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Price scored a wonderful goal, and Paddy Kenny has made 3 outstanding saves, plus Paynter missed a good chance. We've put them through the mill tonight. They showed a lot of quality though. They hardly had a kick after the first 4 minutes, and yet Bo has made 3 or 4 great saves and they've scored twice.
The ref was a joke. Price received a forearm in the back of the head in the lead up to their goal. We should have done better, but it's still a rotten decision. Cort looked poor. He can't play against pace and Webber is a very tricky player. All 3 goals were a bit soft, really, much like Leeds's 2 on Saturday. It'll be interesting to get Danny Coles back. He looked quality earlier in the season.
It's hard not to get frustrated when you see chances going begging and defenders struggling against tricky forwards when you know you've got McPhee and Coles out. Sod's law.
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What is disappointing is our lack of goals from set pieces. Andy Dawson put in 6 or 7 wicked crosses on Saturday, all to the edge of the 6 yard box and away from the 'keeper. He's put in another 4 or 5 tonight and we've not scored from any of them. That's poor from a side with Delaney, Cort, Collins, Elliott and Paynter in it. Delaney looked to be running on empty tonight. It's a hard game in midfield. We lack a leader when things go wrong. Too many heads drop and we have no composure. We need a cool head to keep things calm and keep us playing as well at 1-3 as we did at 0-0.
Anyway, plenty to take out of it, not least that we are not far short of having a team, and possibly a squad that can have a real go at this division. When you look at the first half performance of those players, and you add McPhee, Ashbee, Coles, Wiseman and Fagan, it's not half bad.
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In a great moment, David Unsworth was getting tons of stick off the East Stand crowd, so the next corner he got in the corner, he deliberately placed the ball a foot outside of the quadrant, just to wind them up, then gave them a shrug and a smile. Nice to see some humour in the game.
Ratings: Bo 8, France 7, Dawson 7, Cort 5, Collins 6, Price 8 (Ellison), Elliott 6 (Green), Andrews 7 (Woodhouse), Delaney 6, Paynter 7, Barmby 8.
Was interesting to hear AP say on Saturday that players have got to go out to make room for the new ones. Obviously, Ellison, Joseph, Green, Leite and Edge will be worried. It makes you wonder where that leaves the other 3 centre backs. When Coles comes back, it'll probably be Coles and one other. Cort, Collins and Delaney are very similar, it'll be interesting to see what happens there in the summer.