Barnsley missed three sitters in that last thirty minutes and should have had us dead and buried by 90 minutes.
Now I’ve calmed down, I can make a more reasonable assessment.
Positives:
Luke Chambers is class, and probably the best performance of the night.
James Carragher, bar a few lapses of concentration, will be able to slot into league 1 football easily.
Will Aimson is calm and well assured.
Uncertain:
I like Matt Smith, but he tends to slow the game down too much and quite often misses the opportunity for that quick killer pass. He needs to learn when slow is good and when urgency can be dangerous for the opposition.
Calvin Ramsay; I will give him more games before I reach a verdict.
Josh Stones looks to have potential, but I feel he is trying too hard to impress; chasing the ball rather than getting into space.
Negative:
SM is biting his lip at the moment, or following the corporate line in posh speak. His body language in press interviews has gone more introspective and he can’t look the camera in the face; which is an indication that he is not saying what he really wants us to know. Yes I think CW is right; and when SM’s patience with the virtual board explodes, he’ll be off. Probably when he’s given some loose change to spend from the Hughes deal.
People laughed at Dave Whelan when he promised to take us to the Premier League. At least in that era, the ambition of the club was in the open for everybody to poke fun at. But we did have the last laugh in the end and that was our most memorable era ever; that will never be repeated.
