I’ve had some time to digest the game now. I’ve been having disc problems with my back all year - and my back REALLY wasn’t happy with me after 9 hours in the car yesterday. The M6 really is torturous isn’t it!
I thought 1-1 was fair at half time and it was a cracking game. We opened them up for fun on the counter - but we looked so vulnerable ourselves with seemingly no defensive options available to try to stop it. Then the first 20-ish minutes of the second half we were superb. I’ve read lots about on the Bolton side about how the stadium was ‘electric’ yesterday. It may have been for the last 15 minutes or so - but we were SO good in that first 20 minutes that we utterly silenced their crowd. But our decision making in and around the penalty area is dreadful. There is a footballer in Mark Sykes. He’s energetic, makes great runs and has good feet. However his composure and decision making in key areas is awful - and doesn’t seem to get better. The sight of him charging towards the six yard box, then falling over his own feet as he tried to make a decision about what to do next haunts me.
And of course we were then punished by switching off for the corner. It happens. Had Whyte found some composure at the end we’d have still left with a deserved point. (Incidentally - between the shanked pass/cross when through on goal at Cambridge and that awful miss yesterday - I’m starting to see why Gavin is back with us. Lovely player to watch and I’m thrilled we have him, but those errors are contributing to vital points dropped).
If Uncle Erick is telling KR to sign some players - can we please go and sign another full back. Like ASAP? If Long is going to be another few weeks I’d be tempted to get a proper RB in - to compete with Long when fit, and use Sam as LB cover. Forde has a lot of qualities and again he didn’t have a ‘bad’ game necessarily - but I’m already bored of having our right full back position look vulnerable and be exploited game after game (as it has in every game since Sam went off against Burton at the end of last season).
Ending on a positive - I thought Winnall was super yesterday. His best game in an Oxford shirt IMO. Having both Taylor and Whyte around him to do his running meant he could concentrate on battling defenders (he won a few more headers too) and he had the freedom to drop back or drift wide to pick up the ball (which he also used with really intelligence). It was enough to convince me I’m happy with the forwards we have until January and would rather we spend any funds we might have in our pursuit of someone like Harrison (groan, or Grigg
) and spend them on a proper midfield enforcer to compete with Gorrin (and the aforementioned additional full back)
