And the difference was, get a plan, pick a team to execute that plan…then go out and do it (and ride your luck).
5 across the midfield - Byram, Cook, Murphy, Austin and Mowatt - after initially being overrun they got to grips with the game and began to control midfield hence the game. They’re young, mobile and in the main comfortable on the ball. The midfield was fluid, switching about, covering each other…great stuff (total football?). Austin’s brief was to push up from the middle as soon as their back 4 were on the ball and harass them. He did this with some assistance from Morrsion and it unsettled them. All the midfield pinged the ball around on the floor and kept Bournemouth moving and tracking shadows. This whole plan must be seen as 1-0 to Redfearn - he’d done his homework and came up with the strategy to defeat them. The game plan involved a hell of a lot of work from the front 6 - Morrison was dead by half time…the rest ran out of steam by about 65 minutes and from then on it was nearly all Bournemouth but somehow we contrived to keep a clean sheet. Or to be more accurate Bournemouth to contrived to miss the goal from just about every angle and in every way possible…including of course a penalty 5 minutes form the end - a charmed life doesn’t come near describing the luck our goal had last night. But what the hell, it is up to them to score. That number 13 - who was a nightmare for our CHalfs in every way - cannot have missed as many clear chances in his life. All the midfield were superb last night, but special mentions must be made for Cook, who was immense playing centrally - when we were in control of the game, he was the conductor - for one so young he took the game by the scruff of the neck and ran it; the other special mention is the much maligned Murphy who has now had his two best performances for us in consecutive games - he was everywhere, tackling, prompting, pushing measured balls through the back line for Morrison etc to run onto - and of course there was his goal which was simply top drawer, left foot 22 or so yards from goal, hit on the run with the outside of the boot so the ball faded away from the keeper into the top corner. It wouldn’t do to fail to acknowledge that Silvestri also made a few very good saves…Bournemouth didn’t just fail to score because they couldn’t shoot straight, a good deal of the praise for the clean sheet must be given to the keeper, some excellent/desperate reflex saves. All of them were stars yesterday - except Bellucci who was out of his depth and basically an accident waiting to happen - he had no reply to the 13’s speed and direct running with the ball. We’re just lucky we didn’t have to play more than 10 minutes with only 10 (knackered) men. It was bloody cold last, it snowed for much of the second half, the crowd was sparse (I was going to say thin…but on looking round that would be a lie) but like somebody said at the end, “a game hasn’t felt this good since we beat MancU in the cup” and think that was just about right. _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email leedslist-unsubscr...@gn.apc.org John 'Grampa' Sykes Rest In Peace old lad 28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013 MARCHING ON TOGETHER
