[sheffield_fox]

Swindon Town 2-2 Leicester City
15 November 2008

Leicester captain Matt Oakley shone again as his midfield performance won him the votes of the fans who travelled to the County Ground to see City throw away a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 at the hands of Swindon Town. Oakley's man of the match added to his previous award won in the recent FA Cup tie at Stevenage and a goal capped an all round solid performance from the midfield man whose performances seem to have coincided with Bruno Berner's inclusion in centre midfield.

Winger Lloyd Dyer followed Oakley in to second place with the other goalscorer Matty Fryatt nipping at their heels in third.

Striker Steve Howard failed to win the fans' acclaim after his performance earned him a mediocre rating of 5.5. Young midfielder Andy King and goalkeeper Paul Henderson rounded off the bottom three.

It was a game noticeable for the variety of ratings with fans' averages going as low as 4.45 up to a very generous 8.27. It was clearly a difficult game to rate as a City side looking to be heading for a very comfortable win threw it away in a mad three minutes at the end of the game.

Full results below:

Player Awards:

Man of the Match: Matt Oakley – 7.05

Flop of the Match: Steve Howard – 5.50

Best Defender: Aleksandar Tunchev – 6.79
Best Midfielder: Matt Oakley – 7.05
Best Striker: Matty Fryatt – 6.87

Full Ratings:

1. Matt Oakley – 7.05
2. Lloyd Dyer – 6.95
3. Matty Fryatt – 6.87
4. Aleksandar Tunchev – 6.79
5. Joe Mattock – 6.37
6. Michael Morrison – 6.13
7. Marc Edworthy – 6.11
8. Bruno Berner – 6.03
9. Paul Henderson – 5.79
10. Andy King – 5.71
11. Steve Howard – 5.50

Voter Awards:

Top/Fairest Voters: wiggyfox / oxfoxile / eastcotefox

Most Generous Voter: 1st – duffball – 8.27; 2nd – TomH – 7.55; 3rd – act smiley / JakeShingler – 7.09

Harshest Voter: 1st – beaumontfox – 4.45; 2nd – Southern filbert – 4.55; 3rd – michael – 5.18

(Anonymous voters are not included in the voter awards)

Total Votes: 38

[Joe.]

Deserved MOTM.

[Corky]

Andy King only 10th? Thrac won't be impressed.

[Tilley]

I demand a re-count

[Thracian]

Corky, on Nov 17 2008, 08:36 PM, said:

Andy King only 10th? Thrac won't be impressed.

I'm not. Especially from the ratings I read and the amount of involvement he seemed to have. We scored two more goals and created chances suggesting he's done his job well enough. Their goals weren't long range efforts. Our defensive backline faltered and should probably not have conceded so much ground in that last five minutes anyway.

Sounds to me like Morrison and Henderson had questions to ask over goal number two and I mentioned in the first half that Pearson should get someone marking Simon Cox. It is a given that you make plans to deal with any known threat but the bloke threatened several times before getting a goal back for Swindon. Who was supposed to be marking him and what was his player rating?

The other point concerns their substitute forward Corr. Who gave him his early "welcome" to the game? Who was supposed to be tight on him? Or did no-one take him seriously?

[Joe.]

King was anonymous Thracian, but he wasn't worse than Morrison.

[carterfox90]

well done oakley

great goal

[Thracian]

Joe., on Nov 17 2008, 10:01 PM, said:

King was anonymous Thracian, but he wasn't worse than Morrison.

He didn't sound anonymous on the radio or from reading such player ratings as we now get to see. Almost every one was quite praising of his contribution with 7 being the score I mostly read. But then some of the ratings, including mine when I'm there, are not counted in the overall analysis.

This post has been edited by Thracian: 18 November 2008 - 11:14 AM

[Corky]

Thracian, on Nov 18 2008, 11:14 AM, said:

He didn't sound anonymous on the radio or from reading such player ratings as we now get to see. Almost every one was quite praising of his contribution with 7 being the score I mostly read. But then some of the ratings, including mine when I'm there, are not counted in the overall analysis.

To be honest Thrac, there is no vendetta against King, why would there be? We all want him to succeed. If so many are marking him low then he can't have played that well.

[Thracian]

Corky, on Nov 18 2008, 11:16 AM, said:

To be honest Thrac, there is no vendetta against King, why would there be? We all want him to succeed. If so many are marking him low then he can't have played that well.

But those who's ratings were available to be seen weren't marking him low, were they... three 7's, a 7.5 and a six!

There have always been a few people on here who will mark young, home grown players low and the experienced old-timers they prefer to have in the team up. They are the sort who view every young player as a risk and would never play them at all given the manager's chair.

They would only play youngsters in some obscure cup match.

King barely got one word of support for being picked last season even though we were crying out for some goals potential in midfield and even though we eventually stumbled to relegation without him. Even now they think our relative success is only down to being in a lower league and they'd have King out tomorrow if we got promoted.

It's not a vendetta by any means. It's only a few as I explained. But it's there.

This post has been edited by Thracian: 18 November 2008 - 11:51 AM

[Corky]

Thracian, on Nov 18 2008, 11:29 AM, said:

But those available to be seen weren't marking him low, were they?

There have always been a few people on here who will mark young, home grown players low and the experienced old-timers they prefer to have in the team up. They are the sort who view every young player as a risk and would never play them at all given the manager's chair.

They would only play youngsters in some obscure cup match.

King barely got one word of support for being picked last season even though we were crying out for some goals potential in midfield and even though we eventually stumbled to relegation without him. Even now they think our relative success is only down to being in a lower league and they'd have King out tomorrow if we got promoted.

Well I'm not like that. King has been part of a team that is second and has lost two matches. He is growing and developing, and has scored a good amount of goals so far, as has Oakley. If we get promoted I won't want him out of the team, he'll have played his part in a successful team. I'll be honest, I felt last season wasn't the time to bring in the youngsters. A relegation battle wouldn't have helped their confidence, and the fans wouldn't be convinced, and you know what our fans are like.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter what division we are in, King can only play against teams at the same level, and has done well on the whole. I think most of his marks this season have been fair, with the exception of a couple.

Some may mark lower to annoy you, I don't know, but I see King as a player with real potential and can develop with us. He can score goals, set up goals, if he can start to tackle more then he'll be a real asset.

[marbelladave]

Corky, on Nov 18 2008, 11:36 AM, said:

Well I'm not like that. King has been part of a team that is second and has lost two matches. He is growing and developing, and has scored a good amount of goals so far, as has Oakley. If we get promoted I won't want him out of the team, he'll have played his part in a successful team. I'll be honest, I felt last season wasn't the time to bring in the youngsters. A relegation battle wouldn't have helped their confidence, and the fans wouldn't be convinced, and you know what our fans are like.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter what division we are in, King can only play against teams at the same level, and has done well on the whole. I think most of his marks this season have been fair, with the exception of a couple.

Some may mark lower to annoy you, I don't know, but I see King as a player with real potential and can develop with us. He can score goals, set up goals, if he can start to tackle more then he'll be a real asset.

To my mind King is an excellent young player, not spectacular in the 'driving runs into the box' or the 'crunching tackle' way of some midfielders, but in the quiet way that he threads things together for us and gets the ball our forward players in good positions. Defensively he is sound too, but again he achieves this by making interceptions and cutting out the attacking options with astute positional play. Much of what he does is unspectacular and often does not catch the eye, so he is often marked quite low, wrongly in my view.

As for last season a reliance on seasoned old pros, battling for points got us relegated, we have no idea if the deployment of King and possibly Gradel would have made a difference, but believing that it might have got us the point or 2 required to keep us up is not an unreasonable viewpoint.