17 Feb 2019 12:58:07
Its was difficult to believe yesterday that Preston had put 3 past Norwich earlier in the week as I doubt they would have scored if another 90 minutes had been played.
However it has to be said that we were hardly hammering the door down either and as the game went on it had all the hallmarks of a stalemate between two sides seperated by three points.

The initial 5 minutes saw Preston go close but after that the game pretty well settled into a pattern of hard fought posession and good soild defending from both teams with, to my mind , no real penetration or cutting edge up front from either side which is in no way at all a criticism of Murphy or Grabban who had precious little to work with but continued to chase and run off the ball.

Once again every player put in a shift with the two centre backs continuing to impress and control things at the back and Milosovic in particular may well go on to prove to be a real find for us.

Mention to Pantilimon who continues his upward curve and is at last beginning to show a little more positivity in the box and his distribution has improved markedly insofar as most of kicks don't go striaght out anymore.

Carvalho made an appearance but in fairness to him the game had settled into the hard tackling combative affair it was which is not really suited to his style of play and ,despite his undoubted skill, the game for me largely passed him by.

The Lolley " goal " was scores at the far end of the pitch so I didn't see it close up live but the highlights would tend to suggest the goal should have stood although the decision doent feel so unfair as the ones at West Brom and Leeds.

As we approach the business end of the season we are to a certain extent relying on Bristol,Boro and the sheep to not maximise the two games in hand they have on us and at least we can have a say in that next Monday by taking the three points.

The play offs are far from out of our reach and we do look more difficult to beat under the current manager and we have to play 3 of the teams above us and this unpredictable league will continue to throw up surprises and odd results to the last kick.

A point away from home agaist a side in form is never a bad result and we go into Mondays game in good heart and with nothing to fear so

As always.


COYR

1.) 17 Feb 2019
17 Feb 2019 14:14:54
Creepy with regard to carvallho,what exactly is his style of play ?? There. always seems to be some excuse for his ineffectiveness, seemed to me his only contribution was to give the ball away leading to a free kick which could have cost us in injury time, and hard tackling sums up the championship , if that stops him playing he might as well go home

2.) 17 Feb 2019
17 Feb 2019 15:48:50
I think you may well be right stevie and his style of play as far as I can see is to have more time on the ball,more room and space to lay the ball off which you simply do not get in the Championship.
Daft as it sounds I believe he would have a better chance to show his talent in a bottom half premier side but as it stands 13 million seems well off his value