As someone said perfectly last night, everything good and bad went through Stanislas last night.
Which is quite often the case with your playmakers. David Brooks and Danjuma are very often the same. They’ll drift in and out of games, Brooks last night for example slowed the tempo down and made wrong decisions as well...but then made one excellent pass in the first half and made the run and the assist to link up well with Stanislas for the goal.
In games like last night you need that vision to get between the lines to break them down. Something they’d clearly been working on as there will be more games like this with defences sat deep.
Stanislas was very vocal last night, something we need from our senior players, some on pitch leadership, some pride in the team, something that we have lacked for a year. It obviously doesn’t come naturally to Stanislas otherwise he would have been more vocal in the past. Did he get everything right last night? No and he’s rubbed people up the wrong way with his execution, but was he right to have the words with Kelly and Surridge, I think so.
The Kelly incident, he wanted Kelly to make a particular run, he wanted him on the shoulder past the defender on the angle, cutting inside, in between the lines, you can tell that was the plan and the expected pass. If you’re a full back you link up with the winger. You need to be on the same wavelength to have the success we had with Francis/Ritchie Daniels/Pugh, you’re not going to get that if the talented youngster doesn’t listen.
With Surridge, same mistake of being vocal and animated from a distance, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Sam’s reaction to Stanislas is wrong as well and we shouldn’t be getting close to a physical altercation with Surridge grabbing Stanislas by the collar and Stanislas pushing him away.
I’m sure it will all be forgotten already in the dressing room, but lessons to be learned from both sides.
