Not a lot to like about that game. Going ahead twice at home and losing is pretty chastening. We didn’t play that badly, there were positives - Bodin is in amazing form, we did miss two one on ones, Sykes should have scored that header and I think Seddon probably looked as good as he has done in a while - but this has been a bad week.
I’m generally very pro-KR. love his passion, love the way his teams play when on form, and love how successfully we have generally been under him. But today I did start to wonder whether his teams perhaps flatter to deceive. I caught myself first half, after we put together a nice passing move, thinking ‘god this side can be good’. But we played that first half like a cup game. There was absolutely no game management, the midfield was non-existent, and quite frankly conceding (at least) twice in so many games in a row is really very bad. It’s how we played for the run in last year and it’s just not sustainable.
What has happened to Herbie Kane? Ever since that red card at Lincoln he’s been an absolute shadow of the player who dominated every midfield he played throughout the autumn. We completely lost the midfield today, and part of that was the formation (I know Bodin dropped in to play a sort of 8/10 hybrid, but we missed the buzziness of Sykes and Brannagan mopping up the second balls). But part of that was also Kane just looking that half second off the pace, particularly in second balls.
Gavin Whyte is becoming a very difficult player for the club I think. He did some excellent things, and gives us an outlet and pace that few other players do in the side at the moment. But he has to score at some point. That one on one seemed to cause his head to drop and the ball in second half, played back straight to the Bolton striker, was just baffling. He gives a lot in terms of on the ball ability and capacity to stretch an opposition defence. But his end product just isn’t there at the moment. He had that run around Christmas of getting some good assists, and he did technically get one today, but I’m not sure he does enough to start at the moment.
Bodin’s post-match comments j thought we’re interesting. The veiled ‘well I’ve been match fit all season’ in response to a question regarding his form ‘since he’s been match fit’ I didn’t like to hear. And his comments confirming that he was asked to play as an 8 today with CB were a bit worrying. He was obviously our goal scorer today, but I think he only works as a 10 / second striker. As I’ve said, we lost the midfield today, and if it was obvious we had to move to a midfield three, he should probably have been sacrificed.
Thought we had a bit of a Homer ref (for once). Thought there was a definite foul in the build up to Bodin’s second. Bolton we’re giving him a lot of stick and probably fairly from where I was sitting.
Bolton looked fine without being great. Bakayoko looked strong all game and Charles is a very good player at this level. Their 5 I found very amusing. Absolute peak lower league centre back. Utter unit, will defend all day long, but was about as good on the ball as I am. Did the job though - we got absolutely no change out of any of our many set piece deliveries (apart from one, obviously!).
I’m getting a little bit worried about playoffs. I think it’s fine not having a CDM if you’re relying on Kane controlling the game from the base of midfield. But when he’s off it, we leave ourselves so, so exposed. And he is at the moment, and we don’t have another option. The table is starting to look worrying. I think the worst thing about this week is it has tainted the two 3-2s. It’s difficult not to look at them now and think, not that we showed real resilience there to dig deep and get a win, but instead that we got ourselves out of jail with late winners. We’ve been good about not losing three in a row though recently, so looking forward to Charlton.
