Stand up Tom Pett. You were magnificent today. Head and shoulders the best player on the pitch in a read and white shirt. He broke down play, ran past players, passed well and was every where. If he doesn’t start on Saturday there is no justice.
Feels like we played another get out of jail free card today (do we have many left?). If the old saying “things even out over the season” holds true, we’re in for some pretty rough games!
Bury dominated the first half and should have had the game sealed by half time. They were far more threatening going forward but, like us often lacked that final ball. We were much better in the second half, yet for all the possession, I couldn’t see how we’re going to score. Thankfully we were gifted another penalty. No idea if it hit his hand from my view. Even after they went down to 10 we didn’t look that comfortable and a scrappy goal wins it for us.
As good as Pett was there really were some poor performances. Although Andrade was involved in both goals I though he had a bad game. He ran in to blind alleys and played some poor balls. He had moments though which make me think there is a good player in there.
Unfortunately from what I’ve seen Toffolo, he isn’t good enough at defending. Bury were hammering our left hand side because they knew they had him. Decent going forward but a liability in defence. I think we need to play 5 at the back to give him cover and more freedom going forward.
I don’t like Bossie and Shackell at the back together, too slow in my opinion. We need to push botwisck back into the middle of the park to start breaking down play and winning the second balls. In the last two games we’ve rarely won a second ball, or even challenge for them. Moreover, we’re not pressing other teams (this may be due to the sapping weather) and allowing them far too much time and space on the ball.
The real problem is the team isn’t gelling. The players seem on different wavelengths. Passes aren’t finding thier mark and set plays have generally been poor. Things will improve with more game time and as Danny said “we’re a million miles away from where we want to be”.
Quite unbelievably we’ve managed to bag 10 points from 4 games and remain unbeaten. I’d take a result over a performance any day of the week.
