Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:20 pm
Reading these early posts, I wonder why everyone has the knife into Bradley. Is it because our expectations of him are higher than for the others? Personally, I thought that he was the least bad of four bloody awful midfield players today. How was Mattis given man-of-the-match by the RAF sponsors? Their observational skills must be very poor! :twisted: Although he deserves credit for his part in the build-up to Byfield's goal, he cancelled that out by being at fault for both Carlisle goals. For their first, his error left Weston easily "skinned" by Robson and for the second he came off Kavanagh whom he was supposed to be marking to allow him to cross the ball unchallenged.
Bradley did not play well today but Mattis, Nicholls and Richards were all much worse. Mattis is a scrapper and battler and nothing more (but no better than Taundry in that rôle). Nicholls never got the better of the Carlisle left-back and as for Richards - WHY??? Obsessively left-footed and contributes nothing to the team play.
Having said all that, I will speak in defence of our midfield. The distribution of our back four, today, was universally dreadful - a style of aimless "hoofball", even worse than in the days of Dicky Dosh and Jimmy Muddle. In terms of ball-winning, they were quite sound (apart from Hughes in the first half) but, once they had possession, all we got was a big hoof up-field, over the heads of midfield, to no-one in particular - well no-one in a red shirt, anyway. Who is telling/coaching them to play in this appalling way? I think that we all hoped that Hutchings would try to introduce at least a touch of style or class into our play but our current style (or lack of it) would embarrass a Sunday morning pub team. Certainly, if McDonald thinks that he has a career in the Premier League ahead of him, playing like that, then he is due for major disappointment.
It's not new players that we need most of all, it's coaching, organisation and tactical discipline. Over to you, CH.