Tue Sep 28, 2010 10:36 pm
Well what a pathetic performance. For the first time in a long time, I booed at the final whistle. If there was any game we needed Bellamy it was tonight. We needed a leader, someone to set an example on the pitch for others to follow, someone to get the crowd going, someone to gee up his team mates and someone to shout as his team mates when they are not putting the effort in. Tonight, I didn't see one City player running his guts out for us, it was like a practise match, slow paced, no enthusiasm, energy or commitment, it was as if nobody wanted to be out there.
As bad as our performance was on the pitch, Dave Jones' stubbornness led to him only making one substitution, and that was not only like for like, it was subbing a full back for another full back which did nothing to change the game whatsoever. Yes, we have injuries, but aside from having a natural striker on the bench, nobody can say he had a lack of options on the bench tonight to change it.
Firstly, Lee Naylor should never have started after his performance Saturday. The problem with our defensive performance Saturday was clearly with Naylor, yet Gyepes gets dropped. Gyepes lacks pace, but was he really the liability Naylor was Saturday? Anyway, it seems that Dave Jones has decided that he has left Paul Quinn to rot long enough so he ended up replacing Naylor tonight, but with Darcy Blake out injured, I think we should have started with a back four of McNaughton, Gyepes, Hudson and Quinn, who is a lot more solid defensively at right back than Matthews.
Then after a poor first half, it was clear 5 minutes into the second half that Koumas was out on his feet, yet Dave Jones keeps him on. We had McPhail on the bench, why not put him on instead and shift Whittingham out to the left? As the game went on further, we ran out of ideas and were lacking creativity, again, perfect for McPhail to come on. I am not the biggest fan of McPhail, but tonight, we were crying out for someone with the confidence to demand the ball and dictate play. McPhail could have been that man tonight. Our tempo was so slow tonight that we needed someone like McPhail to come in and change it.
As the game went on, it was clear Koumas had nothing left and Burke was having another poor game. We needed to replace one of them with someone who will run at the tiring defence and create. Perfect for Adam Matthews you would think! But no, Jones won't play him now, he has publically slagged him off after the Ipswich game and wants to make him rot and suffer for a few months!
Even towards the end, we had no striker on the bench but Gyepes has played up front before and is a physical presence. Why not go for broke and chuck him up front for the final 5-10 minutes? After all, we are the home team against a very poor Crystal palace side, who have yet to score a goal away from home or take a single point away from home until tonight, and who got hammered by Derby 5-0 last Saturday.
There's no denying that we were dreadful tonight, but Dave Jones could and should have freshened things up and made changes as it clearly wasn't working with our current line up on the pitch! As for my man of the match, the sponsors gave it to Heaton, which speaks for itself as he made one fine save and nobody outfield deserved it.
The only outfield player that deserved the man of the match as much as Heaton was Hudson. I am still not a fan of Hudson but tonight he made two goal saving challenges and apart from missing the header from one cross in the first half, he was faultless. Hopefully he can continue this run of form as he has started the season quite well in my opinion. I have slagged him off in the past but I would love him to continue putting in performances like this to prove me wrong.