Tyrone Shoelaces

He looks pretty ordinary to me. Another one who can run a bit, pass the ball a bit, tackle a bit, head it a bit, have a shot from time to time, look busy. if he wasn’t English nobody would be commenting on him. Wharton is twice the player he is. Wharton can make things happen.

Most of these players have been benefitting from professional coaching for the last 15 years of their lives and more yet they can’t be trusted to land a ball in the danger zone. The mind boggles !

Hackney looked deeply average to me whenever I’ve seen him playing for the young England team.

We have to play the guy who we bought to replace Brittain. The guy who came on yesterday at half time. If not why did we sign him ? Montgomery at right back is a ticking time bomb. You wouldn’t see a tackle like that yesterday on your local rec. I had the sound off on my TV and I thought he was grabbing the lad because the ref had blown up for something. WBA’s coaching staff will have watched yesterdays game and will be targeting him from the off.

We’ve got a board ? Wow. Who are the lucky people ?

The ball was crying.

Yeah I saw it live, a very similar situation.

Montgomery at right back after yesterday ? De Neve instead of Kargbo ?

Toth ?

Poor defending though. Two players tackle each other then the guys at the back must have been saying - “ just come inside and have a pop with your good foot “

Much as I rate Beck as a left back the lad Liverpool signed from Bournemouth is a better prospect. He’s got what Beck has got but more of it.

We were chasing shadows for 3/4 of the game. All their players were technically accomplished, fit and faster than us. Pass and move off either foot. Play in to runners. We play walking football, they played running football.

If it’s a battle against similar players they’re ok. When they come up against footballers like they did yesterday they get bypassed too easily. The question is how many teams will we come up against that are as slick as NEC ?

Van Basten was.

Much as I like Travis and Tronstad as individual players playing both of them together it makes us a very defensive and unthreatening team to play against. It’s really rare that either of them gets up to support the lone striker, never mind getting beyond them.

With Crohns disease ?

He did well apart from dispensing with the wall that allowed their player to fire in a 30 yard thunderbolt that spanked his left hand post with him nowhere.

Yet DeNeve made him look like a decent player.

Having two water carriers in the centre of midfield is certainly limiting our attacking play

It was for me.

Nobody played well enough in that first half to get more than a 3. We were given a football lesson. There was a slight improvement for 15 to 20 minutes after half time. Then it was just the same as the first half with nobody impressing.

Todays opponents looked fitter, faster and harder to knock off the ball than we were. Never mind their superior footballing ability.

Somebody should have told him you swap shirts at the end of the game not during it. It’s a long while since I last saw a “ tackle “ like that. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The ref, who gave us next to nothing in my opinion, had no choice there.

Maybe we swam across the channel ?

Utterly depressing. It was like they were playing another sport to us. Quick first time passing into runners while we are heavy two touches and then pass under pressure to a player who is stood still.