Originally Posted by
Longshortandtall
I dont think its coping with expectation although you could argue a number of players were taking the safety first route last night. They set up the same way as us and it was stalemate. Its about having a plan B which we are not seeing much evidence of this season. Last year in the majority of games Basham was pushed up into midfield and we went 4 at the back to get around teams.
Last night when the pigs went down to 10 it was a perfect opportunity to go 4 at the back push Basham into midfield and bring Sharp on for Lundstram who was ineffective largely due to the Pigs sitting deep. 3 up front would have given them more to worry about. I don't know what was going through CW's mind but the Pigs seemed to benefit more from the sending off than we did. Donaldson was causing problems whilst Rhodes was ineffective. He was taken off for Boyd to give an extra man in midfield and from then on we never threatened apart from 2 Duffy crosses near the end.
With Leonard Evans and now Holmes we have more options to change personnel but changing formation during a game needs to happen more often as well. Parking the bus will be a feature of all the teams coming to the Lane now and we need to adapt to deal with this. Coutts was not the fastest player but over 5 to 10 yards he could go past players. Lundstram showed signs against Derby he could do this but last night took the easy option too often.
The pigs were so deep last night they were nearly sat with me on the Kop. Basham and Oconnell hardly ever got behind them and both wing backs were off their game making for a disappointing but typical Derby game. Been saying all season we need to move the ball forward quicker but in all fairness when the opposition have 2/3rds of the team in their own half every time you have the ball that makes it difficult.
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