Tyrone Shoelaces

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.

There’s mistakes and then there’s thinking your playing for the British Lions not Rovers.

Our passing is diabolical. We can’t keep the ball to save our lives. There was a simple 15 yard pass to DeNeeve and we wallop it 40yards into touch. Nobody is playing well - 3/10 the lot of them. The shape of things to come I’m afraid.

Billy Paul - Me And Mrs Jones

Brittain was/is a good atttacking player, seemingly the only one who could consistently put in a good cross or a penetrating lateral pass into the danger areas. Defensively he’s improved from poor up to average. If we are intending on playing with a totally defensive back four and two real wingers he won’t be a great loss. If we are expecting more from the full backs we’ll miss him a lot.

Gun - Race With The Devil

I try an be objective but I thought the ref was leaning to Spain. They don’t do the diving in fouls like we do but they do the holding back breaking players type fouls all the time. I thought two of the Spanish players should have been booked. It looks like you can’t just win the ball now. If you win the ball and touch the other player in any way afterwards - it’s a foul.

Every player was good on the ball, they could all pass off either side under pressure, they found spaces better than we did. It was when they got into our penalty area that they lacked ideas. 8 games out of 10 they would possibly beat us. Yesterdays game was one of the 2 were they couldn’t.

The Miracles - You Really got A Hold On Me

Regarding the strikers. Both having played at this level is a double edged sword. OK they’ll be more experienced but teams will know a lot more about them now. They won’t be unknown quantities any more.