Douglas Higginbottom wrote:Ted Hughes wrote:Adarab.....Ady... Tosin A. was fantastic tonight I thought. I actually think he looks better than Denayer did. So dominant in the air, & bearing in mind we were playing Stoke, plus outpaced their attackers several times, so skilled on the ball too; another who is good enough to play midfield.
Everyone was at least pretty good, some fantastic moments. Some iffy finishing & final ball, but still, I don't know how it's staying out at times. Vs Oxford & again tonight, some of the escapes seemed miraculous. A good 4 times, we seemed to have the ball two yards off their line, with the keeper stranded & still somehow the ball bounced out of a defender, rather than in. You would think at least one would go over the line. Two 1 v 1s on the keeper missed as well. All of the attacking players had great moments, Barker again doing his Peter Barnes impression at times.
Angelino pulled off some ridiculous moves & is getting physically stronger day by day. Bryan dead solid.
Boadu started off like Paul Dickov on speed, chasing everything, & I figured he'd be off by 60 mins, but he was still chasing everything down on 90. Playing as a makeshift cf vs a Stoke bruiser, he batteled for everything, won most, then had the skill to spin round & find passes, beat players; just a superb effort. Getting fouled pretty much constantly as well.
He is a proper talented footballer & if he is also willing to put that much effort in, he will be very unlucky if he doesn't make it.
All the team fought really hard as well as playing football. Great effort.
I am trying to calm about Tosin. He does look a very assured player but I would like to see him really tested before believing that he really will make it. Maybe he is being tested and just makes it look easy.Not sure about him as a midfield player though.Yes he certainly has the confidence to play from the back and has good ability with his feet but I am not sure he quite has the ball control to play in a congested area.Only 17 and 4 months though, captain of the side, excellent in the air,composed on the ball.Not really anything missing.
I also thought Boadu might go off after 60 or 70 to give Faour a chance after his hat trick on Saturday but maybe as he was playing so well he stayed on.I don't find it easy to second guess Wilcox substitutions.I was surprised Barker went off with the potential of extra time.That change really did show the gulf between him and Dilrosun imo. When Barker got the chance to run with the ball and take defenders on he did it really well but Dilrosun, with the same opportunities, just couldn't get passed, couldn't find that yard of space to actually get the cross/pass over.
You were right about Boadu getting fouled all the time. Constantly being niggled it and the ref gave him no protection which made his effort and all round performance all the better. Maybe the only thing he lacked was the striker's instinct to make the right runs when we had all the good openings.It was a shame he didn't score with that great chance early on when he was 1 on 1 with the keeper. I fully expected him to try and take the ball past the keeper.
Next weekend should be fun. There is a game at 11.30 at the academy against Liverpool (under 21's I think) then at 1 an 18's game v Middlesbro also at the academy and then the first team across the bridge v Hull. 3 games in a row can't be bad.
I bet they will hide the U18s game where we can't tell it's on.
Tosin will have to prove he can do the real 'muck n nettles' defending against adult players before we can get too excited, but he won several towering headers v Stoke, who had a fair number of doormen in the team & compared to the promising but easy to run, sometimes dithering, defender who started the season, his progress has been much more than I even hoped for in one season.
Dilrosun looks like a miss already to me. Skillful, fast, but lacking intelligence & greedy. Like a typical England U21player in fact. I could hear the rags' players last week shouting on tv 'he's only got one foot' & pushing him into blind alleys. They sussed that, at that level, very quickly. Kongolo on the other hand, I do think has a chance. I think he is a bit too eager & cocks things up accordingly, but once he calms down, I think he has all the abilities plus a great engine, and pace. One burst he made from midfield when he was fouled, made me sit up & take notice. He must calm down though or he too will be a waste of time.
Boadu playing as an attacking mid, & putting in that kind of effort, must surely have a chance. His lack of strikers' style running was a handicap, but his skill on the ball is excellent.
Cameron Humphries is doing quietly ok. I'd seen him on tv in various situations & couldn't actually believe he was an international or especially, playing for City, but in recent games I've seen, apart from the occasional weird moment, he's looked promising, albeit overshadowed by Tosin.
