17-02-2024, 00:43
We're just desperately short up front. Against the top teams, it shows.
Southampton came out the blocks pressing high so we needed someone up top to hold the ball and alleviate the pressure. Sadly, BTA is nowhere near good enough. His first touch is like a trampoline and on the rare occasions he does get the ball under, it's a coin toss whether he's going to lay it off to one of ours or just pass it to the opposition. He did a couple of neat turns tonight, but on other occasions he failed to lay off simple balls. I'm amazed we're doing as well as we are when you consider he's led the line all season.
Sadly, on the evidence of his cameo against Blues and tonight, Marshall is not a viable alternative. He looks like a rabbit in the headlights at this level.
I'd agree with the others that the triple change on 65 minutes was strange. I felt Johnston was our brightest spark and Wallace was doing okay too.
I can only assume that Corberan wanted fresh legs to really press them, but there wasn't any noticeable extra intensity after the change. With Reach and Marshall, the quality was drastically reduced too. I could've accepted Grady coming on for Swift as he was largely ineffective. But I feel it might've been better to wait another 10 minutes as we were the side in the ascendancy and it didn't look like any of the outgoing lads had ran out of steam.
I was also surprised not to see Weimann either as the half time change for BTA, or at least when Corberan brought on Marshall. I'm assuming he must've been carrying a knock as he's surely the best of the strikers we have available at the moment and has scored in his last 2 home games. Although if that was the case, no idea why he was named as a sub?
I've noticed we're constantly linked with Yann M'Vila as a free agent. Surely there's a decent free agent striker who can actually take the ball back to goal. One can dream I guess...
Southampton came out the blocks pressing high so we needed someone up top to hold the ball and alleviate the pressure. Sadly, BTA is nowhere near good enough. His first touch is like a trampoline and on the rare occasions he does get the ball under, it's a coin toss whether he's going to lay it off to one of ours or just pass it to the opposition. He did a couple of neat turns tonight, but on other occasions he failed to lay off simple balls. I'm amazed we're doing as well as we are when you consider he's led the line all season.
Sadly, on the evidence of his cameo against Blues and tonight, Marshall is not a viable alternative. He looks like a rabbit in the headlights at this level.
I'd agree with the others that the triple change on 65 minutes was strange. I felt Johnston was our brightest spark and Wallace was doing okay too.
I can only assume that Corberan wanted fresh legs to really press them, but there wasn't any noticeable extra intensity after the change. With Reach and Marshall, the quality was drastically reduced too. I could've accepted Grady coming on for Swift as he was largely ineffective. But I feel it might've been better to wait another 10 minutes as we were the side in the ascendancy and it didn't look like any of the outgoing lads had ran out of steam.
I was also surprised not to see Weimann either as the half time change for BTA, or at least when Corberan brought on Marshall. I'm assuming he must've been carrying a knock as he's surely the best of the strikers we have available at the moment and has scored in his last 2 home games. Although if that was the case, no idea why he was named as a sub?
I've noticed we're constantly linked with Yann M'Vila as a free agent. Surely there's a decent free agent striker who can actually take the ball back to goal. One can dream I guess...