I'll start with the highlight of the day. I met our very own SM (he of the fantastic match reports) at half time. It turns out he sits in the seat behind my niece. We had a good chat, and I thanked him for his match reports - for a far better and more detailed report of this afternoon's happenings - read his post when he makes it.
To the game ...
Two very poor sides. We went to sleep in the 2nd minute and let them walk through our defence to score. Our defence really is our biggest problem, but that's where most of the inured players are from, so we have very limited options for replacements. Kakay limped off at half time, so that situation may have just got worse. As we have very little creativity in the team - since Chair and Willock joined the injury list, we didn't create too many chances. Once again our our set pieces were woeful. Ruddy caught most of them without having to move his feet. Perhaps best summed up though by an injury time free kick from Johansen which sailed over everyone's heads and went for a goal kick. If we could just take a decent set piece we would pose much more of a goal threat.
I'm hoping the extra two week break will see some of our wounded fit to return to duty. I felt we really missed Chair today, so fingers crossed he will be back for Wigan.
Seny made a couple of decent saves, and hopefully that will restore his confidence somewhat. Dunne and Dickie still look vulnerable, and once again Dunne wanted to argue with the officials about every decision that went against him - even when he was bang to rights.
My biggest gripe ... this game was drifting away from us and that was obvious from early in the second half, but the first tactical change didn't come until the 60th minute (Johansen for Amos). It wasn't until the 77th minute we were treated to Armstrong (on for Dickie) and he worried Birmingham with his direct approach and runs into the box - Gareth ... should have brought him on much earlier. Lowe had one of those games where you had to check if he was playing, he was eventually subbed on 82 minutes for Dixon-Bonner. If it had been me, I would have replaced him with Armstrong around the 50th minute.
The ref Keith Stroud was ... well Keith Stroud. He missed lots of things and was generally poor. There was a scrap near the end which resulted in a flurry of yellow cards, but could have been worse.
So, very disappointed but I do think a couple of the 'missing' returning will make a big difference.
whenever we had the advantage. This lumpa is without doubt consistently the worst ref there is in England. He is dire.
