Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, especially when it comes to football, but some of the comments in here are a little exaggerated.
I’m incredibly frustrated we lost yesterday, but there are certainly positives to take from it:
- Ogogo looks a great acquisition, he’s not a game changer but very much an enforcer.
- Mason looks solid defensively
- MR actually set us up to play football and attack - a positive sign for the season and his ambitions
- The interplay between Andreu, Bayliss, Biamou and Hiwula at times was a class above
- It’s clear there’s more to come from a number of players; Hiwula, Mason, Sterling, Andreu, Bayliss.
- We still have Jones, Davies and another striker to add to the mix
Although he was solid defensively I thought Mason was shakey offensively, especially the first half, but I’d put that down to nerves. Sterling was also a little underwhelming, but again I’d say that’s a combination of nerves and inexperience of men’s football.
I don’t agree with the selling of McDonald criticism, McDonald wouldn’t have been any better than Thompson yesterday. Why would we keep hold of him for the sake of one game, especially as MR obviously believes Thompson is close enough to the first team.
Andreu is very much a playmaker in the Mata mould, he’s not going to run at defenders or move play forwards with the ball, but he’s constantly looking for a ball behind/through the defence. Which highlights that either we need a pacey striker as opposed to a target man type or our wingers need to push on more.
We out performed a team who have consistently been up there in L1, so while the result was poor, with a few tweaks I still believe we’ll have a strong season.
