My two cents for what they’re worth:
everything seemed very flat today. Not much spark, second to most 50:50s, not a lot going forward. Despite that, we were good value for at least a draw. Their goal seemed to take a lucky deflection (or a genius deft touch, couldn’t be sure), and we had two cleared off the line. I come out of that frustrated but not too disappointed.
@Scotchegg ‘s post the other day about how Sykes/Long OR Henry/Cadden work as right wing partnerships seemed very evident to me today. Sykes and Cadden constantly on each other’s toes, I feel they inhibited each other a bit. This tended to leave big gaps in that inside right hand channel, particularly in the first half. Bit disappointed woth Cadden’s reaction at the end. Had to be reminded to come and give the fans a half hearted clap. A caller on RadOx said he was in the same bracket as a GB in the fans’ hearts but I’m not sure if that’s true.
we missed CB’s ability to control a game consistently for 90 minutes. Shandon had flashes where he looked a level above, and Henry came into the game ok after a totally anonymous first half. But we needed someone who was dominating that midfield.
decent interview from KR but I didn’t love his comments about ‘we need a winger, I wanted more in the summer’. Those are the sorts of comments you usually hear from managers engaged in ‘me v the board’ kinds of feuds, and I felt he was quite well backed in the summer. We absolutely need another option on the wing though - he’s not wrong.
while we made it kind of easy for them, I thought the DR CBs had a very good game, heading away absolutely everything. Last year we used to throw Nelson up front late in games for some aerial presence - why can’t we start doing that with Dickie? That said, agree with the poster above, Donny did us tactically, targeting the FB spaces, fair play to them.
And it had clearly been kicked out for the injury, it wasn’t one of them where they played on and then tried toplay the victim.
finally, while much of the match day experience was pretty grim (stadium is in a horrible location and pretty soulless), fairplay to DR for the way they treat away fans. Good bar before the game, stewards exemplary and very helpful and Friendly, and good concourse area, would have been rocking at half time if we’d been up.
A frustrating but all round enjoyable day. We still look good to go up imo. And woth our home form, the odd loss at good sides away from home is no disaster.