Perryqhill
Striker
In those 9 games after the Checkatrade final we played 5 games in 14 days including the final itself, of course we had to change the defence around, what would you expect?? That's a game every 2 days 8 hours. It culminated in a display where a pacey energetic Coventry side absolutely took the piss out of us and players like Flanagan were clearly absolutely shattered looking like old men, with little or no protection in front of them given the age, mobility and tiredness of our central midfielders. We then had a 4 day break before the Donny game and were off again playing another 4 games in 12 days.
You're simply not comparing like for like before we even mention that McGeady got injured in the same period, like that's not going to have an effect when we haven't got the same attacking prowess going forward to relieve those players in midfield and defence and get us further up the pitch, retaining the ball for longer. That's the main reason for sitting back against Pompey away and packing the midfield and then in the final itself.
As for sitting deep to protect the defence - oh come on man. The defence has been suspect all season, hence the manager not being able to decide on his centre halfs right the way through it and trying to address it in January, then again with Ozturk's re-introduction towards the end, I suppose that's Oviedo's fault too then? One of the reasons commonly acknowledged among our support is that when we're more expansive in the way we play we don't really have the legs and mobility in central midfield to cope with sides coming at us and it's been exploited a lot, certainly more so since Leadbitter's arrival and it's probably one of the reasons we saw more of Power towards the end of the season rather than McGeouch.
James was pretty poor tbf, it's why he's been let go.
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