[madsteve]

Deja Vu as points dropped at Blackburn

CC picks Nuhiu & Helan & we struggle. Replaces them with Joao & Hooper & we storm back. Where have I heard that before. Sadly we only storm back enough for a point. CC rested Joao, Wallace & Hunt and gave starts to Nuhiu, Sougou, Helan & Palmer. Sougou scored a goal and Palmer gave a good performance but Nuhiu & Helan offered very little.

We never look fluid when Nuhiu plays and this was already showing when Blackburn scored with a free header from a well worked corner. We lacked any cohesion and the ball just kept coming back. We equalised against the run of play when Lee's shot came back off the post, after he had cleverly worked the opening, and Sougou was in the right spot to tap in.

Moments later we were behind again. From another corner, we cleared it to the edge of the box when a shot deflected badly & left Westwood stranded. We give away too many free kicks & corners. Blackburn were no threat from open play.

At half time, Joao & Hooper came on & we started to look like a team again. FF got into the game more. Wallace replaced Sougou & we looked better still and deserved the late equaliser after Palmer beautifully picked out Lee, who totally sliced his shot but it fell perfectly for Joao to nod home.

Westwood - 6
Palmer - 7
Lees - 6
Loovens - 6
Pudil - 6
Semedo - 4
Lee - 7
Sougou - 6
FF - 6
Helan - 4
Nuhiu - 4
.........................
Joao - 7
Hooper - 6
Wallace - 6

Stat Attack:

Goals:

Sougou -1
Joao - 1

Assists:

Lee - 2

Tackles:

Palmer - 3
Pudil - 3
Loovens - 2
Semedo - 2
Lee - 2
FF - 2
Sougou - 1
Nuhiu - 1
Joao - 1

Interceptions:

Palmer - 3
Pudil - 3
Semedo - 2
FF - 2
Lees - 1
Lee- 1
Helan - 1
Nuhiu - 1

Clearances:

Lees - 11
Pudil - 4
Palmer - 3
Loovens - 2
Westwood - 1
Semedo - 1
Lee - 1
Joao - 1

Attempts:

Sougou - 2
Lee - 2
Wallace - 1
Hooper - 1
Joao - 1
Nuhiu - 1
FF - 1

Attempts On Target:

Sougou - 1
Joao - 1

Key Passes:

Lee - 2
Palmer - 1
Semedo - 1
Nuhiu - 1
Joao - 1

Dribbles:

Lee - 3
Palmer - 1
Pudil - 1

Dispossessed:

Lee - 2
FF - 1
Nuhiu - 1
Joao - 1
Wallace - 1

Bad Control:

Semedo - 4
Joao - 4
Lee - 3
FF - 3
Nuhiu - 2
Hooper - 1

Crosses:

Lee - 5 (1 accurate)
Palmer - 4 (2 accurate)
Pudil - 2 (0 accurate)
FF - 1 (0 accurate)
Wallace - 1 (0 accurate)

Passing Accuracy (Total Passes in Brackets):

Lee - 79% (34)
Semedo - 78% (32)
Loovens 74% (50)
Hooper 73% (11)
Sougou 70% (10)
FF - 69% (26)
Lees - 69% (55)
Pudil - 67% (39)
Joao - 57% (9)
Nuhiu - 53% (17)
Palmer - 53% (38)
Wallace - 50% (8)
Helan - 33% (3)
Westwood - 29% (38)

I thought Palmer played better than Hunt has recently and while opposition teams have targeted Hunt, Blackburn realised that Palmer was less of a soft touch. While Palmer gets forward less than Hunt, his attacking efforts are more productive than Hunt's, who often gets lots of crosses in but rarely finds a Wednesday player.

Hooper is looking sharper with each match and I won't be surprised if he starts banging them in soon. However, he needs to be on the pitch to score & CC has to work out a way to get hooper into the team.

CC has to rotate his squad if we are to challenge for promotion but we are not going to score many goals with Nuhiu up front. He doesn't score many goals, FF doesn't play as well with him and we tend to play long ball and give away the ball. He has big decisions to make in the coming weeks because we play several of the contenders during December and we need to beat the likes of Derby, Boro, Cardiff & Birmingham if we want to go up. Players will have to be rested be he will have to be clever how he does it.