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Millwall v Boro 1-3 (Engel, Jones, Forss)


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5 hours ago, Dynamo Kev said:

i think its okay rav will sort it. and he pretty much deals with everything everytime. love the kid

Not today he didn't.  Was fairly poor the bits I saw (by his recent standards).  Understandable though as he is playing a lot of football, and he's been playing at a high level.

Edited by Changing Times
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9 hours ago, p_mards said:

It was a brilliant win. The performance wasn't the greatest with poor 10/15 minutes spells at the beginning of each half, but after we settled into each half our flashes of quality proved vital. After the mentally and physically draining midweek victory over Chelsea I'm not going to over analyse the negatives as I was always anticipating a tough game against an in form Millwall side. Overall it was a tired performance, best highlighted by the fact that aside from Fry, our better performers were Rogers, Greenwood and Azaz - all of which weren't involved on Tuesday night. Fry was the stand out performer with the way he dominated balls into the box. Ayling performed well also. Azaz showed some good flashes too. When our team was announced I was really pleased to see the strength on our bench with Clarke, O'Brien, Hackney, Crooks and Forss available again. Hopefully we can keep them fit and start to find our rhythm. When Hackney came onto the pitch you could immediately tell he was a class above with the way he opened Millwall up. 

The way Forss sweetly struck the ball in for the third is exactly why I'd love to see him given the opportunity to start upfront. A huge amount of praise for that goal needs to go to Rogers for his excellent first touch and early delicate pass to set up Forss. I wouldn't have trusted any of our other players except for McGree to be able to do something so technically difficult. Next season I think Rogers will be a stand out player for us. Greenwood was better at letting moves flow through him - something he's really struggled with. He deserves credit for starting and assisting the move for Engel's goal with clever movement and link-up play. I hope we keep him on loan until the end of the season as he's got good potential and will only get better with time. 

Glover has been great in recent weeks but Dieng has still got to be our number 1 as he's still the better goalkeeper. It's remarkable to think that when we signed Glover next to nobody had heard of him, he came from an obscure league, was a free transfer and likely on back-up goalkeeper wages, whereas in previous times we've signed the likes of Stojanovic, Bettinelli and Lumley with the intention of being our number one on highly likely far costlier deals - all on which are far inferior to Glover. It highlights the power of recruiting well and spending our money wisely. Huge credit has to go to Scott and everyone involved in the recruitment side of things as we seem to have got a very good back-up goalkeeper for cheap - One that could even in time develop into a good first-choice goalkeeper.

Said it before and will say it again your posts are always worthwhile reading.

Very considered authorship

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7 hours ago, Changing Times said:

Not today he didn't.  Was fairly poor the bits I saw (by his recent standards).  Understandable though as he is playing a lot of football, and he's been playing at a high level.

Thought Rav had a little bit of trouble to be fair. Watmore turned him inside out once or twice. He’s still learning. 
 

Good debut from Ayling. Thought he was caught out of position a few times mind. He had that problem at Leeds too. I liked how he linked up with Jones.

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10 hours ago, edinboro said:

That 2nd half was one of the most assured performances I've seen. Once we ran Tuesday out of our legs we bosses it. Howson is so key - once he clicks everything works. Hackney will pick that role up.

Ayling got better and better, as did Fry and RVDB. 

Really enjoyed my day out. 

Glad someone else sees this. Lots were asking for a midfield of Hackney and O’Brien at the start of the season but I actually rate Howson very highly. When he is out or off his game we miss what he gives to our midfield. Don’t know how we are going to replace him when he finally hangs up his boots as he has many great attributes 

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50 minutes ago, Riverside94 said:

Glad someone else sees this. Lots were asking for a midfield of Hackney and O’Brien at the start of the season but I actually rate Howson very highly. When he is out or off his game we miss what he gives to our midfield. Don’t know how we are going to replace him when he finally hangs up his boots as he has many great attributes 

In recent weeks I think howson has done really well when we've been on top, but when we've been struggling he's been one of the worst players on the pitch. He just doesn't grab hold of the game when we need him to imo, and struggles to impose himself unless the whole team is performing. 

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35 minutes ago, Neverbefore said:

In recent weeks I think howson has done really well when we've been on top, but when we've been struggling he's been one of the worst players on the pitch. He just doesn't grab hold of the game when we need him to imo, and struggles to impose himself unless the whole team is performing. 

howson was class especially second half. 

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19 minutes ago, Dynamo Kev said:

howson was class especially second half. 

Which is my point, he looks great when we look good as we did in that half. But when we're not performing (which has been an awful lot this season at times) he's really poor. I think he's cost us as many goals as anyone this season with poor tracking, closing down and giving the ball away from dwelling on it too long. 

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Just now, Neverbefore said:

Which is my point, he looks great when we look good as we did in that half. But when we're not performing (which has been an awful lot this season at times) he's really poor. I think he's cost us as many goals as anyone this season with poor tracking, closing down and giving the ball away from dwelling on it too long. 

i'd rather play obrien and hackney, because they are better players. regardless of that a lesser player can still play well. which is like engal. hes not a great player at all but has good games. i'd be fearful if hes a fullback and we play prem sides. 

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Great result yesterday. Up until our equaliser we were really poor, playing exactly like a team that had recently spent 90 minutes defending for their lives.

Once we equalised though I thought we largely controlled the game. Millwall’s extremely aggressive press was always unsustainable I guess. I’m liking Carrick changing our system to suit the needs of the game, he seems to be getting much more obviously flexible in his approach to game management which is good to see.

It’s also nice to have some strength in depth back. Utfb

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18 minutes ago, Dynamo Kev said:

i'd rather play obrien and hackney, because they are better players. regardless of that a lesser player can still play well. which is like engal. hes not a great player at all but has good games. i'd be fearful if hes a fullback and we play prem sides. 

I think barlaser is ahead of howson now too. Hes a great option to come on to help in the second half and ive also no issue with him starting some games but barlaser and hackney have more of an impact across 90 mins than howson. Yet to see o brien much so not gonna comment on him just yet.

As for engel... Well he's just played vs 2 good prem sides and came through them pretty well. Though I do agree with your general point, he scares me sometimes and I think he has a tonne of improving to do to get anywhere close to prem quality. Ayling showed him on the other side how much work he's got to do imo. 

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17 hours ago, Erimus74 said:

Over the moon with that result, we were scrappy, seem to have given the ball away far to easy & IMO, part from Ayling no one really stood out, plenty of runners mind, then we sort of grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck, kept our shape, let Millwall continue to play from side to side without causing us any problems, after winning the ball back we broke away & two excellent pases, Azaz assist for our 2nd & Rogers excellent control for our third, putting the game to bed

I feel like with 2 debutants and playing without a recognised striker the team took a while to get into the game and figure each other out? The bits I saw of the first half were very disjointed.

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Interesting that we won with just 41% possession and being out-passed by Millwall. 

One of the things we have struggled with under Carrick is finding a "plan B" when playing away from home and/or against better teams. 

There was a real element in the first 30 minutes of being like a boxer on the ropes. We hung on and protected ourselves as best we could until the other side ran out of steam. Then we slowly levered ourselves back into the game. It was a lot like the first play-off game against Coventry. We battered them for 30 minutes but couldn't make it count.

When you bear in mind just how many players were missing, how many were still recovering from the Chelsea match and then being stuck on a bus it was a performance full of character and grit but also showing that we can play with good defensive organisation when needed.

Watching Watmore was like watching Latte Lath. Can tear a defence to pieces but struggles to make it count.

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