Well the penalty awarded to Hull in the first half was as soft as wet toilet paper but debateable if O'Brien did, indeed, stupidly shove Brady in the back, but the failure to award an equaliser penalty for the most obvious hand ball you will see this season was utterly inexplicable. Livermore clearly put his arm to ball and it rebounded off the point of his elbow. How the officials thought he had put the ball behind for a corner, given his body was nowhere near the ball, will remain a mystery. Although the suspicion is that Kevin was determined to be Hull's best Friend come what may!
Allardyce will do his nut, and with some justification, but that must not disguise his own crass stupidity. Once again we started with Maiga, and once again we looked utterly toothless. Time and again Mogadon failed to control the ball when it was played forward to him, and though he did, at long last, have a shot on target and also cleared the ball off his own line, he was woeful for the most part. Why he started, and why he stayed on for over 60 minutes, only Allardyce will know. Unless, of course, Petric is as crap as he looked after replacing Maiga!
But when Vaz Te came on, the game changed. He moved into space, he took on defenders, and he was hungry to get on the end of things. One freekick bent wide from outside the box and one overhead kick showed that he has more natural ability than both Petric and Maiga combined. It's time for Sam to swallow his pride and admit that he was wrong when trying to side line the man whose goal got us into the Prem.
And the introduction of Downing for Jarvis was also a factor in our second half improvement.
However, we are clutching at straws of comfort here. Yes we dominated the last 20 minutes, but we shouldn't forget that McGreggor didn't have to make a difficult save all game whereas Jussi made two impressive blocks and Livermore also hit the post. And we are talking Hull City here. Even Zola's West Ham could beat Hull City!
A crisis is unfolding. Allardyce will blame the officials and lament the fact that our best chance again fell to a defender, with Rat slicing the ball wide, but if you don't have a striker worthy of the name, how do expect chances to fall to somebody skilled at putting the ball in the net? Tomkins had a header cleared off the line, Rat sliced a chance wide, Rat set up Diame superbly, only for an air shot to follow and O'Brien delivered our best cross of the game. Doesn't say much for the offensive unit does it?
Player ratings: Jussi 7; O'Brien 4 (penalty award!), Tomkins 6, Reid 6, Rat 7; Noble 5; Nolan 6, Morrison 6, Diame 6, Jarvis 4; Maiga 3 Subs: Petric 2, Vaz Te 7, Downing 6
Nolan should get a 3.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely spot on mate, can't agree with you further on how BFS has got it wrong once again. At this rate we're gonna move into Olympic Stadium while playing the likes of Derby and Blackpool. Surely after this game he will stop starting Maiga. (But I wouldn't count on it.)
ReplyDeleteCOYI
Nolan worth a one at best how can you say he played as well as ravel
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of Noble but one thing I'm not a fan of is his set-pieces. We've had plenty of corners and free-kicks in the last couple of games and they've resulted in almost zero chances. He just floats them in. I remember fondly Matty Taylor's corners from a couple of years ago that were whipped in with pace. Most teams get a substantial proportion of their goals from set-pieces but I can't see this happening for us at the moment
ReplyDeleteThere are teams who are so good in attack that you have to play a defensive system to have any chance of getting anything against them. And then there are teams like Stoke and Everton and most surely Hull who they are so vulnerable at the back you have to be utterly stupid not attack them for ninety minutes. This is where Sam is incomprehensible to me. We need players like Collison and Vaz Te in the team for ninety minutes because they can create and finish chances up front. They are not totally predictable such as Maiga and even Nolan.
ReplyDeleteYes, the match will be remembered for two penalties that went the wrong way and instead for a winning we ended up losing. But we created our own downfall by the team big Sam selected once again.
What is scary, is that these are supposed to be the easy games that we so unforgivingly give away. We still didn't play a top 6 side. I still don't get it why we didn't start the way we finished the game!
Sav, we all know he prioritises not losing, no matter the quality of the opposition. That's why we drew so many games in the Championship!
ReplyDeleteKevin in Manchester writes...
ReplyDeleteStill don't think we will be relegated but even I as a big sam fan am frustrated as his lack of ingenuity up front. We can defend have a reasonably good midfield having bet the house on Carroll and lost it is time to be creative. YOu cant win if you don't score
Spot on persisting playing Maiga and Nolan is plain stupid. Play Vaz Te as the front man, play Jarvis Collison, Diame, Morrison, Downing, we really do a need a right back but in the meantime O'Brien, Collins, Reid, Rat. Aty least Vaz Te and Morrison know where the goal is. Leave Nolan out until Carroll comes back give the captain armband to Reid and lets try and win some games by playing the ball on the floor. The position at the moment is that if we keep playing Maiga and Nolan we will be in the championship next year. Maybe we should go and get Poyet as the manager and at least make a pretence at playing football, at the moment we are three points for the opposition because we do not look like scoring ever that gives the opposition confidence, and we will lose 1-0 the the lower teams and more with the top teams. This means that goal difference will cause us to great a headache to ever catch up. If Sam does not change andn drop Maiga and Nolan we will be in the championship next year, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee, change things please before it's too late, it cannot be any worse than it is at the moment
ReplyDeleteNolan is garbage. I don't understand how you bark about maiga but leave out Nolan. He's old and shows it. He is so one dimensional it's a joke.
ReplyDeleteI have violin for sale..
ReplyDeleteCome up to Hull and you can have it for a song...
We are. Rap. Sam has to go. This is utter rubbish.
ReplyDeleteIts a double edged sword this season, stay up and BFS will waste another 20 million in the summer and 10 in January.
ReplyDeleteGo down and we sack him start, again! But then we don't have this dross being served up. We were very unlucky V Hull but, still hardly looked like pulling to pieces a newly promoted Hull. Oh a Hull that included Faye who was not only dumped by west Ham but is only back up for them.
The striker situation, it cannot be a coincidence that so many strikers are playing so badly, the tactics? The way we play?
The strikers that have failed or not given a fair chance under BFS are Wellington, Chamakh, Maiga, Petric, Cole, Maynard and Baldock
equaliser penalty.......that is shocking use of the queens language.
ReplyDelete