stoke loss

[lcfc true blue josh 18]

i know that we got beat, but i saw alot of positives on friday.

...ryan smith again took the piss out of the oponents defence

...joey gudjonsson scored another cracker, without him there would be no fight in the team

...elvis hammond scored again, maybe he will turn out ot be a good striker for us

but there were alot of negatives

...momo sylla, when he got beat by thier winger for the 3rd goal, he stood and whatched him go past

...patrick kisnorbo wasnt very good, and didnt get involved too much

...and when we were 2-1 up, we missed a few chances to settle it through smith, and hume.

however i thought we played well and the luck wasnt going our way, and maybe its time we gave henderson a chance in goal.

[Steven]

i know that we got beat, but i saw alot of positives on friday.

...ryan smith again took the piss out of the oponents defence

...joey gudjonsson scored another cracker, without him there would be no fight in the team

...elvis hammond scored again, maybe he will turn out ot be a good striker for us

but there were alot of negatives

...momo sylla, when he got beat by thier winger for the 3rd goal, he stood and whatched him go past

...patrick kisnorbo wasnt very good, and didnt get involved too much

...and when we were 2-1 up, we missed a few chances to settle it through smith, and hume.

however i thought we played well and the luck wasnt going our way, and maybe its time we gave henderson a chance in goal.

ADRIANO 4 CITY

[The People's Hero]

I thought we played reasonably well in patches. There were periods where Stoke didn't look like getting the ball. The worrying thing for me was how badly we played in the last 15 minutes.

It wasn't just the defence either, everyone slacked off. The forwards stopped moving and giving us options when we had the ball, the midfielders lost discipline and stopped closing down as some of them had all game (Smith and Sylla are actually poor at closing down anyway and this was really exploited in the closing 15-20 mins as it left the full backs too much to do).

I dunno if it was concentration levels of a lack of fitness or just an assumption that enough was done and the game was won but we really let stoke back in to it. Once we'd stopped competing and closing down, giving them time on the ball, they grew in confidence. Two good finishes later and we've gone from 3 points to zero.

I think we have the makings of a good side and it's difficult to really blame Levein for the players complacency but perhaps if they feared him a bit more and really wanted to keep their place in the side, really meant what they said when they are wheeled out for an interview, it wouldn't have happened.

Sylla needs to help out Stearman (or other right back) more if he is to keep his place. With Smith, his attacking prowess might well work as a deterrant on occasions, preventing the opposing right back from getting forward, but otherwise something has to be done there. We're letting in too many goals from balls in to the box and set pieces. This comes down to both the players who should be putting pressure on the ball AND the centre backs who should be winning the headers.

There are glimpses of something good but massive flaws still exist.

[midtablethatsallwewilleverbe]

i thought the best thing we did in the game was the fact that we only conceded 3 goals