Fagan was probably our best player; he was busy up front, created the chance for Barmby and got on the ball a lot. He also scored the crucial penalty. Elliott missed the chance to put us two up in the shoot out and Hartlepool came back to lead 2-1 (Duffy also missed) when Fagan coolly scored to equalise under pressure. Boaz saved his second penalty and Dawson wrapped it up.
Boaz gave his usual commanding, reliable performance and made two great stops in the shoot out. Ricketts and Dawson got forward a lot but without delivering anything or looking dangerous at all. Dawson's set pieces were rotten. Turner and Collins defended OK, the only real threat was the very quick James Brown. On the ball, they had a mad 5 minutes in the first half when they looked very shaky, but otherwise passed well and helped the team keep the ball.
The midfield featured five players (after subs) who should have been desperate to impress but only France did. He was also busy and looked our biggest threat, linking up well with Fagan. He didn't get down the line and deliver though, which he should have done. Mark Yeates was pretty feckless. He spent most of his time drifting inside and when he did have an opportunity to run with the ball, he didn't take it. He showed one or two moments of great skill, but not a lot else. He should have scored in the second half after nicking the ball up field and skipping past two defenders. He had two choices, advance on the goalkeeper, or draw the last defender across and slip Fagan in. He took option three: Shoot weakly from 18 yards. Verdict: Not impressed.
Welsh was alright, but nowhere near the standard that Ash and Dougie have set lately. Marney wasn't either. Their biggest problem was that they sat square all of the time, rather than one advancing. Marney only advanced if he had the ball and rarely got forward to support the front men. He was playing Ashbee's role, but doing a naff job. They did enough to keep the team passing the ball, but created little and only looked as good as their opposition. Elliott came on for Yeates and made no contribution other than two headers to no-one. He just doesn't have anything about him anymore and his body language doesn't say "Determination to succeed", it says "Desperate" which isn't the right attitude.
Up front, Fagan and Barmby started. They linked up well once early on, but Barmby just wasn't at the races after that. It's a struggle to think of one other contribution. When the Big Man and Duffy came on, Fagan went wide right, from where he tried, but didn't deliver and the whole team looked livelier. Despite a bigger share of possession, we didn't create good openings high up the pitch, choosing to punt at Parkin instead. We created a spell of pressure in the last 10 and threw some balls into the box, generally from deep areas, which created a couple of chances that Duffy fluffed and two strikes from Elliott and Marney that were handled by defenders. In fact, there were about 7 hand balls that went unpunished in the game. Parkin headed the best chance of the game into the keeper's hands in injury time. That was about his best contribution. Duffy ran about and gave some energy, but didn't make intelligent enough runs and fluffed 3 or 4 headers and his penalty.
All in all, we escaped with it. We probably deserved it on chances and possession, but we were hardly dominant. From the 7 changes from Friday (2 positional, 5 personnel), only France will make a tough decision for Parky. The others just didn't impose themselves on the game.
Ratings: Bo 7, Ricketts 6, Dawson 6, Turner 6, Collins 6, France 7 (Parkin), Yeates 5 (Elliott), Marney 5, Welsh 6, Barmby 5 (Duffy), Fagan 7.