moonay
Vital Football Legend
Given that they only gave Kipre 6.5, I reckon we can safely dismiss this site in future as reflecting any true representation of what happened in the game.
T’Rovers
- Thread starter C_Latic
- Start date
Given that they only gave Kipre 6.5, I reckon we can safely dismiss this site in future as reflecting any true representation of what happened in the game.
Made in Wigan
Vital Champions League
I've think we've had this discussion before!
It was a definite penalty, though benefit of doubt that it was accidental as it was a tad bizzare. Can understand why no red. Personally the pull on Grigg and Powell in forest and stoke games were blatant and deliberate in my view and should have merited red.
TRUE BELIEVER
Vital Football Hero
The win has certainly lightened the atmosphere on here.
MoM for me was James Vaughan. From the minute he clattered Rodwell he made his intent clear, he was going to boss and bully them for the entire time he was on the pitch. He won a good 90% of the aerial battles and pressed them into mistake after mistake. I think we saw the real James Vaughan last night.
By the way, the challenge on Rodwell was not a red card and the ref was only persuaded by the Blackburn players to give him a yellow. Vaughan went in with his shoulder and Rodwell turned into him and caught him with his head happened right in front of me. Vaughan indicated straight away that he used the shoulder. What did surprise me was that although the trainer signalled to the bench that the player was unconscious and asked for the medical team he was allowed back onto the pitch immediately after the restart without being assessed for concussion. Seems to me that he was not as bad as he was making out. The Blackburn players were a disgrace throughout the match feigning injury after every tackle.
MoM for me was James Vaughan. From the minute he clattered Rodwell he made his intent clear, he was going to boss and bully them for the entire time he was on the pitch. He won a good 90% of the aerial battles and pressed them into mistake after mistake. I think we saw the real James Vaughan last night.
By the way, the challenge on Rodwell was not a red card and the ref was only persuaded by the Blackburn players to give him a yellow. Vaughan went in with his shoulder and Rodwell turned into him and caught him with his head happened right in front of me. Vaughan indicated straight away that he used the shoulder. What did surprise me was that although the trainer signalled to the bench that the player was unconscious and asked for the medical team he was allowed back onto the pitch immediately after the restart without being assessed for concussion. Seems to me that he was not as bad as he was making out. The Blackburn players were a disgrace throughout the match feigning injury after every tackle.
Vaughan and Rodwell probably came through together at Everton and know each other well. I wonder if that challenge was a bit of afters following their time at Sunderland.
Thought the ref had a good game, just like at Ewood in March it was an aggressive game, only this time the ref immediately took control by not waiting until he’d lost control to get his cards out.
Thought the ref had a good game, just like at Ewood in March it was an aggressive game, only this time the ref immediately took control by not waiting until he’d lost control to get his cards out.
Greeny978
Vital Youth Team
Just woke up after celebrating, great game by all involved. Kipre held his own. Naismith put in another decent performance, wasn't lighting the world on fire but his improvement in the past 2 games is impressive and his confidence is showing with some of the runs and passes hes making. Morsy and Evans back to their old selves. Roberts good runs after switching and cracking goal, either him, morsy, vaughan or kipre my motm too hard to pick. Vaughan great holding the ball up. I felt Windass had a poor first half, at one stage was blackburns best defender. But after 2nd half completely different player, great runs which helped win a penalty and nice assist for macca, good link up play with Vaughan.
If we play like that against Bolton then we may just end our horrid away form, 10 points above relegation zone and get a massive confidence boost. Be a totally different game though, will depend which team shows up, the one against preston or the one last night. I'd stick with that team, maybe play Windass instead of risking Powell as him and Vaughan worked great together, have powell, grigg and macca on bench if we need to gear up.
If we play like that against Bolton then we may just end our horrid away form, 10 points above relegation zone and get a massive confidence boost. Be a totally different game though, will depend which team shows up, the one against preston or the one last night. I'd stick with that team, maybe play Windass instead of risking Powell as him and Vaughan worked great together, have powell, grigg and macca on bench if we need to gear up.
E
exiled tic
Guest
Moonay i wonder if he means Powell is continuing to put 100% effort in,unlike Dack last night to the fury of the Blackburn fans?Just a thought
mightytics
Vital Reserves Team
Vaughan was immense caused a heap of trouble all night and ran his last
Could of been 6/7 , overall brilliant and long it continue
Could of been 6/7 , overall brilliant and long it continue
It’s rated on key stats, key passes (so crosses for example), dribbles and ground covered. Full backs always rate very highly on who scored for that reason.
moonay
Vital Football Legend
But centre halves have to head, tackle, intercept and distribute..... and I don't recollect Kipre screwing up on any of them.
TRUE BELIEVER
Vital Football Hero
Must admit I was an admirer of Kipre's from the first game of the season. People seem to forget he is still only a young man in his first season in the championship. He has had to deal with the step up in pace from the Scottish league and to make it more difficult has lost the partner he had formed a good relationship with in defence to injury. True, his form had dipped a little over the recent fixtures but I do believe he will be a great asset to the club for years to come and can see him and Dunkley being the rock solid defence Paul Cook builds his side around.
Soccerates
Vital Youth Team
I thought he'd just looked better in terms of commitment? He'd drifted through the last few matches. Windass played much better than he has done when he did come on and I do remember Callum McManaman has played a no. 10 role on the past as well.
He probably didn’t see enough of the ball. Plus no clean sheet. Like I said full backs get marked high on whoscored. I used to bet on the whoscored highest rated player/star man/motm for a certain game so I’m familiar with how broken the system is. If you like a dribble and attempted assists you won’t be far off the top no matter how badly you play.
Mighty Bongsmon
Vital Squad Member
Don't start on this again!!!
BTW they didn't deny obvious goal scoring opportunities. Hence why they weren't red regardless of them being blatant & deliberate
moonay
Vital Football Legend
Soccerates
Vital Youth Team
Tony Mowbray stated plainly they deserved nothing out of the game and wasn't expecting a more physical match than they did get. David Raya played very well in goal for them, their attacking players didn't really get going and I think rather than darken the result, we should remember that this was the side that pushed us all the way last season, it was a local derby and we'd lost our way. It's a good, much-needed result. Let's enjoy it and look forward to doing the same to Noblot!
Kenny Morris
Vital Squad Member
He has also had to deal with swapping from Left to Right CH since Dunkley was injured and Burn came in, not massive but just another thing where you may have a positional problem until you get used to it
Made in Wigan
Vital Champions League
Don't start on this again!!!
BTW they didn't deny obvious goal scoring opportunities. Hence why they weren't red regardless of them being blatant & deliberate
We're gonna have to agree to disagree I think!
BrickLatic
Vital Squad Member
acording to bbc. 17 shots and 9 on target. so agree he had a good game. could of been more.
king_dezeeuw06
Vital Champions League
I thought we started quite poorly lumping it long to no one. Blackburn were playing long ball even less effectively which was suprising as it completely nullified Dack by kicking it over his head and taking him out of the game. They had a very small team so were completely dependent on Graham winning the high balls and unlike our trip to Ewood last year when he gave us a torrid time he was absolutely abysmal and didn't lay a glove on Kipre and Burn.
We were simultaneously suffering a similar issue with Powell. Earlier in the season when we were playing well we still played quite a few high balls in between our slick passing and a big part of our success was Powell was winning everything aerially. But more reccently Powell has clearly been playing injured, he cant sprint and cantget as high for headers meaning he rarely wins a header and that has been a massive part of our reccent downfall. In recent games Powell has been a shadow of his former self and while you always have a chance of a moment of magic he has been largely a none entity unfortunately rather than our talisman.
But when Powell went off suddenly Vaughan started winning all the high balls like never before and the game changed as everything started to work. Windass was feeding off the flick downs and with the team having more belief that the long ball may not automatically lead to a loss of posession and counter every time like it has reccently - the whole team started to push up and we were looking more like our old selves. We were starting to do more of the good stuff we were doing at the start of the season that we seemed to have abandoned over the last couple of months. The full backs were trying to attack aggressively, Morsy and Evans were showing for the ball again, the back 4 held a higher line, the pressing high was back, the attacking mid were not leaving the strikers isolated and we were attacking and playing it out as much as possible and not just indescriminantly long balling it every time and parking the bus. It wasnt us back to our best, but it was a huge step in the right diection and exactly the type of things we wanted to see them doing again. The improvement was massive and hopefully this win will give us some much needed confidence back. After seeing our positive play and bravery rewarded again after all of our negative and cowardice lead us to such a miserable run im praying that the mislead notion of trying to be more defensive and direct is a tactic we will abandon.
One concern i had was we still made life hard for ourselves on throwins. We are too slack at picking up players and let the opposition get the ball out too easily when facing them. Plus when we taking them we too often only have one option and not enough movement or options to give us a easy route out.
Walton was protected very well but was alert to everything he had to do. Sometimes could still do with releasing ball quick as he sometimes kills a chance of us hitting teams on the counter.
James spotless as usual. England international and Chelsea legend in the making.
Naismith did really well again, he had one bad moment when he got megged by i think Armstrong but other than that was pretty solid at the back and was very good going forward. His crossing is very good and could've easy had a few assists if the finishing from his team mates was better. Again he wasn't tested as much as he could've been but overall i thought he has added a lot to us in the last couple of games. Hopefully he's getting some confidence and he is finding his feet. Maybe he'll be another Kilbane - dodgy winger converted to emergency left back, struggled badly at first but grew into the role and actually became quite good in the role. Hopefully he can keep building on these last 2 appearances and prove his worth.
Kipre was superb and Burn did pretty well except the own goal which looking at it seemed a bit more of a bad touch than an unlucky deflection.
Evans started slow but grew into the game and made a huge difference. The difference between him and Gibson is night and day. If Evans is fit Gibson shouldn't even be considered to start ahead of him - Evans offers more at both ends and brings best out of Morsy.
Morsy was back to more like his old self playing the water carrier role and driving us on. But when he raised his arms in that scuffle i thought he was going to see a straight red.
Roberts always works his socks off but varies in effectiveness but it was one of his better games and scored a great goal. Think him playing on the right and cutting in probably works better for him due to his lack of pace.
Byrne isn't a winger but works hard for the team and good on the ball. I think he'll make a great right back at this level if James gets injured or moved position. No complaints with his performance but we need someone who can offer more threat than he can in that role.
Powell not fit and we should give him time to get back to 100% rather than try and play him and scrape about 30% of his talent out of him. It wouldve been much better giving him a month off and miss the last few games and have him back to firing all cylinders rather than risking him getting hurt worse for minimal return in jaded performances like we appear to have.
Vaughan - I must admit I groaned when I saw him on the team sheet. He gives you everything he has but he's often just not big enough to win the headers. But I think he probably had his best ever game for us and was the key to our victory. He turned into the target man we needed and in the past he struggled to be. Great penalty, hope this gives him a boost and we can see more of this from him.
Windass has been more miss than hit since he came but he was brilliant and probably MOTM. He showed exactly what made us pay 2.5m for him. It made a huge difference him having an effective target man to play off and it's no coincidence that Josh's best 2 games where the 2 games his strike partner was dominant in the air. No idea what happened with him heading a certain goal for us off the goal line and how Rodwell didn't see red for his foul.
Great to see Cook making a brave sub and bringing McMannnaman on. Delighted he got a goal and hopefully Cook will finally start to put some faith in him. He's a tremendous player with still plenty to offer us if we are willing to use him.
Connelly not really on enough to say too much but think he was involved in the build up to our third goal. So good on him.
It was more like the old brave Cook in the dug out and long may it continue.
I was shocked at how bad Blackburn were i expected them to be much better after seeing them so much of them last season, they might have been the worst side we've seen all season. But sometimes you just need that break and you can start to get your season back on track just like Preston did against us. The table looks much healthier after the win and with Bolton up next hopefully we can finally break our away hoodoo and get some momentum.
We were simultaneously suffering a similar issue with Powell. Earlier in the season when we were playing well we still played quite a few high balls in between our slick passing and a big part of our success was Powell was winning everything aerially. But more reccently Powell has clearly been playing injured, he cant sprint and cantget as high for headers meaning he rarely wins a header and that has been a massive part of our reccent downfall. In recent games Powell has been a shadow of his former self and while you always have a chance of a moment of magic he has been largely a none entity unfortunately rather than our talisman.
But when Powell went off suddenly Vaughan started winning all the high balls like never before and the game changed as everything started to work. Windass was feeding off the flick downs and with the team having more belief that the long ball may not automatically lead to a loss of posession and counter every time like it has reccently - the whole team started to push up and we were looking more like our old selves. We were starting to do more of the good stuff we were doing at the start of the season that we seemed to have abandoned over the last couple of months. The full backs were trying to attack aggressively, Morsy and Evans were showing for the ball again, the back 4 held a higher line, the pressing high was back, the attacking mid were not leaving the strikers isolated and we were attacking and playing it out as much as possible and not just indescriminantly long balling it every time and parking the bus. It wasnt us back to our best, but it was a huge step in the right diection and exactly the type of things we wanted to see them doing again. The improvement was massive and hopefully this win will give us some much needed confidence back. After seeing our positive play and bravery rewarded again after all of our negative and cowardice lead us to such a miserable run im praying that the mislead notion of trying to be more defensive and direct is a tactic we will abandon.
One concern i had was we still made life hard for ourselves on throwins. We are too slack at picking up players and let the opposition get the ball out too easily when facing them. Plus when we taking them we too often only have one option and not enough movement or options to give us a easy route out.
Walton was protected very well but was alert to everything he had to do. Sometimes could still do with releasing ball quick as he sometimes kills a chance of us hitting teams on the counter.
James spotless as usual. England international and Chelsea legend in the making.
Naismith did really well again, he had one bad moment when he got megged by i think Armstrong but other than that was pretty solid at the back and was very good going forward. His crossing is very good and could've easy had a few assists if the finishing from his team mates was better. Again he wasn't tested as much as he could've been but overall i thought he has added a lot to us in the last couple of games. Hopefully he's getting some confidence and he is finding his feet. Maybe he'll be another Kilbane - dodgy winger converted to emergency left back, struggled badly at first but grew into the role and actually became quite good in the role. Hopefully he can keep building on these last 2 appearances and prove his worth.
Kipre was superb and Burn did pretty well except the own goal which looking at it seemed a bit more of a bad touch than an unlucky deflection.
Evans started slow but grew into the game and made a huge difference. The difference between him and Gibson is night and day. If Evans is fit Gibson shouldn't even be considered to start ahead of him - Evans offers more at both ends and brings best out of Morsy.
Morsy was back to more like his old self playing the water carrier role and driving us on. But when he raised his arms in that scuffle i thought he was going to see a straight red.
Roberts always works his socks off but varies in effectiveness but it was one of his better games and scored a great goal. Think him playing on the right and cutting in probably works better for him due to his lack of pace.
Byrne isn't a winger but works hard for the team and good on the ball. I think he'll make a great right back at this level if James gets injured or moved position. No complaints with his performance but we need someone who can offer more threat than he can in that role.
Powell not fit and we should give him time to get back to 100% rather than try and play him and scrape about 30% of his talent out of him. It wouldve been much better giving him a month off and miss the last few games and have him back to firing all cylinders rather than risking him getting hurt worse for minimal return in jaded performances like we appear to have.
Vaughan - I must admit I groaned when I saw him on the team sheet. He gives you everything he has but he's often just not big enough to win the headers. But I think he probably had his best ever game for us and was the key to our victory. He turned into the target man we needed and in the past he struggled to be. Great penalty, hope this gives him a boost and we can see more of this from him.
Windass has been more miss than hit since he came but he was brilliant and probably MOTM. He showed exactly what made us pay 2.5m for him. It made a huge difference him having an effective target man to play off and it's no coincidence that Josh's best 2 games where the 2 games his strike partner was dominant in the air. No idea what happened with him heading a certain goal for us off the goal line and how Rodwell didn't see red for his foul.
Great to see Cook making a brave sub and bringing McMannnaman on. Delighted he got a goal and hopefully Cook will finally start to put some faith in him. He's a tremendous player with still plenty to offer us if we are willing to use him.
Connelly not really on enough to say too much but think he was involved in the build up to our third goal. So good on him.
It was more like the old brave Cook in the dug out and long may it continue.
I was shocked at how bad Blackburn were i expected them to be much better after seeing them so much of them last season, they might have been the worst side we've seen all season. But sometimes you just need that break and you can start to get your season back on track just like Preston did against us. The table looks much healthier after the win and with Bolton up next hopefully we can finally break our away hoodoo and get some momentum.
Roy Race
Vital Reserves Team
King, that’s a decent summary of the game. However, I don’t agree that there was any change in the manager’s mindset from being ‘negative and cowardly’ to ‘brave old Cook’. I wonder whether a lot of people just see it that way so that it fits with their own narrative.
It’s funny how when we are on a losing streak Cook is being all negative and scared to attack but we win and suddenly it’s because he did what we all said he should be doing and went for it. The reality is that the team were set up no more positively on Wednesday than we were on Saturday. In fact, in the first half on Saturday we were arguably better than we were in the first half against Blackburn. The only difference was that we didn’t put the ball in the back of the net against Reading and because we didn’t the game fizzled out. When we scored on Wednesday suddenly the confidence came flooding back and we looked like our old selves.
That’s the difference, confidence, form, something just clicks and suddenly the players find that extra yard and the sharpness in their passing comes back and they want the ball again and players get forward and aren’t worried about leaving gaps at the back anymore. I’m not doing Cook down here by saying he didn’t make any amazing tactical decisions, yes he tinkered with things a bit (switching Roberts & Byrne) but he didn’t suddenly say “let’s throw everybody forwards”. He didn’t make Vaughan suddenly win everything in the air nor did he make Windass have his best game for us or turn Morsy back into the player he was last season.
A couple of weeks ago Naismith and Windass weren’t fit to burn but now we’ve seen that with a bit of confidence and a run in the team they aren’t as bad as some people think. Same with Robinson, he went from being the best thing since sliced bread to not fit to wear the shirt in a matter of weeks. He’s a young lad on a bad run of form, that’s all.
I get what you’re saying about how he made a more positive substitution by bringing Macmanaman on but the difference was we were 2-0 up. It’s easy to bring on a flair player at that point when the momentum was with us and we were looking a threat. To counter that he did actually bring on Connolly as well, at the same time, to try and protect the lead.
Rather than changing his methods Cook, to his credit, has stuck with things and has had faith in the players to turn it around, which is what they’ve done. If you listen to the official podcast a couple of the players mention that he’s had them doing extra training and they have trained harder than they ever have and Cook has reminded them about what made them a good team in the first place.
Cook has resisted the calls to go for it and throw caution to the wind and I think he’s been right to do so. I don’t think he’s been overly negative he’s just been trying to find the right balance whilst having his main front 4 out, with the injuries mounting up and with us playing all of the top four over the course of this run. Over the last few weeks we’ve had players out of form, with no confidence, who have hardly played this year, making individual errors but people want us to throw caution to the wind and go for it. Football doesn’t work like that and we’d have been smashed 4 or 5 nil a couple of times. Even the great managers don’t play themselves out of a bad run that way.
It’s funny how when we are on a losing streak Cook is being all negative and scared to attack but we win and suddenly it’s because he did what we all said he should be doing and went for it. The reality is that the team were set up no more positively on Wednesday than we were on Saturday. In fact, in the first half on Saturday we were arguably better than we were in the first half against Blackburn. The only difference was that we didn’t put the ball in the back of the net against Reading and because we didn’t the game fizzled out. When we scored on Wednesday suddenly the confidence came flooding back and we looked like our old selves.
That’s the difference, confidence, form, something just clicks and suddenly the players find that extra yard and the sharpness in their passing comes back and they want the ball again and players get forward and aren’t worried about leaving gaps at the back anymore. I’m not doing Cook down here by saying he didn’t make any amazing tactical decisions, yes he tinkered with things a bit (switching Roberts & Byrne) but he didn’t suddenly say “let’s throw everybody forwards”. He didn’t make Vaughan suddenly win everything in the air nor did he make Windass have his best game for us or turn Morsy back into the player he was last season.
A couple of weeks ago Naismith and Windass weren’t fit to burn but now we’ve seen that with a bit of confidence and a run in the team they aren’t as bad as some people think. Same with Robinson, he went from being the best thing since sliced bread to not fit to wear the shirt in a matter of weeks. He’s a young lad on a bad run of form, that’s all.
I get what you’re saying about how he made a more positive substitution by bringing Macmanaman on but the difference was we were 2-0 up. It’s easy to bring on a flair player at that point when the momentum was with us and we were looking a threat. To counter that he did actually bring on Connolly as well, at the same time, to try and protect the lead.
Rather than changing his methods Cook, to his credit, has stuck with things and has had faith in the players to turn it around, which is what they’ve done. If you listen to the official podcast a couple of the players mention that he’s had them doing extra training and they have trained harder than they ever have and Cook has reminded them about what made them a good team in the first place.
Cook has resisted the calls to go for it and throw caution to the wind and I think he’s been right to do so. I don’t think he’s been overly negative he’s just been trying to find the right balance whilst having his main front 4 out, with the injuries mounting up and with us playing all of the top four over the course of this run. Over the last few weeks we’ve had players out of form, with no confidence, who have hardly played this year, making individual errors but people want us to throw caution to the wind and go for it. Football doesn’t work like that and we’d have been smashed 4 or 5 nil a couple of times. Even the great managers don’t play themselves out of a bad run that way.
