[wba13]

Shocker of a performance, but sometimes it's better to be lucky than be good.

I just hope how terrible we were second half - just sat off them waiting to concede - was down to low confidence as a result of not winning for 6 months and we'll not see that again now we have a win on the board.

Shout out to Sam Johnstone who I've been highly critical of numerous times for costing us points. He was excellent today and won the game for us.

That said, how we haven't conceded tonight is anyone's guess. I don't think I've seen any team miss so many absolutely sitters as Sheffield United. Our defending was basically none existent and Bilic's tactics were as shocking as ever. How he's taken Robbo off who was working his balls off and left Pereira on jogging about for 90 minutes is beyond me.

Would also be nice if Bilic actually told Pereira to stop p*ssing about on corners and just whip balls in. We had 14 corners tonight and about half of them were wasted either going short and then being immediately offside from the return pass or lofting a ball to the edge of the box to Gallagher which leave you in the sh*te if you are dispossessed with everyone the wrong side of play. On the rare occasions when he did a simple cross, it lead to the goal and our best chance for Bartley. Why Bilic sanctions so many tip tap corners when you had 3 centre halfs plus Furlong in the box is beyond me.

But a win on the board, onwards and upwards.

My heart tells me this is the start of a climb up the table, but my head says it's papering over the cracks of having a manager who is severely out of his depth.

This reply is utter rubbish it was not a shocker of a performance, We rode our Luke yes and except for some corners Pereira was superb.  For Robinson was out on his feet needed to be changed. I also have yet to see any prem keepers performing better than Johnstone he has been terrific all season.

For me it's criminal to label Pereira's performance as "superb" when he's part of a midfield 3 and simply doesn't put ANY defensive shift in. I mean there was one occasion when Basham broke out of defence with the ball and Pereira couldn't be arsed to even jog back to push him wide. I can only assume you are only watching what he does on the ball, as his off the ball work has been shocking all season. There was another occasion when Gallagher went hunting for the ball high so Periera has to drop in next to Sawyers, but again couldn't be arsed to jog back so Sawyers had to cover 4 blokes. It resulted in Baldock missing a sitter.

But of course, who cares if we don't defend if they miss, right?

As for his corners, it just really annoys me when it's our best chance of scoring and we waste 5 or 6 of them. Our goal and 2 best chances (Bartley's header and Grant's chance on the swivel) came from corners, so why not just get back to basics? Had we whipped all 14 corners into the box rather than wasting 5 or 6 of them on "hollywood" routines, 2 of which resulted in instant offsides then we might've scored again and not been hanging on by the skin of our teeth at the end of the game. But I blame Bilic for that as he's the coach and should see corners were our biggest threat and just tell Pereira to cross it every time.

As for Sam Johnstone, he was excellent yesterday and 100% responsible for the win. He's had some good games this season, but I disagree he's been terrific all season. If you look back at the Everton game, they scored headers in the 6 yard box where he was rooted to his line. Chelsea game he cost us 2 goals and a win, Tottenham game cost us a goal and a draw.  My comments are based on more than just the last couple of games and are based on his entire time at the club. At the tail end of last season he made vital errors like costing us a result against Huddersfield which put promotion in Brentford's hands. But I call a square a square, he was superb yesterday. If he performed like that more frequently - the main change being actually punching some crosses - then I wouldn't have question marks about him. Let's hope he keeps doing it and then we will agree about him.

But yes, I stand by my comments that it was a really poor performance as a whole...

We had a good spell, but it was sandwiched between starting and ending slow. First 3 minutes we should've been a goal down as Sheffield missed 2 guilt edge chances. At the end, we were so deep that we were almost on Sam Johnstone's toes and they made a good 3 or 4 chances to equalise. The fact Sheffield Untied couldn't finish their dinner does not mean our performance was good, I'm afraid.

But onwards and upwards. The main thing is to get a win on the board. But we will have to perform with more belief to replicate that.

To put a positive spin on my post, I will say that there were some decent performances. Callum Robinson was again excellent and IMO should be a nailed on starter. Gallagher was again energetic and although his goal was fortunate, at least he was calm enough to keep it low rather than lashing at it. And the best of the lot was Romaine Sawyers who was really good on the ball yesterday. Obviously with Sawyers, he's going to perform better against teams who don't press much, and Sheffield United are probably the least energetic side in the league so that worked in his favour.

We will have to agree to disagree on both Pereira who was given mom by sky and numerous papers the same with Johnstone who is a really god keeper, agree Sawyers had a decent match and did you notice as soon as Townsend went off they created a lot of chances down our right,for me it shows just how much Townsend has improved.