by CountryRoyal »
17 Apr 2021 21:54
The thing about the first 8 games is that we actually didn’t play particularly well in a lot of them.
Terrible performance against Wycombe, one shot on target and fortunate to not concede late on.
Labouring performance against Rotherham, created little until later stages. 3-0 was flattering.
Pretty solid but uninspiring performance for a draw against Boro, little creativity, 1 shot on target and lucky to not lose to an incorrectly disallowed goal.
Struggled against Barnsley’s press, very much second best and needed a red card for us to eventually take the lead. Could only manage a 2-0 even after Barnsley played the last 25 minutes with 9 men.
Derby was a comfortable performance but everyone agreed they posed absolutely no challenge yet still. 3 shots on target, 2 goals.
Cardiff - decent performance, again clinical, fairly unlucky to concede iirc.
Watford - strong performance, could have conceded on several occasions early on. Once again, scored with our only shot on target and that was heavily deflected.
Blackburn - good performance imho.
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We played a lot better in games where we’ve lost. No one should discount the games, it would be nonsensical, but let’s not pretend we were world beaters. We got away with a lot and we’re extremely clinical - something well reported with all the xG tossers spaffing themselves about how we couldn’t sustain it. Well they were right, we couldn’t.
On a performance basis I think we’ve been pretty consistently inconsistent throughout most of the season, not helped by injuries to key players, lack of squad depth, lack of January recruitment and a manager who doesn’t like to rotate players or even trust the fringe players - when at times he really should have.
We have some really quality individual players, a lot of them really young which is another reason for the inconsistency. As a whole though we’ve put in some good displays, and some really oxf*rd shit displays. From individual errors up front, at the back, and in the dug out there have been several really big moments which have also let us down.
Ultimately, we are where we deserve. We aren’t really good enough and despite sporadic glimpses of real quality, we never really were.