The second half needed us to come out all guns blazing, and frankly, the first 20 minutes were awful. Michael said we were too passive and he couldn’t have been more accurate. We looked beaten, knocking the ball about across the back three, punting long balls into channels and generally just seemingly going through the motions. Barnsley are nothing special, I’ll be utterly shocked if they’re a top six side this season and if they are, they won’t get through the play-offs. They can’t defend, and they didn’t actually create much – they only had five shots on goal and we handed them four on a plate.
Goal number three isn’t so much a big error as just a high number of ineffective players. Their lad gets down the flank easily, cuts a ball across the box with two of our defenders in line to block it. Neither does, then Ben House is on his arse trying to get a toe on it as Georgie Gent collects, takes his time and fires past Jeacock who could do nothing. It looked to me like the sort of goal a Premier League side scores against a National League team in an FA Cup tie; just so easy. I hadn’t watched anything back before writing this, and having done so now, I feel a bit sick at how badly we defended.
That prompted three subs, Hamilton, House and Draper coming off. The only one who might feel a little hard done by is Freddie, he wasn’t too bad, but the other two had poor afternoons. It’s not a lack of effort but a lack of composure and a real lack of evident quality. On came Jovon Makama, Reeco Hackett and James Collins, big guns we needed to change the game. Both Reeco and Jovon had an impact; they clearly terrified the Barnsley defence, even at 3-0 down.
3-0 down. 3-0 down from a collective match xG (at the time) of 1.03. At that stage, it should have been 1-0 at best.
That’s when we began to polish the scoreline a bit with Tendayi’s goal. He’s now on five, level in the league with Bailey Cadamarteri who hasn’t played since early January and Ben House, whose last league goal was in December. Five. That is, again, not good enough from the forward players. James Collins signed a month or so ago, is on three from four starts. The sooner we can get him to a point where two games in a week is possible, the better. If we do, it might be worth having Jovon and Reeco on the wings, because they were a real threat as well.
In fairness, we did get a little lucky for our opener, as Gent seemed to slip just before Tendayi finished. It’s only fair to point out gifts in the other direction as well.
At 3-1 I felt maybe we could get something, but again, we felt really passive after the goal, laboured and slow in the build up. Then, Dom Jeffries over plays in the middle of the park, coughs up the ball, and off goes Max Watters. He turns Jacko one way, then another, before beating Jeacock from 18 yards. Pardon my language, but it’s yet another shit goal to concede, partly of our own doing.
“This is getting the manager sacked levels of pathetic” was a message I got from my mate Pete. I parked it, because I felt for Michael on the touchline. How do you legislate for giving the ball away in key areas, or for defenders just not defending as they should? You can’t, and as a Man Utd fan, Pete has seen his fair share of players getting managers the sack.
Mind you, at 4-1 down, City started to play, getting the polish out. Players began driving forward, led, dare I say, by Reeco and Jovon. We started to get balls into the box, but Barnsley looked genuinely terrified. If only we hadn’t gifted them four goals, right? Yeah, you might be fed up with reading it, but imagine how fed up I am with writing it.
Our second, the sixth of the game, was probably the first and only goals that didn’t involve some sort of error. Jovon’s little flick found Reeco who, thriving in the ten role, powered forward away from his defender and fired across the keeper to make it 4-2. It was a rare moment of real quality from a white shirt, and one that briefly had me chuckling. Imagine, this could be 4-4. Chris, next to me, was watching the game and laughed as well.
Joe Gardner, on for more than four minutes in this game, began to create issues as well. He looks like a tricky customer, and dead on 90 minutes, he helped create our third. He got past his man at the byline, and eventually, we managed to slice the ball up and into the area. It managed to drop to Jovon, and he showed some composure to slot home from close range. We couldn’t, could we?
No, we couldn’t. Jovon’s goal was our last real chance, and the game finished 4-3. A thriller, judging by the scoreline, but in truth, an arduous watch for much of the 90. interspersed with real belief only as the clock ticked down.
I’ve seen criticism of the changes, but they happened on 55 minutes, and it’s not usual to make three subs at half time – Posh did it at our place and it backfired for them. Normally, give the players an earful, then let them have ten minutes to prove their worth – they didn’t, so changes needed to be made. Were the changes the right ones? Again, I know Sam Clucas didn’t get on, but two of our subs scored, and the others were involved in the goals. There’s no criticism from me of the changes we made. I am disappointed at how some of our big players started the game, and being quite brutal, the likes of House, McGrandles, and Hamilton will only start the next game because of injuries rather than form. They’re meant to be big players for us, the nucleus of our side, but they’re flattering to deceive right now.
It’s really hard to pick positives – I thought Jovon, Reeco and Joe Gardner did well when they came on, and aside from his slip, Jeffries had a solid game. Other than that, it’s hard to say anyone played well, and therein lies the biggest frustration. Barnsley were there for the taking, and if we’d been on it, we’d have won that comfortably. Some might say team selection played a part, others the changes, and some might blame the tactics. In my opinion, pure and simple, some of the players are to blame.
To put it simply, if you go away and score three goals but get no points, someone somewhere isn’t doing their job. Yesterday, for each of the goals, it appeared to be someone different. Now, Michael Skubala has to try to find out why it keeps happening and put a stop to it because I am genuinely tired of coming on here every week and writing about how if we didn’t make silly errors, we’d be okay.
But, if we didn’t gift Barnsley two of their goals yesterday (and we gifted them at least three, plus the chance for four), we win the game. It’s really that simple: passive, not passive, subs, team selection and tactics all into consideration. Don’t gift goals; we win games.
Up the Imps.
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