Match Day Thread : The Mighty Blades v Crystal Palace | Vital Football

Match Day Thread : The Mighty Blades v Crystal Palace

Not_A_Cheat

Vital Reserves Team
So our first home PL match for 12 years is finally upon us as we welcome Crystal Palace to BDBL. An intriguing game against the type of team we probably need to be beating if survival is to occur. Very difficult match though......

But anyway?

Any team news? :)

Freeman to start?

Sharp still on the bench?

Lundstram surely not for this type of game?

We have a great PL home record against London sides but it really doesn't count for much today. We just need 3 points by any method possible. I'm very worried but will still go for a 1-0 Blades victory with Stevens getting the goal.

UTB
 
We can't underestimate Palace. They have good players and a wily owd manager. On the other hand this is exactly the sort of game we need to be getting something from if we are going to stay up. 2-0 to us.
 
We will need to be very careful today,Palace will have some very quick players to hit us on't break.If Lundy is selected i hope i dunt hear groanin from the crowd,he'll have been picked cos LORD WILDER thinks we need him.2-1 win for us mi thinks/Hope's.UTMPB
 
Nervous, worried, twitchy.........but what the heck......at least we have this fixture!! 1-1-1 Robinson
 
I can't see the line-up being much different today. Lundstram had a good write up from the Bournemouth match so why drop him?
 
In an ideal world I would like to see Robinson,McBurnie and Sharp start today. Robinson just behind the front 2. Lunny had a good game last week but we need to go at these while their defence is the weak part of the team. Not going to be easy today and we need to be on the front foot. There will be plenty of games where we need to be more cautious.
 
In an ideal world I would like to see Robinson,McBurnie and Sharp start today. Robinson just behind the front 2. Lunny had a good game last week but we need to go at these while their defence is the weak part of the team. Not going to be easy today and we need to be on the front foot. There will be plenty of games where we need to be more cautious.

I think Palace were a 50/50 team. Had they been organised then we might not have won but we did make them look bad.

Regardless of what happens against Leicester, I think that we should go all out at Chelsea. Its one of those games were we are unlikely to get anything but they have an unsettled side - although full of good players. We should go with a AM and go for it!
 
I think after this match that I was fixating too much on the formation and not the players involved. We kept the "flat 3" all game, but when Freeman replaced Fleck it became much more attack minded and fluid, while still keeping us solid at the back. If we are going to keep using this tweak going forwards, which it looks like we will, then I think we will probably need to have one of Freeman or Morrison in the side to allow us to have an attacking dimension. Fleck and Lundstram both have a natural impulse to sit deep, which cuts the midfield off from the strikers. So you have either:

Freeman Norwood/Besic Lundstram

or:

Fleck Norwood/Besic Morrison

Fleck and Lundstram together would be fine in games against the top sides, where we would value defensive solidity over attacking flair.
 
Greetings from Austria, it was a very tense drive down yesterday with updates via Whats App and nowhere to watch.

Come on You Blades!

Was it hanging on or were we quite comfortable?
 
Greetings from Austria, it was a very tense drive down yesterday with updates via Whats App and nowhere to watch.

Come on You Blades!

Was it hanging on or were we quite comfortable?

We were on top for most of the game, but we did sit deep and defend for the last ten minutes (plus the seven minutes of stoppage time.) It felt pretty tense at the time, but while they had all of the ball they didn't manage to create anything at all and Henderson was untroubled throughout.
 
I didn't like the 7 minutes but then I expected it to be high do to our game management. Not too nervous as we are a better 'team' then Palace IMO.
I don't want to be over confident though and we must learn to not sit back for 20 minutes at the start of games, at least not when we play the average Prem games.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Gents, I was driving and the wife commentated ed on text updates and we seemed to play forever, thought there must have been a few VARS in the game.
 
We didn't notice VAR but I was told it was used once to check for hand ball
but nothing on the screen at the Lane.