Match Thread City v Doncaster Rovers Saturday 30 July 2022 @ 3.00pm

Interesting challenge by Lucy Bronze before extra time half-time. From a previous challenge, she chased perhaps a little overenthusiastically into the next one. Got there first but dived in, leg straight and slightly off the ground, won the ball but foot went over the top, studs up, and then carried on through into their player who was not hurt, fortunately. Free kick but no card. It just shows how the resulting level of injury often influences the decision.

 

Perfect! Long may it continue. Hoofball is for football dinosaurs

 

I was screaming for him to do so. A couple of times, Oliver and Angol were on the half way line and with their hands up and raring to chase an early ball over the top. Another time we had 4 players to their 3 on our right hand side. Nothing happened, as Lewis looked for someone to roll it to. We could have benefitted from some early through balls into channels or between the defenders as well. That's probably why everyone gave up making runs in the second half after looking fluid in the first half - no service. They looked tired against 10 men but I think they were actually just demotivated. We needed to mix it up a bit - make defenders think and work harder, turn them, and drag them out of position. Some driving runs through against tired legs would have helped, too. Is that not allowed, now? Tired legs give away free-kicks but we hardly won any. Instead we were completely predictable. No plan B and a one-dimensional plan A.

 

I tend to agree we need to mix it up more play football when you can play more direct when needed.

 

Taking heading the ball from the game is not for me the powers that be have done enough damage to what is/was a great physical game, the likes of Dixie Deans, Nathaniel Lofthouse, Christiano Ronaldo, John Terry, Niall Quinn, built there game around being great headers of a football, the former heading footballs that were more like medicine balls once they got wet;

 

I noticed the same incident. A serious injury from these sort of tackles.is very very rare.

 

Why on earth would your keeper kick from hands when your team is built around passing out from the back and you have an extra man for 45 minutes? An early ball over the top yesterday was never on as Doncaster sat so deep for the entire game. What we needed was a player who could get at the full back and get crosses in from the dead ball line. Unfortunately we.didnt have that sort of player available.

 

They played almost the whole match with two lines of defenders against us our build up play was slow and in front of them. We have a player who won more headers than anybody else last season surely the occasional direct play should have been tried

 

Not so at least twice. I was shouting for the long kick because it was begging for it. The defenders were right up on the half-way line, giving Oliver and Angol the whole half of the pitch to attack. They looked quite annoyed. I would not be making the point if the defenders had not pushed up on those occasions. I'm not saying it happened all the time - just that we did the same predictable passing build up every time, regardless of where there were gaps enticing runners or through balls. It allowed the defenders to get back into position and close them and seemed to frustrate our attack minded players.

 

what did my head in a bit was the chance to whip a ball in only for it to go back allowing defenders to set themselves

 

Why has Mark Hughes not actually commented on that leg breaking tackle yesterday ?

 

It seems we're going to be very possession based and very patient.
The positive is we won't concede many if we keep having 75% possession.
If Saturday is anything to go by, a lot of our wins will be 1-0.

 

Correct

 

He has.
https://www.bradfordcityfc.co.uk/news/2022/july/osadebe-undergoes-surgery/

 

So was searching more thorough yesterday as the crackdown started? A Crewe fan received urgent medical attention at Rochdale after breathing difficulties from a flare. I didn't notice any extra searching. I saw none actually. I'm presuming just the usual bag checks but nobody had any when I went in.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jul/25/fans-bans-pitch-invasions-and-pyrotechnics-in-football-crackdown-drug-use-premier-league-efl

 

Leeds actually..

 

Unless we come up against an aggressive high pressing team like chesterfield who don’t give you the time. We must find away to combat that

 

I predicted this during the first half.