This.
There were 6 people between 18-25 yards out just standing there. Best cross of the night. Not long before, Simon was complaining about the ball not getting crossed to him, he was 19 yards out from goal behind 4 players!
That performance was abysmal. Victory are at best, the 5th best team in the comp and we made them look like Bayern Munich.
Just, on the Caceres love-in... Hoping that this won't blow up in my face as much as my comment last week but...
Watching him the last couple of weeks, I see that the kid has talent and I think we've all more or less agreed that he's no #10 - at least not yet... He's not strong or experienced enough... But I'm increasingly suspicious that he's not experienced enough for the DM role either, I'm wondering whether Monty made him look good, in a sense. Whenever he gets the ball, he seems to head for the single largest group of opposition players and try to play his way through. As with playing out from the back, there's a time and a place for this and if there's a huge gap right in front of you which will allow you to pass the ball off in a decent position, then that's probably the way to go. I appreciate that there can be advantages to not taking the obvious route, but this approach is just stupid... It was something that frustrated me last week and I noticed it again this week. It's not even that they are coming at him, it just feels like he runs straight to it sometimes.
But then, what do I know... I also didn't think Matty was as shockingly poor as the various forums seem to suggest... I thought the Leijer thing was a reasonable call from the ref, sometimes these things just happen and I don't think that it'd have happened if he'd seen him come in... And it's a bit rich to see Muscat of all, go on about it to the ref. From memory - again - wasn't that Fitz pass, a result of a quick turnover and run, while it was frustrating to see, I got the impression that the rest of the team hadn't really clicked to the fact that the ball was back in our posession yet.
I'm not sure how I would've handled the subs... I think one of the things that's made Bernie valuable since he came back from that trial last year, is that he has started working almost as hard defensively as he does in attack, he tracks back and tries for a turnover... These are some of the same qualities that I see in Matty simon, he might not be as skilled, but he's commonly skilled enough and his work-rate is great. I've complained about it before but, players like BigMac would often stop at the halfway line and do little to get the turnover. Duke can work hard for it but, in my view, one of the reasons why he hasn't worked so well in the wings is that he's not as good at getting the ball as he is at moving it forward. For a game like the one yesterday, I think there was value in having both Matty and Bernie on the pitch, but then, I also think that Duke was needed, so not sure what to do, unless we'd done something like taking off Caceres for Duke and go from there.
To add to my horrifying comments, I actually also though Seip looked reasonable when he came on, he brought a bit of energy to the side, just didn't seem to be able to rub it off on anyone.
Oh an WHOAH! Bl**dy good on the crowd, from the TV at least, the chanting just seemed to raise a notch for every MV goal - that was just extraordinary, when RBB would've gone quiet after the second one
<spreads arms and raises head to the sky> Flame Away!
