We got what we deserved today and it could and should have been more. Kasper was outstanding and the Hulse goal was a rocket, nothing he could of done to save that.
The defence looks well dodgy, no pace at all and struggled all day. Collins and Naylor were both very poor, Bessone was dire and Connoley was the best of a bad bunch probably. Hopefully Bruce comes in and does better or we are goosed.
The midfield didn't help, over-run as i thought they would. Howson did well to create the goal but it was his fault that Hulse scored, gave the ball away trying to hold on to the ball too long and then got out-muscled and didn't have the pace to get back. This is a massive step up for the likes of him, he struggled last season along with Johnson and Killa and they will get over-run every week by teams in this division. They'll get better with experience but we need some steel adding in midfield with experience of this level or higher. I cant see how Larry plays all 3 of them together, they dont offer anything defensively as they cant tackle, they're all lightweight midfielders, none of them are major threats going forward and dont get many goals between them. Someone has to come in this week. We've had a kid from Millwall on trial apparently, Ali Fuseini, not sure if he's signing or not but he's free so must be OOC, only 21 but he's a big strong midfielder which is something we haven't got.
Up front we need a striker badly, Becchio is a battler and will score a few but he cant be expected to play up on his own and get all the goals. He hardly won a header today and all we did was knock it long in the second half, he's off-side all the time and he needs support. Paynter will score but is unproven at this level and IMO we need a Chopra or someone to get the goals.
Overall, we lack quality but Snoddy will add to that in attack as will Gradel. It's defensively that we need to improve massively and a proven goalscorer bringing in to play upfront with Becchio.
The penalty was correct IMO, Sam did touch the ball but he took the man first and the Derby player played the ball onto Sam. Grayson will need to get things sorted quickly because if we have a really poor start old Ken wont mess about, he'll have Larry out the door before Christmas if were down near the bottom.
