Rip Roaring Potters

Potters vs pompey – In the eyes of mystical descent

by northy on 23/11/09 at 1:23 am

Here is todays match review from oatcake messageboard contributor mystical descent. Thanks for your thoughts mate. Comments welcome.

Ratings first:

Sorensen – 7 – Decent game, guessed right on the penalty.
Wilkinson – 8 – The only player playing with any sort of energy throughout the game, very smart defensively and inches away from the goal of the season.
Shawcross – 7
Huth – 7
Collins – 5 – By hell this guy is awful.

Delap – 5 on the wing, 7.5 in the middle.
Whitehead – 2 – Instead of balancing the merits and drawbacks of Dean’s performances, I’ve now decided to award him a point for every time he makes a positive impact on the match.
Diao – 5 – Not at his best.
Etherington – 7.5- Always looked potent

Beattie – 5 – Still not fit, won nothing.

Fuller – 7 – Tough game for him, but scored a fine goal

Subs:

Lawrence – 7.5 – Massive impact, carried the ball out of defence and took it forward. The spark we’d sorely missed
Sidibe – 7 – Also had his own impact on the game. It’s no coincidence that whenever he comes on the pitch the ball sticks in the opposition half.
Tuncay – 6 – Only got a quick run out.

There’s been a drop in the temperature, the club shop is covered in festive accoutrements and the supermarkets have been selling Christmas supplies for the best part of a month. I think I saw the Coca-Cola Christmas advert have its first run-out of the year yesterday, too. Here’s my own contribution to the yuletide countdown, a Stoke City Christmas Cracker joke:

Q. What’s the only thing worse than having Dean ‘Invisible’ Whitehead and Danny ’superior distribution’ Collins in your team?

A. Danny Collins and Dean Whitehead being in your team and giving the ball to each other.

Like most Christmas Cracker jokes, that’s not especially funny. In fact, it’s about as funny as watching the comedy of errors as these two bumble around near the ball. Honestly, they’re bad enough on their own, but when they combine together it’s like a comedy sketch show. Here’s an example: First half, Stoke free-kick inside the Portsmouth half. Whitehead decides to take it and passes it back to Collins instead of smacking it into the box. ‘Superior Distribution’ Collins proceeds to fire the ball as hard as he can a good 3 yards short of Rory Delap. I mean for heaven’s sake, Delap was only standing about 10 yards away.

Now I’ve been accused of being a little blinkered in my support of the manager, but I’m afraid that I simply cannot advocate the starting line-up today. The best central midfielder at the club out on the right. The invisible man and Diao in the middle. Danny Collins in the first team squad. I could understand Lawrence and Whelan not playing – Lawrence played 120 minutes in the week and the scanner packed in when Whelan went to get his injury assessed. However, there’s still absolutely no good reason for Collins to keep Higginbotham or even Griffin out of the team. Why not put our best central midfielder back into the middle and give Tuncay a run out on the right? After all, it’s Portsmouth, rooted to the bottom of the table. If we can’t have a go at these, who can we have a go at?

After the bizarre penalty incident, with players falling all over the place and a Delap air shot taking a chunk out of Dindane’s shoulder, there was very little to comment upon on the first half. In fact, the best way to share the experience would be to copy and paste a huge extract from a Thomas Pynchon novel. It’d be as difficult to read as that half of football was difficult to watch. 35 minutes until our first shot on target, a tame side footed free-kick. A central midfield that lacked any presence on the game. 18 players all standing in about 8 square yards on the pitch around the ball for most of the half. A few long Portsmouth shots. Dead flat atmosphere, swirling winds and rain, lots of indifferent jogging around, Collins and Whitehead ballsing up everything they touched. There were very few positives and lots of negatives. Etherington looked tidy enough and Wilkinson was having a decent game. That’s about it though. Diao was clearly struggling, Whitehead was doing his usual trick of hiding away from the ball and we were struggling to impose ourselves on the game at all. Collins was showing us why we were better off when he won nothing in the air – every time he does get his head to the ball he heads it straight back into the centre. We were very, very poor. I can’t agree with chanting the names of Lawrence and Whelan while they’re off the pitch because I believe it’s destructive. I can fully understand the frustrations of the supporters and while I didn’t like to hear the team being booed off at half-time, I could understand that as well. The sight of somebody smacking a ball into the Sky portacabin was better entertainment than anything else that had been on offer.

So then, the second half. It started in pretty much the same vein and there seemed to be little in the form of redemption. A few supporters around me behind the dugout were getting quite irate about our manager having not changed anything. One man just to the right of the dugout was particularly furious, spending most of the next 15 minutes on his feet screaming all sorts of things at the manager. Happily, on 58 minutes he made the two game changing substitutions. Lawrence and Sidibe on for Diao and Beattie. Lawrence will rightly get plaudits for his performance but Sidibe is bafflingly coming in for a lot of criticism. The substitutions meant this:

1) Our best central midfielder was now actually playing in the centre. Not only that, but he also had a very good game in the centre.

2) We actually had a bit of an attacking threat coming down the right hand flank, making the side look more balanced and keeping the opposition defence fully occupied.

3) We were much more effective as a team unit. Lawrence brought the ball out of our half and into the opposition half. He provided some creativity that we’d been sorely lacking and turned us into a more attacking force. As for Mama, he linked the play well and we kept the ball in the opposition half much better.

In short, what a difference it makes to our performance when we have players playing in their correct positions. We weren’t really at our best even then, but we were much, much better and were on top of the game. Ten minutes later, we put together a beautiful move and Fuller topped it off with a fantastic finish. It was a lovely passing move involving plenty of players and some individual skill. You could see how much it meant to Fuller too. Does anybody know who he was running over to in the West Stand? He seemed to be pointing at somebody in particular.

Hopefully this will mark a turning point in our manager’s plans for the first team. Surely after that second half performance there are certain things that he can’t ignore. Another top effort from Andy Wilkinson at right back must cement his place in the side. Pulis was certainly gushing about him after the match. We are at our best when we have two wingers on the pitch. Rory Delap offers nothing on the right hand side but is our best central midfielder. Dean Whitehead and Danny Collins were Olofinjana style signings and need getting rid of before they cost us further. We need more players in the box for throw-ins. Simple as that. Why is the giant Robert Huth standing on the halfway line? Beattie is our best target man, but if he’s not fit we’re going to struggle to link up the play and the manager should probably consider another option up front. In our system, with Kitson now farmed out the only other target man we have is Mama, short of a complete change in style of play.

I imagine that last comment will have annoyed the Tuncay fans reading this. I say Tuncay fans, we’re all Stoke supporters and we all want to see Tuncay and Stoke doing well. However, I think it’s pretty clear how the manager sees Tuncay. Rightly or wrongly, he is seen as back-up for Ricardo Fuller. Personally, I don’t think he’d fit in our system in his favourite position behind the striker, simply because he won’t do enough link up work in the air. If he’s going to fit in anywhere, it’s out wide on the wing. I’m sure he could do a job on the right if necessary, he’s got a decent work rate and his creativity wouldn’t be stifled. I’m not getting my hopes of seeing him start a game up until Fuller is suspended, though.

Anyway, that’s another three points in the bag. Hopefully our manager will have a bit of an epiphany now and over this week we’ll work on putting together our strongest team with each player in their right position. Blackburn away is a winnable game, we’ll have a fine support at the game and hopefully we’ll go their and show what we’re made of. I’ll leave you now with my line-up to win that game:

Sorensen
Wilkinson – Shawcross – Faye – Huth

Lawrence – Whelan – Delap – Etherington

Beattie

Fuller

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