Rage Online

Goals from Bowery.

We shall be promoted if he stays fit.

I still want us to sign Chris Maguire. We could have done
with his class and time on the ball yesterday.
Not saying COD was poor but he did lose the ball
in dangerous areas on more than one occasion.
I thought COD was good in the first half
and won some good headers. Second half not great.

whether it's his style of play or that he wanted to make an impact, the thing I liked about bowery is that he was looking to shoot. that might well be an important complement to our build up play.

I agree with OUFC4evA, o'dowda didn't have a good game. I wondered if he was trying too hard to impress, butOUFC4evA is right, he did lose the ball in dangerous areas and that's because he was trying to play football in the wrong areas in my opinion.

overall the team performance was excellent, man of the match performance was wright's. this game I thought appleton got his substitutions exactly right: brought on our goal scorer, evans shored things up, hoban added some energy to see the game through.

brilliant result. an important step in our season.

Wright was excellent as were the rest of the defence but he was outstanding, great to see Hylton get a start and run himself stupid (how can we think of loaning him out?), COD seems to be going backwards and seems to have been distracted by thoughts of a move (or, more likely, the wages he might get).

Fantastic team performance though as I was worried this may be the week when the wheel came off. Oh ye of little faith!

Hylts back to his energetic best and I too
thought both Wright and Mullins had storming games
at the heart of the U's defence.

Hog wrote:COD seems to be going backwards and seems to have been distracted by thoughts of a move (or, more likely, the wages he might get).

This is a somewhat understandable conclusion that I expected some people to come to as I watched O'Dowda have his second poor game in succession yesterday, but I think it's pretty unfair. O'Dowda, has had a dip in form the last couple of matches, just like all players do at some stage of a season, and this has coincided with a national tabloid running a story about him wanting big wages. I see no evidence linking the two events, or indeed any evidence for the DM story being accurate in the first place.

As for the game I think aside from Wright, Mullins and possibly Hylton, who I can't not love at any given moment when he's on the pitch, no one had a particularly good game, which makes Us battling for what I feel is our most important win of the season so far all the more satisfying. As much as I love the cup runs I'd rather have a couple more league games now rather than going straight back into the cups, nonetheless bring on the Rovers!

Boogie wrote:Goals from Bowery.

We shall be promoted if he stays fit.

We've got to get him fit first.

What I said

Bowery's a strange one. I spent most of last night exasperated with his complete inability to win a header - on one occasion he timed his jump so badly he had actually landed again before the ball flew over the top of his head; or with the fact that he needed to use his hands to control the ball - he did this three or four times, although the ref only spotted it once. He's not a back-to-goal player at all, and struggles to get the ball out of his feet unless he's running at pace. But he has got pace, and our game plan was clearly to play the ball behind their defence to him whenever possible, and it worked with his well-taken first. And then he scored with a header! It's a funny old game.

he timed his jump so badly he had actually landed again before the ball flew over the top of his head

To be fair, that seems to apply to loads of players (not only ours) in this league.

He looks like a donkey to me, but his scoring record is starting to read very well, so what do I know.