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Post by Olgrligm on Nov 16, 2008 12:08:36 GMT
Sorry for all the rhetoric of the last 2 days. I've done some proper thinking on the match now and come to a few anti-ManUre free conclusions.
Sorensen - 6 - What the hell was he doing on the free kicks? He made some good saves otherwise, though
Griffin - 6
Shawcross - 6
Faye - 7
Higginbotham - 6
Olofinjana - 4.5 Absolutely woeful again, must be dropped against Brazil
Diao - 6
Faye - 5
Delap - 5
Sidibe - 5
Fuller - 6
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Cresswell - 5
Kitson - 5
Wilkinson - 6
I don't think it helped at all yesterday that the referee gave the opposition a free kick for nothing in the first few minutes. You knew that they'd score but I still can't quite work out how it snuck in. It looked straight at Sorensen without massive amounts of pace but all he could do was palm it into his own net. The reverse angle suggests a bit of late turn, but was that enough to take it away from him? Dodgy goalkeeping, I think.
We didn't disgrace ourselves in the first half, though. We had a 30 minute spell up until half time where they created nothing and they were starting to get a bit rattled. Alas, we didn't create enough ourselves either and I'd like to see Fuller's chance when Delap broke into the box. I haven't watched Football First yet, but from where I was it looked like a good opportunity. It was good to see Fuller tear some of Europe's best defenders to pieces a couple of times as well. I never thought I'd see him trick his way through them but he managed to, only to get crowded out. I think where we were most outclassed was in the centre of midfield. Diao looked good defensively when he dropped right back, but in the very middle of the park we had absolutely nothing on them. We couldn't retain possession and when we did come out with the ball, we had nowhere to distribute it. We were sitting too deep and I'm afraid that when you're playing one of the best teams in the country, you can't afford to have square pegs in round holes. I can only assume Cresswell was sent on because Pulis thought he would be better at getting in the way of attacks than Tonge, but it didn't work, the poor bloke was just anonymous. Olofinjana on the right worked against Arsenal because he was up against Clichy, the shortest man to ever impersonate a top-level footballer. Today, he just looked completely lost, poor in the challenge and in the pass. Same goes for Delap. He's a very good central midfield player with a good footballing brain, who can just about blag it on the left, but not against this lot. Hopefully that one will be a lesson learned and in home games we'll see him return to the centre as soon as Lawrence is fit.
Still, keeping them at bay and shaking them up for 30 minutes is completely worthless if you're going to switch off at the end of the half. We let Ronaldo back into the game by giving him a simple pass to Carrick, who was left unchallenged by 4 Stoke players around him and put the ball in. As for Ronaldo, he'd been very disappointing. With all the media hype, I was rather expecting him to be running circles around Griffin and for him to be tearing us to shreds. Instead, he was absolutely hopeless in open play, giving the ball away, chipping the ball to the goalkeeper and falling over. For 30 minutes, he seemed to forget that there was a game of football going on and was instead preoccupied with moaning to the referee and crying because of the nasty Stoke fans. Surely he normally plays much better than that usually? On that showing, there's no way he'd even be in the top 100 players in the world, although he does take a good free kick.
Something else that we must sort out is what happens after half time. With Pulis as manager, we've had this bizarre trait of coming out after half time asleep, letting teams play around us and create chances. You do that against a team like this and you get punished. How the referee didn't spot the handball by Tevez and the handball by Berbatov for the goal though, I don't know. At any rate, the defence was docile and should have done more. As for the other two goals, one was an absolute beauty and one was from another free kick that shouldn't have been. I cannot understand how referees are conned time and time again, as the referee was yesterday. There are certain things that give away when a player dives. If upon impact he starts roly-polying along the pitch, you award a free kick to the other team and book the roly-polyer. There is no kind of foul that induces that kind of motion and yet whenever a Manchester United player did that yesterday, we had a free kick given against us and got players booked.
So, lessons to be learnt for the Brazil game. It's important to remember that yesterday we were outclassed. We deserved to lose, if not 5-0. We can't get hung up on that and we can't start picking fault and demanding changes over absolutely everything yesterday. They were a better team with better, more expensive players. There are things we need to take from it, though. We won't have Fuller. Probably for the best that he got suspended as he'll be too knackered anyway from the internationals. It's just downright unfortunate that he's going to miss such a key game. With it being a home game against a team down the bottom, we hopefully won't sit as deep and will give our midfielders some options. Speaking of sitting deep, somebody should tell our midfielders to push up to Sidibe when we hit a long ball. When Chelsea hit a long ball to Drogba, they have three players right up with him who pick up the ball and attack. We don't have a Deco, but at the minute Sidibe's only option is to flick the ball to his strike partner, who stands ahead of him. On that note, it's time to do away with the square pegs in round holes. Olofinjana is not a right winger and Delap is not a left winger. They are both central midfielders. If Lawrence is still unfit, then Soares should replace Olofinjana. If Lawrence is fit, We should line up with Lawrence on the right, Soares on the left, Delap in the centre and Diao in the centre. I'm taking Dave Kitson out of my fantasy team, so hopefully he'll get a couple of goals. Sorry for ruining our Stoke career, Dave.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2008 12:45:28 GMT
Can't disagree with much of that tbh Fuller looked lost up front and got booked on purpose, Kitson was woeful AGAIN, oli wasn't up for the game, diao still had a hangover from the wigan game, cresswell failed to make an impact and the rest were in awe of the opposition. Even abdo faye was anonymous for me - I rated shawcross higher. Griff deserves a slightly higher score if only for his jink past ronaldo  The stoke support was pretty good, we kept going despite what we were seeing on the pitch. The manure support is shit. Getting back to the coach is a nightmare! They need an underpass for away fans! |
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