Blades V Valiants

[markpvfc]

Not a lot of difference between our performance this week and last week. The difference was Sheff Utd punished us for being rubbish, MK Dons showed they were even worse than us.

 

[valefan16]

See a coachload of our fans got stranded at Bramall Lane for over four hours as coach broke down! Left at 9:15 finally... sounds like a great day!

 

[Sheffsteel]

Match analysis

Vale had a really negative formation deciding to defend in numbers and frustrate SU.

Vale had a rare break away attack on about 30 minutes. Your man was clean through with just the keeper to beat and our defender came in with a last gasp sliding tackle to knock it out for a corner.

This was the turning point of the match. I think Bruno's tactic was to park the bus then counter attack. It was working in the 1st half and you almost scored against the run of play.

However once we scored then your tactics fell apart. I think some. Of your players wanted to attack but instead it was SU fired up hungry to score a 2nd, this means even at 1-0 down Vale had no choice but to continue defending in numbers.

When it became 2-0 your heads dropped. You tried to attack more in the 2nd half but surprisingly instead of dropping deep ans protecting our lead SU were fired up eager to make it 3-0, so again many of your players had no choice but to defend in numbers.

Then with your poor away record you simply lost belief and Vale seemed to just accept defeat and only tired to keep the score down.

Our goalie didn't have hardly anything to do.
However towards the end of the 2nd half one of your players was clean through and our goalie spread himself to make an excellent save.That was the closest we came to conceding.

Chin up though.
You can't be critical or sing praises just based on one match.
It's how both SU and PV react Tuesday night what counts.

 

[Aber gas]

TylerB

 

[valefan16]

A few issues that I've noticed under Bruno:

Players out of position... after a great start defensively we are haemorrhaging goals now, surely now it makes sense to change the squad back into correct positions! Yesterday we had a centre half at left back, one of the divisions hottest strikers out wide, a left back on the left side of midfield and ended up with another left back in central midfield! So two left backs on but neither are left back (Kiko and Hart).

Horses for courses... against a dreadful Coventry side we went one up front... promptly encouraged them to smash us (let's be honest could of been four or five) we are sticking with the one formation which teams are starting to figure us out with. Playing uber negative against a side struggling to win at home (MK) is fine and worked a treat but sticking with it against an in form side with zero sticking power up top doesn't work!

We need to be more dynamic with what we do, every time we go a goal down (Gills at home apart) we seem to fall apart and be on the end of a trashing, confidence maybe? If we take the lead we usually seem to become a totally different side and often go on to win welll.

We are badly missing key players too, I'd suggest whilst we have a lot of depth... too many are not up to it yet, Jerome Thomas missing has left us no outlet, such is his quality he at least occupies defences, Forrester missing shows our weak lack of strikers, he's the only one capable of making it stick up front and bullying teams but he seems to be struggling big time with injuries. Tavares and De Freitas missing seem the only really up to it foreign signings aside from Knops too!

Chairman apologised and oddly re-tweeted some fans comments (not great ones about Bruno's away approach) will 'plan b' start to be looked at?

On the side note regarding Smurf... our lack of pace and width going forward is a big issue... if only we had a pacey, extremely skilful winger that was getting everyone excited last season out of contract training with us after recovering from his ACL injury! Swallow pride Smurf and give Enoch what he wants! Spurs rumoured to have been looking at a £2 million bid before his season ending injury surely 1k a week is worth it!

 

[valefan16]

Finally watched the goals... wow!

1st goal, free header six yards out from a corner!

2nd goal, not dealt with a corner!

3rd goal should never happen in professional football! What on earth was that all about!

4th goal free header five yards out.

 

[darren gregory]

Horrific, and i thought our following summed up the apathy yet we started 4th.
Should of easily been 1200 plus for this game.
Only thing i know for sure is Paterson is absolute tripe and if he is our main striker we have little to no chance.
Is this Blades year at last ? we were all peeing ourselves at the start they had but it looks like Wilder could finally be the man, if so prepare for an invasion of Boslem by 4000 as its very near the end of the season i think.