by Colin the King » Wed Aug 04, 2010 8:13 pm
Thought Kolarov's delivery and burst of pace were first class all night, he didn't deliver one poor set piece. Ireland sprayed some nice passes around when he came on and Shaun looked menacing at times in the first half. Bellamy did too when he came on, and Jo showed determination that he never did first time round.
Otherwise, we were a bit of a shambles. Richards and Zabaleta after him were lackadaisical in key positions, neither Kolo nor Yaya looked particularly strong, Yaya's pass to set out SWP off for our goal was top class but otherwise no contribution of note, Kompany got the run-around a good few times. Barry was totally anonymous most of the time, and when he did get a foot on the ball, seemed determined to make as complicated a pass as possible when there were three or four easier options. Can't remember Santa Cruz doing anything, literally.
Wouldn't be getting too wound up just yet, but defensively there's cause for concern. The only thing is, we played brilliant football in short bursts of 5 minutes at a time here and there, I'm hoping that's a glimpse of what's to come and that with more application and focus they'll play in that manner all the way through games.
Hopefully we'll get as close to a strongest XI as possible on Saturday, can't wait to see Silva in particular. But just like it'd be crazy to think we're heading for a title charge after winning 3-1, it's crazy to think it's the end of the world because we lost. Poor performance, yes, but we'll know on the 14th of August whether they're real concerns or not.