Han
Active Member
We were the better team on Saturday, against a team that is top of the league. The fact that they were time-wasting from the off suggests that they were happy with a 0-0, which might suggest that Malky Mackay sees us as more than "also-rans".
We created a lot of chances, had one of them gone in it would have been a completely different game. NP killed the game off when he changed to the 4-3-3/4-5-1. That system very rarely seems to work for us when chasing the game. I'm not even sure why he changed it when we were creating chances anyway.
I think if we can get Andy King closer to goal we'd be in with a much better chance. He had three opportunities this week but he had to carry the ball 30 yards for two of them before getting a shot away. NP's low risk style doesn't seem to allow for him to be more aggressive.
Anthony Knockeart has been pretty poor for the last few matches, I was surprised to see him still in the starting lineup. He sometimes tries far too hard to play a perfect pass and often gets the simple ones wrong.
Lingard's stick is unwarranted in my opinion. He did an awful lot of running without getting a pass but looked very tidy on the ball and kept it moving quickly, showed a good range of passing. He might be lightweight but he looks like he has a lot of quality.
We created a lot of chances, had one of them gone in it would have been a completely different game. NP killed the game off when he changed to the 4-3-3/4-5-1. That system very rarely seems to work for us when chasing the game. I'm not even sure why he changed it when we were creating chances anyway.
I think if we can get Andy King closer to goal we'd be in with a much better chance. He had three opportunities this week but he had to carry the ball 30 yards for two of them before getting a shot away. NP's low risk style doesn't seem to allow for him to be more aggressive.
Anthony Knockeart has been pretty poor for the last few matches, I was surprised to see him still in the starting lineup. He sometimes tries far too hard to play a perfect pass and often gets the simple ones wrong.
Lingard's stick is unwarranted in my opinion. He did an awful lot of running without getting a pass but looked very tidy on the ball and kept it moving quickly, showed a good range of passing. He might be lightweight but he looks like he has a lot of quality.