Sheff special
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 3:57 pm
The forum's back! The weekend seems a long time ago now, but here goes:
Doing the double over a team that must have the biggest budget in the division is a fine achievement, but that was a strange game of football. We looked completely lost for the first quarter of the match - no discernible game plan, and individual errors aplenty. Wednesday, by contrast, were physical, incisive and had a clear strategy - close us down, pick us off, don't expend too much energy doing so. But after they took an early lead, everything lacked intensity, both on the pitch and in the stands. Why didn't the Owls try to kill us off? We were there for the taking - surely they knew we weren't likely to play that badly for 90 minutes? Instead they time-wasted their way through the rest of the first half, which meant that our equaliser was as satisfying as it was unexpected.
In the second half the game woke up, and in truth we rode our luck. The switch to three at the back created gaps for us to maraud into, but also meant our midfield looked out of shape when the visitors had the ball. Right to the end Wednesday had their chances, but for once we were more clinical and snuck the three points. Our desire to see it out was the most impressive aspect of the afternoon - despite finishing with neither of our first-choice centre backs on the pitch. And for me, the funniest thing was seeing Wednesday resort to their plan B after falling behind late on - which was basically bring on a fat lad with a long throw. Strange, as they were technically much better with the ball at their feet - their goals were both very well worked, and the second particularly had me purring.
A word for Mark Sykes, who was comfortably our best player. Taylor back to his poaching best, and a decent performance from Bodin given his lack of opportunities. Long did well after moving centrally, but full backs are an area of concern, as is squad depth generally given that we have a number of players taking up places that we don't seem to trust or are injured - Forde, Hanson, Agyei, Cooper, Gorrin, Mousinho.
The transfer window will be interesting. Hopefully we've moved on from rumours of a player coming in who I last saw play against us at the Manor!
Doing the double over a team that must have the biggest budget in the division is a fine achievement, but that was a strange game of football. We looked completely lost for the first quarter of the match - no discernible game plan, and individual errors aplenty. Wednesday, by contrast, were physical, incisive and had a clear strategy - close us down, pick us off, don't expend too much energy doing so. But after they took an early lead, everything lacked intensity, both on the pitch and in the stands. Why didn't the Owls try to kill us off? We were there for the taking - surely they knew we weren't likely to play that badly for 90 minutes? Instead they time-wasted their way through the rest of the first half, which meant that our equaliser was as satisfying as it was unexpected.
In the second half the game woke up, and in truth we rode our luck. The switch to three at the back created gaps for us to maraud into, but also meant our midfield looked out of shape when the visitors had the ball. Right to the end Wednesday had their chances, but for once we were more clinical and snuck the three points. Our desire to see it out was the most impressive aspect of the afternoon - despite finishing with neither of our first-choice centre backs on the pitch. And for me, the funniest thing was seeing Wednesday resort to their plan B after falling behind late on - which was basically bring on a fat lad with a long throw. Strange, as they were technically much better with the ball at their feet - their goals were both very well worked, and the second particularly had me purring.
A word for Mark Sykes, who was comfortably our best player. Taylor back to his poaching best, and a decent performance from Bodin given his lack of opportunities. Long did well after moving centrally, but full backs are an area of concern, as is squad depth generally given that we have a number of players taking up places that we don't seem to trust or are injured - Forde, Hanson, Agyei, Cooper, Gorrin, Mousinho.
The transfer window will be interesting. Hopefully we've moved on from rumours of a player coming in who I last saw play against us at the Manor!