Hello! Well, it's been a long time since I've done one of these hasn't it? I'm not sure what the cross-over is between the two sides of this blog in-terms of readers- but either way I'm a bit short of time today so I'll give you the short version. Basically, I was ill for a while hence the complete lack of Posts on here for a few Months other than a few when I tried to force myself into going back to doing these too soon. I was ready to bring the Reviews back for the Bristol City game, but as I'm sure we all know- that game didn't in fact take place. As such, I just thought it'd be better to bring them back after the Internationals for the run-in of the season and here we are.
It's not exactly gone to plan since Jokanovic's first game, which was of course my last Review has it? The thing is, apart from the obvious games against Bristol City and Blackburn- I can't really remember a properly abject performance under Jokanovic. It's just been a case of really small margins in some games such as the Hull game at Home- poor finishing like Burnley and of course awful defending, in pretty much every game. All of that combined with Rotherham turning into Barcelona has basically meant we're in deep shit.
Today's game, and result was absolutely massive for us. While we're in no way clear of the Relegation Zone- any sort of space between us and 22nd is much appreciated given how results have been going lately. We're now 4 Points clear of MK Dons, with MK having Rotherham and Bristol City as their next two games. Those two games will either bring MK Dons right back onto our backs- or completely bury them. While I'm obviously trying not to jinx it, based off their performance today- I think the burial is a hell of a lot more likely. They were just plain bad today, which I suppose we can say in hindsight now we've won.
Right then, we're on to the Goals. As Dembele got the run of the ball and started charging into the box, I was getting proper flashbacks to the chance he missed against Bristol City- complete with one could argue way too heavy touches as he was getting closer to the Goal. The difference this time was McCormack was up there with him, and Dembele did really well to square it to him and give McCormack the easy finish. I'm going to be perfectly honest here, I've got absolutely no idea how Josh Murphy ended up clean through on goal. We'd just attacked, and put in a dodgy cross which Cropper caught. I turned around to make some sort of comment to someone sitting behind me, I turned back around just in time to see Murphy chip Bettinelli. I can say it now we've won, but it was a really good finish from him.
I, as I'm sure most people were expecting the worst when MK Dons equalised- despite the fact the goal was one of I believe two Shots on Target they had all game. Enter the good old pairing of McCormack and Dembele. I'd love to know the total number of Goals that have been made between the two of them this season. We did well to get McCormack into the position he was in, and in basically a reverse of the 1st Goal McCormack squared it to Dembele and he put it away and we actually won a game!
I was rapidly losing patience with Lonergan, topped off by his Bristol City performance which was one (of a number) that was just ridiculously sub-standard. So when Bettinelli came back into the team up at Birmingham and made a number of good saves to keep us on a Point. Today, he hardly had to do anything. As I said before, I think MK Dons had two Shots on Target- one obviously being the goal and another being a really tame shot straight at Bettinelli. However, he was good when he needed to be good and first and foremost considering the injury he had it's just great to see him back in the team.
This is my first Review since the beginning of January, and since then Amorebieta has come back- and I'll discuss him later. However, if there's been one positive (that wasn't already there in McCormack, Dembele and Cairney's obvious attacking prowess) it's Michael Madl. It's weird considering we've kept 1 Clean Sheet in 2016, but Madl truly has been one of the (albeit few) positives of the team since he joined. He's not the biggest defender, but once the ball's on the ground there's very few Defenders I've seen at Fulham in recent times that are better than him. I'd hope he'd stay if we went down, but if we stay up I reckon he'd definitely stay and be pretty much the only Defender retained for next seasons Starting 11.
Right then, let's discuss a (fresh haircutted) Fernando Amorebieta. He's the new Bryan Ruiz, there's a section of fans who've branded him a liability and simply won't say anything to the contrary even if he turned into the best Centre-Back in the world. Then there's a section, myself included who- while acknowledging he can be a bit... unpredictable also see in-terms of being an actual Defender he's definitely competent and worth his place in the team above the other options we've got. As I said, I've got no idea how Josh Murphy got clean through on goal today so I can't place blame on anyone until I've seen the Football League Show. However, Madl and Amorebieta is by far our best Centre-Back pairing, despite without doubt being quite limited. We basically just have to hope for the best, and regardless of if we stay up or go down completely re-build the Defence in the Summer.
Stearman and Ream was of course our long-term Centre-Back pairing under Kit, and they've both ended up at Full-Back now. Ream is definitely understandable considering I was saying for pretty much his whole tenure at Centre-Back that he wasn't a Centre-Back, at least not in a two-man pairing. Stearman has been one of the weirdest stories of this season. He came in with a very good reputation and Wolves fans being pissed they'd sold him- and in the space of about 4 Months he was in the Reserves. His Boro performance was pretty dodgy, but Adomah in particular was just "on" that day- but since he's come in at Right-Back he's been pretty much the definition of solid. He's not an attacking Full-Back obviously, but his strengths lie in defence- which is definitely needed given our obvious defensive frailties.
The one problem with Jokanovic's Team Selections, which in my opinion is a necessary evil for the rest of the season is three of our four Midfielders get nosebleeds when they get into the opposition box. That was never more true than in Tunnicliffe's performance today. With the situation we've gotten ourselves in, we need players like Tunnicliffe in the team who- while not necessarily the most technically gifted- they'll run themselves into the ground for the team. It took Tunnicliffe a few games to get up to speed, but now he's back to his battling best. Rohan Ince has been another weird story of our season. He was signed on Loan, again with a pretty good endorsement from Brighton Fans- had a 45 Minute debut, a brief Sub Appearance when we were 3-0 up against QPR and that was pretty much that before the Birmingham game. His Goal against Birmingham wasn't the best finish in the world, but especially in Ince's case he's in the team to just sit in front of the Back Four and protect them to the best of his ability. Which he did pretty well on the whole today, I thought. He's not well... good at all on the ball- but as long as he keeps his passes simple he's more than worth his place in the team.
Scott Parker, completely out of left-field has turned into our most consistent player since Jokanovic came in. He's become the (worse and older) version of Scott Parker that earned him so many plaudits during West Ham's relegation season. Even though he is getting on, he's turned into a key player to just keep us ticking over and keep the tempo up in games as we did today. I think Parker's value to the team, other than running and generally being Scott Parker is just his intelligence in a Football sense. I think that can be perfectly summed up when, late-on Parker got the ball and rather than booting the ball up the pitch like most would have- he played for a Foul and got the pressure well and truly off us. Tom Cairney didn't have his absolute best game today, however he was playing with a certain amount of freedom I thought today. He didn't look afraid to try a Long Shot as most of our players have done for most of this season, and on another day he'd have scored one of them. Cairney's an even more vital part of the team, assuming we're going to keep up our current selection seeing as he's going to be our only attack-minded Midfielder in the Starting 11.
What is there to say about Ross McCormack that hasn't already been said? He's just such a special player. He wasn't even that in the game today I thought, and I think it was Kay had better the better of him for the most part. However, with a player like McCormack you've always got a chance of scoring just because of his pure talent above anything else. I never usually say a player or team is "too good to go down", but in the McCormack and Dembele pairing- it really is too good to be where we are in the League. If we could defend we'd be in the Playoffs if not Automatics without a doubt.
Had I done a Bristol City Review, I think I'd have been a bit contrarian in my thoughts on Dembele from the game. Yes, he did miss a 1-on-1 to kill the game- but the main source of criticism seemed to be the way he went off the pitch. Which to be honest, I just didn't get. We were being absolutely battered by Bristol City- and at the time Rotherham were still losing to Derby. Obviously we wanted a win but a Point wouldn't have been the end of the world when Dembele went off. Anyway, moving on- and Dembele's well and truly gotten into those fans that booed him's good books after today. He was just absolutely sublime today. Physically, I don't think I've seen many players his age compete as well as he does consistently- and now he's adding fairly regular Goals back into his game he's back to the player he showed he was capable of being in the early parts of the season. Long may it continue.
The Subs we made were necessary for different reasons. Stearman was a bit rattled when he collided with Madl- and when it comes to head injuries you can't take chances in the modern climate. Fredericks came on and did well. He's a completely different type of Full-Back to Stearman, and especially with how sluggish MK Dons' defence seemed to be- he was a good player to bring on late on. Smith was brought on basically to have a target for all of the Long-Balls and clearances we were going to do late-on and just hold the ball up. Which he can of course do in his sleep. Burn was brought on basically for the same reason, but in reverse in the sense that MK Dons were just going to be launching it into the box.
In hindsight, it was a pretty easy win. The number of chances we created isn't reflected in the scoreline and had we not have won today it would have been incredibly annoying considering our just general superiority in the game. The job for us now is to go to Preston and aim for the same level of performance. We've got the quality in the team without a doubt, we just need to have the fight and team spirit to match it for the rest of the season and we'll be fine and planning our trip to Villa Park next season.
Thanks for reading, we've got 7 games to go and 7 Reviews of games on here. I'm not doing Previews for the rest of the season, so the next post will be Tuesday night where hopefully we'll be celebrating another positive result and performance. Thanks again, and have a good rest of your weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment