brilliant tackle at the death.
Mepham - Cool and collected. Safe. Well played.
----- Room for Improvement -----
Neto - Possibly his weakest performance from us. Looked hesitant and out of sorts. Fortunately they offered all the attacking threat of an asthmatic kitten.
Vina - Going forward he looked good, but seemed exposed defensively. Could be rustiness as I hope we see more from him.
----- GON Watch -----
Made for an odd game first half where we seemed to cancel each other out. It's hard as a point away from home, especially in a place we usually fail, is always decent but, at the same time, they were there for the taking if we could have been braved. They were absolute tripe.
Whatever tweaks he made at half time had a galvanising effect, which was excellent, and we had them totally in our power. Then ceded the space to them once they made their changes with no response. Also, considering they were a team that had to take chances against us to get a win, we still didn't always leave someone up to put them under pressure. Too often in the last 25 minutes it was hoofed forward from our defence for them to pick up and start again. Fortunately, they were utter **************** and couldn't do anything with it.
It's the business end of the season and results matter more than anything else at this point. We got the points and so no complaints there, but I was still left feeling like we should have been out of sight and we gave them a chance to snatch a point that shouldn't have been there considering how bad they were.
Is that PL survivial and GON in place for next year? We'll see on the first, I'd still prefer another win against Leeds to make 100% sure, and only Bill can say for the latter part. GON is still clearly a work in progress, understandably, and the question is how much will he make before the next season kicks off?
All speculation though. For now, enjoy the points and enjoy that lot being deservedly rooted to the bottom of the table.
We went back to the formation used v Spurs, with Smith again dropping out.
Tavernier was regularly in acres of space but we didn't find him enough. When he did get the ball, he was mostly wasteful with it first half, although he made up for it in the second with the goal. Fingers crossed the injury is only a little niggle.
It was a weird atmosphere. No major backing from the home fans, but also a complete lack of toxicity from them. More an air of mild disgruntlement. Bizarre. It seemed to translate itself to the pitch where things were mostly tepid as well.
First half we had more of the ball but lacked creativity when we got near their goal. They had the better chances but lacked confidence. There wasn't all that much in it. Frustrating in a way as they looked so hesitant and poor that I think if we went after them we could put them to bed.
Second half we came out and dominated them, had them totally on the rack until Tavernier finally made one of the half chances count. A well deserved lead.
When they made some subs, they suddenly had a bit more forward energy and started to control the game without looking all that threatening. GON was pretty cautious, happy to soak it up and trust to his luck rather than trying to seize back the initiative with some tactical changes. He was a pretty close offside decision away from throwing it away, but fortune was on his side again.
Whilst that VAR was purely factual on that one, we were once again denied a penalty when subjectivity came into it. Arm out from the body and moves it towards the ball to block the cross, the kind that has been given against us numerous times this season. Still not a single penalty for us. It's getting beyond a joke.
A word on the coverage. Match commentary was provided with all the excitement and charisma of a John Major policy announcement and backed up with Chris Sutton as the pundit. Sutton comes in for a lot of criticism on here for never rating us, but I can now understand it. He's never seen us play. Here's two nuggets from him as examples to prove it:
"Dominic Solanke has had a tough couple of seasons but he's much improved this one." You know, the guy that scored 29 league goals last year.
"Lerma has the range of passing and Rothwell is the more robust one in the Bournemouth midfield to make a good pair". I don't even know where to start with that. He can't ever have watched us.
BT Sport really is utter guff.
I have to say, I've seen a lot of football down the years. I can't recall a team that seemed to care less when they should be fighting for their lives than that lot. Genuinely one of the worst efforts I've ever seen from a team in the mire but still with a chance to save themselves. They really were awful. Unless things change, if they play like that next season they could easily go straight down again.
At the end, it's three points in a match we normally contrive to mess up. It's likely relegation avoided. It's close to job done. Can't complain at that.
----- Positive Performances -----
Solanke - Ran, harried, harassed, and caused their defenders all sorts of problems. Was only missing one thing... he needs to miss out on the missing. Excellent performance though, and you could see the difference in their forward compared to him.
Kelly - Restored more centrally and looked all the more comfortable for it. Stopped a breakaway with some excellent shepherding and stepped into midfield very confidently a couple of times first half, and made a brilliant tackle at the death.
Mepham - Cool and collected. Safe. Well played.
----- Room for Improvement -----
Neto - Possibly his weakest performance from us. Looked hesitant and out of sorts. Fortunately they offered all the attacking threat of an asthmatic kitten.
Vina - Going forward he looked good, but seemed exposed defensively. Could be rustiness as I hope we see more from him.
----- GON Watch -----
Made for an odd game first half where we seemed to cancel each other out. It's hard as a point away from home, especially in a place we usually fail, is always decent but, at the same time, they were there for the taking if we could have been braved. They were absolute tripe.
Whatever tweaks he made at half time had a galvanising effect, which was excellent, and we had them totally in our power. Then ceded the space to them once they made their changes with no response. Also, considering they were a team that had to take chances against us to get a win, we still didn't always leave someone up to put them under pressure. Too often in the last 25 minutes it was hoofed forward from our defence for them to pick up and start again. Fortunately, they were utter **************** and couldn't do anything with it.
It's the business end of the season and results matter more than anything else at this point. We got the points and so no complaints there, but I was still left feeling like we should have been out of sight and we gave them a chance to snatch a point that shouldn't have been there considering how bad they were.
Is that PL survivial and GON in place for next year? We'll see on the first, I'd still prefer another win against Leeds to make 100% sure, and only Bill can say for the latter part. GON is still clearly a work in progress, understandably, and the question is how much will he make before the next season kicks off?
All speculation though. For now, enjoy the points and enjoy that lot being deservedly rooted to the bottom of the table.
