The View From Churchmans

A rather disjointed performance on a very cold night, where the result rather flattered us and the breaks (well, one in particular) went our way. Fortunately the opposition were pretty dire, so the win was deserved, but we’re going to have to do better than this to stay in the right half of the table.

A few changes, most forced, meant that we played pretty much 4-2-4 with Haynes on the right and poor Jonny Walters pushed over to the left. From what I can gather, Harding and Roberts were dropped, but Miller was ill. Walters playing on the wrong side, in conjunction with the huge hole in midfield that was Gavin Williams, meant we really didn’t have much coherence at all coming forward. Several poor performances, but one of the worst was the manager’s, I’m afraid.

Overall Town performance:
5/10 – messy.

Opposition quality:
3/10 – as unthreatening as anyone we’ve had all season.

Referee:
5/10 – thanks for the penalty, and understandable that it was given (it looked cast iron to me at the time), but it turns out that it probably shouldn’t have been a penalty, and therefore the subsequent red card must have been all the more galling for Leicester.

Match excitement:
5/10 – not particularly memorable.

Opposition supporters:
4/10 – minimal, and rarely entertaining

Player ratings as ever 1 to 5 for each of effort/achievement…

ALEXANDER 5 (3/2) had little to do, but was made to look silly when we presented them with the chance for their goal.

WRIGHT 7 (4/3) did a fine job all night, even eventually deciding that we’d get better results down that wing if he came forward with Wilnis rather than Haynes, and he was proved right; WILNIS 7 (4/3) still looks the most athletic player in the side; DE VOS 6 (3/3) continues to look dependable, the aberration of their goal notwithstanding; and SITO 6 (3/3) took few chances, but caused no worries.

HAYNES 4 (2/2) was extremely frustrating, rarely being prepared to take a man on, and delivering almost nothing of note; GARVAN 6 (3/3) wasn’t really in the groove for the first half, but took at lot more responsibility as the game went on; WILLIAMS 4 (2/2) contributed almost nothing all evening, and was a huge disappointment; and WALTERS 5 (3/2) can only be commended for keeping going despite being in a position which didn’t suit him in the slightest and where he was completely wasted – why this wasn’t rectified early on I’ll never know.

LEE 5 (2/3) looked tired yet again – there must be a problem here, and if Jim feels he still has to play, we must be even shorter on cover than it appears; but COUNAGO 8 (4/4) was my man of the match (I can’t believe I’ve just typed that!), constantly a nuisance to Leicester, constantly working hard, and unlucky not to have had a hat-trick.
TROTTER got ten minutes and CLARKE about ten seconds, neither of which gave them a chance to make an impact, although both would have been welcome changes at half-time.