In our Patreon Discord channel before Saturday’s game, I suggested it had 0-0 written all over it.
After 45 long first-half minutes, my mind hadn’t changed, and as the second half pressed on, my only thought was that we might suffer a smash-and-grab raid and once again come away with nothing. The reality is that we came away with a clean sheet and a point, and in some context, that is a good draw. In others, it is not.
I’m a little late to the party when it comes to assessing this game due to almost complete unavailability on Sunday, and so going over the match blow-by-blow feels a bit pointless. I’m not sure I can stand that either, so I’ve rewatched the highlights, just incase I’d missed anything (I didn’t) and now it is time to put to you five simple observations I’ve made from the game.
My apologies for not offering the usual full coverage – it’s nothing to do with the fact we’re on a shocking run and I’m avoiding talking about the team, as we’re still top half and there were some green shoots of recovery. Also, for those concerned, I didn’t get the article out. I’m perfectly fine; there’s no issues; it was just quite a chaotic weekend with no time at all to sit at my computer.
In all honesty, being out of sight and out of mind for a few hours probably gave me a little more clarity, because this was a game that (inevitably) prompted me and Dad to argue, and when that happens, it’s usually because he says the game is awful and I want to disagree, but can’t. Looking back, it wasn’t awful, and that’s where I’m going to start this evaluation.
It Was Better Than Rotherham
The game on New Year’s Day was, for want of a better word, awful. I don’t think our performance against Stevenage was that bad. In patches, we actually played some nice stuff, neat little moves to get out of tight situations, but that wasn’t the case the further we got down the field. You could see a willingness to make runs and a desire to play the right balls, but all too often, players were not quite on the same wavelength.
Reeco struggled on Saturday, he rarely beat a man nor made the right run for the little flicks or passes round the corner. He’s the width on one side, but on the other, we don’t quite have the same impact. During the game, Chris and I discussed how it looked like a lopsided 4-4-2, and I’m not sure I like that. Anything lopsided lacks stability and balance, and I think that gives us an air of predictability. I’m not an expert, and while I don’t mind 4-4-2, I much prefer a three at the back, with those high wing backs.
I know Wickens kept us in it with some good saves, but actually, their xG was low as well, 0.82, so they didn’t do enough to win the game either. Wickens kept us in it, there’s no doubt about that, but only from half chances, rather than absolute clearcut ones. That’s a positive to take, because I believe had he shown the same level of reaction shot-stopping in some of our other games on this run, we’d have five or six more points. We often criticise the strikers for not scoring, but we’ve leaked goals at the back we shouldn’t have done – over the last few months, we’ve conceded at least one whole goal more than the xG against in encounters with Bolton, Huddersfield, Rotherham (A), Crawley and Birmingham City. If we can start conceding goals relative to the xG we concede, we’re actually going to do a lot better without adding a single thing to the forward line.
Not that we don’t need to add. We didn’t create a lot, but I did think, at times, we might score. We had three shots on target compared to just the one on New Year’s Day, and while we weren’t free-flowing and fast-attacking, we did offer a threat. Of our 0.5 xG (against Rotherham it was 0.22) 0.31 came from Jovon Makama’s miss in the 79th minute, a moment that should have won us the game.
Jovon Makama Is a Scapegoat
A post went out on our socials this weekend which wasn’t me (just to clarify) looking at Jovon’s miss. I have to confess that it is a bad miss. Jovon is what, four yards out, goal gaping, no keeper and he puts it over. It’s an epic miss, even if the ball did come across goal at pace and he’s seen it late. It feels that if he hadn’t swung a leg at it, if he’d just let it hit him, it could have gone in.
That’s what people remember from Jovon in the game. When this article goes out and the player rater goes up, he’ll be in the bottom two or three (for a guess) purely based on that miss. However, I think he had a decent game. People will forget his stinging drive in first-half injury time, and omit to consider the fact he was up against the best defender in the division for aerial duels. They’ll forget that he attempted five dribbles, instead remembering the one time he beat a man and slipped.
Makama wasn’t brilliant on Saturday, nobody was, but it is his miss and his controbution that people seem happier to criticise, rather than that of the players around him. I hear things like ‘Cadamarteri would have scored that’ but he was on the field, he had his chances as well. I’m not playing down the loanee, but I’m just wondering why it is so many have an agenda against Makama? Sadly, when he does miss a sitter, as he did this weekend, he gets scapegoated. When Cadamarteri does, as he did the other week at Shrewsbury, it gets glossed over.
You must be logged in to post a comment.