It must have been a good drinking day since, like others on here, my view of the match was very much alcohol affected.It was certainly a bad day at the office and we rarely, if ever, got into our stride. Beforehand we all agreed on two things 1. If we played well we would win (we didn't so we didn't) and that the first goal would be very important (it was) We also felt that Birmingham would be hard to beat and were a better side than their results suggested - again we were proved right, what we did not realise was how much of a niggly, dirty, cheating play acting, time wasting team they were and that the incompetent ref would largely fall for their tricks - he did sort of punish them by adding on 8 minutes but it could have been more, so often did they fall to the ground with 'serious' injuries that somehow miraculously improved the second their feet hit the whitewash so they were always able to return immediately to the fray If Boro played 'anti football' this lot were on a different level, and with a weak and easily conned ref it meant we could never get our flowing football together. This is not however, trying to put the blame elsewhere or make excuses - the fault lay with us - it is just a fact and this was an awful game to watch For some reason we never got going, first half we were dreadful and apart from a decent chance which Alioski blazed over we created nothing of note They got lucky but perhaps deservedly so , first a shot took a deflection which left BPF totally flat footed but he should maybe have done better. The second and killer goal ,we stood off a bit and whilst he hit a decently placed shot BPF again seemed slow to react and get down. They even had another shot which thankfully BPF saved well.
Bielsa to be fair had realised early on that things were not working and again made an early sub , again it was Phillips but again MB took all the blame for it. Dallas came on, worked hard and made a difference (nearly a massive one) but at the end of the day he is just an average plodder and unlikely to change things. We did improve second half and forced them deeper and deeper - the ridiculous possession stats show we had 71% possession (BBC also claims we had 17 shots to their 4 but not sure how they came to that figure) but there is only one stat that counts and we lost that 1 2 As I say we did improve and had a couple of half chances from corners and a decent long shot from Forshaw but hardly troubled their defence until the 85th minute when a long ball over the top was well controlled by the otherwise ineffective Alioski and he fired it into the bottom corner - good goal and a glimmer of hope. We did continue to try and get something out of the game but the zip and precision passing of Preston and Norwich games etc was missing and we laboured hard but without much cutting edge. The 8 added minutes was nearly enough to rescue a point when Dallas twisted and turned inside the box but his well hit shot was well saved and Brum held on. They certainly deserved something but stats-wise a point may have been fairer but we played so poorly we did not deserve much Once again we had a sell out crowd and once again we sent the 'occasional watchers' (part-timers has a stigma to it I don't mean) home unhappy and hardly champing at the bit to come back - they will be wondering what all the fuss was about. Only time will tell if this is merely a blip on the road to success or if we have been playing above ourselves and are not as good as we all thought - do we miss Pablo too much and maybe Roofe (albeit I thought Roberts had a decent all round game) Once again we have two important games coming up (that is probably always the case - we said it prior to Boro / Millwall and then Preston / Brum) with a visit to Sheff Wed who are getting into their stride and who, like many, raise their game for us and then Brentford a highly fancied team and one only 3 points behind us at present. If he did not already know it Bielsa has found out that the 'there are no easy games in this DIvision' adage is in fact true At least other results went OK for us and we are still top and it is much too soon to start worrying - whilst Brimingham at home is not the one we wanted to lose , in some ways getting the 'unbeaten' tag from off our shoulders may not be a bad thing Onwards and upwards (we hope) Dave _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email leedslist-unsubscr...@gn.apc.org Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/leedslist/ RIP Jimmy WAC-COE
