Sheff Utd - The Verdict.

I’m surprised you all didn’t think Mepham had a good game. From my perspective it looked like he won most of his duels, took his goal well too. Not that it matters: opinions and all.

Problem Mepham had was he let the ball bounce a few times which put him under pressure. If he had attacked the ball that pressure would have been dealt with easily.

BUT his judgement could have been affected by the wind.
 
But for the wages their on the front 3 should take the blame today along with EH for having 3 CB's and no creativity., they choose when they want to turn up and they didn't fancy it in the wind. That's why no offers for them because they're inconsistent.
If the front 3 are not working is down to Eddie to change it, King looked very leggy
 
I thought Fraser, Wilson and King really didn't get a look in due to Sheff. Utd's defenders. I thought their No. 6 Basham was pretty good.

I was a bit worried when I saw the team with Ramsdale and Rico in there.
Ramsdale made two good saves in the first half and I thought played well, couldn't do much about their goal I thought.

Rico a better game, more involved than usual with the free kicks and so on but doesn't give me any great confidence. I did note that Steve Cook was having a go at him at times.

Steve Cook, Ake and Mepham played OK for me, pleased for Mepham that he scored.
Nothing really came off for Adam Smith.

Good debut for Billing - long throws noted!

I thought Lerma was our MoM - no yellows either.

Why no earlier subs Eddie? We just didn't seem to play well as a team. Formation?

I did say to the people sat next to me when Billy Sharp came on that he was a good striker. If they had to equalise then happy for Billy to score (if you know his history).

They deserved a point (unfortunately).
 
Seems Rico knows what he’s doing defensively now which is an improvement but when you play as a wing back the onus is on you to take the game to the opposition. He just doesn’t have any idea where he is supposed to be on the pitch.

Mind you, Smith wasn’t much better and with 2 workhorses in midfield it’s no wonder we couldn’t get any ball to the front 3. To be honest that’s been a problem for a while regardless of playing 2 or 3 up front. Suppose with an isolated front 2 you still have 8 players contributing whereas it’s only 7 contributing with an isolated front 3.
 
We're going down, any optimism for new season gone in one game. Continuation from end of last season. Absolutely turgid and dog performance. Attack non existant, Rico & Mepham awful. No one could keep the ball or play a 1 yard pass. Playing 3 CB at home to Sheff Utd, got what we deserved, they deserved a point.

What an absolutely shocking post. Probably expected though. Another drama queen.
 
The main reason we were so poor today was the tactically set up. I’m sorry but EH got that completely wrong today. We did not have the personnel to play that system today at all and Wilson was so isolated at times against three centre half’s it was laughable. We set up like we were playing Man City and not Sheff U, very poor from Eddie today and had us at disadvantage from the get go.

I disagree. In fact for the remaining healthy top 11 players this is the only formation we can play till Brooks is back.
 
We are desperately missing a creative midfield player, no one out there today was able to put their foot on the ball and pick out a pass. Brooks and Cook sorely missed.
 
We are desperately missing a creative midfield player, no one out there today was able to put their foot on the ball and pick out a pass. Brooks and Cook sorely missed.
Hate to say I told everybody so lol

Hey I’m not right often so let me savor it for a quick minute.
 
I disagree. In fact for the remaining healthy top 11 players this is the only formation we can play till Brooks is back.
i wouldnt say this is the only formation we can play with the healthy players we have, i think it was a tactical formation to counter the blades formation (i suspect we would of used the formation even if brooks was fit but just shuffled the deck a bit), we could of easily played 4 4 2 with the match day squad
 
i wouldnt say this is the only formation we can play with the healthy players we have, i think it was a tactical formation to counter the blades formation (i suspect we would of used the formation even if brooks was fit but just shuffled the deck a bit), we could of easily played 4 4 2 with the match day squad

I still say to play a 442 you need one attacking cm and one defensive cm or two box to box guys. We do not have any of that at the moment.
 
If you play 4-4-2 then it needs to be with only 1 winger. The other wide player needs to be a creative ball player. Normally that would be Brooks. Hopefully Harry Wilson can fill that gap. Otherwise we won’t create anything with Lerma and Billing in the engine room.
 
I still say to play a 442 you need one attacking cm and one defensive cm or two box to box guys. We do not have any of that at the moment.

We've destroyed loads of teams using 442 it's pretty much all we've used when we've been successful and we've pretty much always played with two 'all rounders' in there. Your creativity is pace and skill on the wings. Not many teams will just allow you to play through the middle. Especially newly promoted teams.
 
I don’t like it when we start picking out whoever happens to be injured any given week , be it Brooks , Cook or Stanislas and announce all would be well if only they had started ... we were lethargic today across the team and management that was the issue....not Brooke’s not making runs from the middle
 
I don’t like it when we start picking out whoever happens to be injured any given week , be it Brooks , Cook or Stanislas and announce all would be well if they had started ... we were lethargic today across the team and management that was the issue....not Brooke’s not making runs from the middle

Same goes for the obvious different formation that would have definitely worked whenever we've been ****************. Another formation may have worked, but more composure in our front three would have buried them today long before they got a pretty fortunate goal. You couldn't say they didn't deserve it but they created sod all.
 

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