Derby v Villa Friendly

[eastie]

Worrying signs in that we created hardly anything, one decent effort on goal and Ireland looked anonymous- only a friendly but a little concerned by this performance.

[Somniloquism]

I said at the start I could see us losing with such a back up defence playing, and then we reduced our midfield and attack in the second half as well looking at the subs. I don't disagree with this as we need to know if the backups can do the job in the worst case scenario for injuries.  It would be nice to know if we did create anything though and just didn't finish or whether we didn't even threaten.

[TheSandman]

Meh. Only a friendly. It wasn't even our first choice team so we can't really complain.

[JUAN PABLO]

At least Chris Smith probably got pissed for nothing ..

[PaulWinch again]

I'm not bothered by the loss, results in preseason don't really matter. Doesn't change anything we still need a couple of players in. A fullback and a centre mid.

[ozzjim]

The creativity side of things is worrying. Young and Downing out and Albrighton having the inevitable dip that a young player coming onto the scene gets, leaves us very exposed. A central midfield man that can anchor properly and let Ireland, Delph, even Petrov roam forward is a must, as is a backup wide option, Albrighton can't be what we pin it all on.

[cdbearsfan]

N'Zogbia?

[eastie]

How many shots have we had on target in 3 games against Blackburn, Chelsea and derby ? Probably can count them on one hand over the 3 games, let's hope nzogbia makes a big difference.

[The Situation]

Where are the posters gone who said that we've improved already showing really positive signs when we beat Blackburn?

I did kind of say it's silly to base judgement off one pre-season game. I think McNegative is just trying to experiment trying to work out the best formation, what system works best and which set of players to use. I wouldn't read too much into the loss. Just look at the defence tonight.

Oh well. Lets just hope we're ready for Fulham in 10 days.

[eastie]

Against Blackburn we played ok , nothing special but well enough , against Chelsea and derby we were poor .

[PaulMcGrathsNo5Shirt]

As soon as it became clear that N'Zobia was our last 'incoming' my fear was we were dreadfully low on creativity and goals. Pinning your hopes on Ireland coming good is a big risk.
No doubt we'll hear about tiredness, jet lag, hot conditions in Hong Kong etc... so instead of a home friendly on Saturday what are we doing....pissing off to the 90C heat of Portugal.

The thinking and planning behind our pre-season has been poor.

[Greg N'Ash]

It was hardly the first XI lads. Well i hope so. purely a match fitness exercise to my mind given the starting line-up

[Somniloquism]

Meh. Only a friendly. It wasn't even our first choice team so we can't really complain.

As I mentioned, I'm not complaining as such and didn't expect that defence to keep Derby out, but it was pretty much the first choice attack less Chuck and if Eastie is correct, we didn't have any threat from that front-line.

We seem to be heading into the new season with the major worry that if Bent doesn't score or play, we will be hoping for a 0-0 at best. At the moment Bent has had a hand in all of our goals this pre-season and if he hadn't hit the post against Walsall, it would have been 100% Bent only. Still, I expect to see 'Zog playing against Braga in our last test before the serious business starts and seeing some comfort there.

[Toronto Villa]

Without Downing and Ash the side will need to get used to each other. It won't happen straight away. N'Zogbia will help a lot when he finally gets up to speed.

[eastie]

Biggest worry for me is that Ireland looks miles away from the player he was at city- we will need him at his best and I hope he delivers for us , albrighton had a decent chance but in truth very little created tonight and  we had some of our big guns in midfield and up front.