What did we offer first half? For ten minutes we looked lively, if uninspired, and then we lost interest. A game to be won? Nah. Can't be arsed. It's gone five o'clock for Christ's sake, we should be having a shower by now and going for a night out on the town.
We were every bit as bad in that first half as against Coventry; until O'Brien whipped in our only decent cross of the half and Cole somehow connected in a veritable scrum of players, directing the ball goal wards and into the net via a forlorn effort to clear it off the line.
Baldock, to be fair, ran the left hand channel well until he pulled up with a hamstring injury, but who else looked interested? Collison forced a good save from Fielding and after the ball bobbled loose, Faubert thought, "What iz thees? If I move, I may score a goal." Sadly, by the time he had thrown aside his Gauloise and got his fat arse into gear, the chance was gone.
But those moments apart, what was there? Baldock stupidly didn't go down for a penalty when clearly fouled in the box. Nolan broke down the left and crossed into the arms of Fielding, with Faubert again reacting with all the urgency of a sloth on downers. And Baldock played in Nolan, only for the Newcastle man to selfishly shoot rather than trying to cross to the on jogging Faubert. Oh and Faubert controlled the ball with his arm before blasting over!
And then Derby scored. God knows how many West Ham players were drawn to the ball just inside the Derby half. Faubert was there. So was Collison, even though the ball was out on our right and he was playing on our left. So was O'Brien. And Cole. And Faye, belatedly, decided to join in for good measure. And for all I know, Noble and Nolan may well have been trying to join in the party! Which meant that once Derby won the ball, we were all over the bloody shop. Mind you, the situation was still redeemable because Derby only had Priskin in our half, but Tomkins elected to ball watch rather than track the on loan Ipswich reject and McCartney arrived all too late. Priskin took the chance beautifully to be fair, but the defending was truly inept!
And then somebody dropped something into our tea and we came out a different team second half.
Why? Why can't this team perform for 90 minutes? Isn't Allardyce the guru of fitness? Do the team really have to sit on their arses for the first 45 minutes in order to see out a game? Why the hell can't we sustain urgency through the first half of a game?
Second half we passed and moved and controlled the game. Nolan's goal was wonderful. Piquionne woke up and won a dubious penalty, which Noble buried with aplomb. Piquionne should have scored with two headers. And Derby hardly touched the ball. Our domination in the second 45 was absolute, so complete that Allardyce could have taken off Green and sent on an extra striker. Dear God, at one point the crowd started crying "Ole!"" as we strung together a whole series of passes rather than hoofing the ball long as first, second, third and last resort! It wasn't exactly Barcelona, but at least it wasn't the crude cross between Stoke and Bolton that we had been forced to endure for the first 43 minutes!
So, another win, another crucial three points and another mediocre performance. Derby arrived with the worst current form in the division and on the back of three consecutive defeats; and we made them look decent first half. If we win at Middlesborough on Tuesday, we will be well on course for promotion, but the quality of football remains truly, truly dire.
Player ratings: Green 7 (He looks so much better under crosses); O'Brien 6, Tomkins 4 (at fault for the goal and drawn out of position on two other occasions), Faye 6 (not great for the goal but otherwise unfussily effective), McCartney 6 (crossing dreadful); Faubert 6 (played in Piquionne for the penalty and one excellent corner that Piquionne should have scored from but dozy all game. He has all the anticipation of a corpse!) Noble 8 (He ran the midfield single handedly), Nolan 5 (Great goal but hopeless in the first 45), Collison 6 (one lovely shot but uninspiring for most of game), Cole 7 (best player on the pitch in the second half until he was withdrawn) Baldock 7 (Lively whilst on). Subs: Piquionne 5 (Won the penalty but hopeless in the first half and should have done better with two headers in the second half) Carew 6 (looked far more interested than at Coventry) Taylor 6 (a promising cameo)
16 comments:
Think you need to re check who got drawn into the goal, that was Noble not Collison. If he would have stayed up that would never been a goal. so your 8 goes down to a 7 IMO
Watch again. Allardyce was calling for a foul on Collison. Why he was on the right, I have no idea, but it was, without question, JC!
Anon I think you will find you are wrong and HF you have missed out faye and i think 4 is unfair on tomkins who was solid for the rest of the game and he had every right to try play him offside but where was faye for the goal and where was maccartney
Corrected Fred. Tomkins wasn't trying to play offside in my opinion, he was simply ball watching, and he certainly was not solid for the rest of the game. Once he recovered his own error with a sliding tackle but Faye had to cover for him on another couple of occasions. Maybe interest from the Prem went to JT's head.
JT was clearly at fault for the goal. He let his player get away from him and thus create a goal threatening situation from absolutely nothing.
But the problem is really our midfield. I keep saying and saying and saying but I don't think anyone hears me. Not only our midfield is not creative but it is also a weakness in our defending. All the other team has to do is press our midfield and voila, we lose the ball and they counter attack! We need Matt Taylor and Lansbury and a little more steel in the middle of the field.
I agree with your views HF. Good analysis. In the first half we were pathetic, yet again!
Noble was brilliant again today but I think he's being restricted by the negative tactics that Allardyce has installed. For the last 10 minutes we kept the ball, playing short paces instead of smashing it towards Cole. And that was because of Noble playing neat short passes and then moving into space so that he could recieve it again. I can't understand why we won't do that for 90 minutes, that's what Barca do they keep the ball and the other team get so tired that Barca can easily pick them off. Our luck will run out, we can't keep playing this poorly and expect three points, Allardyce has to get us playing nice football otherwise teams will learn how to combat our tactics and we'll start losing games like these.
Noble 8???? Hahaaa! Did Dale do your ratings for you HF?!
Poor corners Stani, but otherwise had a good game. Who was helping him in midfield exactly? Nolan certainly wasn't!
I agree Tommy but the Happy Clappers won't!
Tomkins may have made those errors but he made many classy and dependable interventions today. 4 is a ludicrously low score in my opinion.
The goal derived from poor decision making by Cole in midfield. Receiving the ball in space, he elected to try s deft pass to Collison who was promptly mugged.
We were poor first half. As you rightly say, we battered them second half.
Nolan can have 1 second of brilliance and everyone will be raving about him and all the praise will go to him. But Noble, Collison, Cole and even Faubert can work their arses off for the full 90 and they get forgotten! Nolan is not a good captain. For 89 minutes he looked far too happy to stand there scratching his arse and shout at people. A good captain will lead by example - like Parker (the unofficial captain) - Nolan seems like he'd rather Noble put in the hard yards so that he can take the glory.
LOL Headmaster! Stani will seek out every Noble error and you have it in for Cole! I am a fan of Tomkins but he was poor today. Who was he up against? Nobody. He was terribly at fault for the goal and my Mum could have played centre back against that Derby team and looked half decent!
I'm still trying to recover from the shock of seeing the ball rolling along the grass from one player to next What was all that about?
LOL Allardyce gave them the order to time waste!
Tomkins was not poor today, HF. There really is no debate about that. He is a class player in the making and was outstanding at times today, along with Faye. He made errors, yes. He was not man of the match, for sure. Because of the errors, he merits a 6 - if you were being harsh, a 5. To mark him at 4 is simply being controversial. HF, controversial. Surely not?!?
Seriously mate, Derby's one chance in the second half was from Tomkins' error and Faye saved his skin. He was marking thin air for 70 mins and still was at fault for a goal!
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