Trees

[mistaram]

Teams who pick up points when playing badly are often said to be a good side. Based on yesterday's little offering, we must be bloody excellent.

Hamer might have been slow to move for the goal. Positionally he was where he should be. If it was an error of judgment, it was the only one he made all afternoon.

The back 4 did much of their defensive work well with the exception of the backing off. Why allow players you know have a decent shot on them to proceed, unchallenged, to the edge of the box. 2nd minute Da Costa was allowed the freedom of Derby to move forward. Fortunately his shot went well over. 10 minutes later Lolley moved forward and simply picked his spot. Good shot.

Rooney had an off day and they gave him little or no time. Bird was also continually put under pressure and found it hard to play his normal game.

The midfield 3 played well and I find myself thinking they might be a tad lightweight.

Chrissy. Have you ever seen him run that much in a game? That was probably his first ever goal off his shoulder blade but who cares what it goes in off?

The team started slowly, too damned slowly IMO. We gave them room and they closed us down when we were in possession. Poor first half although we did perk up a bit in the last 10 minutes before the break.

Better 2nd half but the ball circulation was still way too slow giving them all the time in the world to close us down and/or get into position. That served only to make it hard to impossible for us to pass to a teammate without putting him under severe pressure so...... we went back to the centre halves or keeper who were then put under pressure. Dilly dallying saw us lose possession too frequently. On Wednesday at the Hawthorns we will need to move the ball much quicker. We will also need more movement off the ball to get into space to receive the ball. Bogle seems to have forgotten which way is forward and tends to stop and survey the terrain at his leisure once he received the ball. He used to get it an go, at speed. I'd like him to go back to that style of play.

Waggy's red card was correct. He went over the ball, studs up and it was clear what would happen. Not even his playacting, holding his face when there had been no contact above the shoulder didn't help and he won't be getting an Oscar nomination for that performance. For the WBA game we have 2 of our top 3 scorers banned. No pressure on Coldplay.......

Sibley was lucky to only get a yellow. I can only think the ref thought it was 2 simultaneous one legged tackles rather than a single 2 legged one........

Once they scored they changed shape to protect the lead. Something they do very well.

My thanks to Worrall (oad of rubbish) for that totally unnecessary foul which led to Chrissy's equaliser.

Basically, a point we didn't deserve but I won't be turning it down.

MA that's a fair account of what actually happened But our tactics were not good ,it was obvious from the news coming out of Notts in the week They would set up to stop us playing Nothing wrong with that but to counter that you have to be able to play out we can't do that with the team he selected They just put three cloggers in midfield and said have the ball but you ain't coming though the middle ,like we normally do