Two moments of brilliance actually:
1. Leonard's 70 yard sprint to deny an almost certain Bury goal.
2. Leonard's second half winner.
Just how good is he and, without him, where would we be?
cant disagree with all the comments re Lenny, without doubt our most influential player for a number of seasons. Can't see him staying unless a few small miracles happen and we are a championship team in May.
a few observations from me on yesterday's game.
I dont think the wind wind and the state of the pitch helped, for me our lacklustre showing is more fundamental. Still a very welcome 3 points, and probably the goal of the season!
With the the notable exception of Timlin, who is a fish out of water at LB, I thought our defence looked pretty solid yesterday. Oxley made some super saves again, I had Demi as my MOM, White put in a typical unassuming and very impressive performance and the quality we know Anton can deliver is back! Pretty good show.
our much bigger issue is midfield. Not in the quality of our players, as we have a very talented group. I think the far bigger problem is one of positioning. Timlin kept wandering into his preferred left of midfield, leaving a huge hole on the left flank, and was crowding out Wordsworth and to an extent, Kightly. We ended up with all our midfield tripping over one another, chasing the same balls, and leaving us with very few options to get the ball out to the wings and forward to Cox and Fortune / Ranger. It also explains why Cox keeps dropping deep, to try and retrieve the ball and take it in the right direction. I suspect that is why we end up resorting to the hopeful hoof up the field, almost bypassing the middle and freeing up some space. The problem with this is we don't really have an effective target when Ranger isn't playing, and he is better with the ball at his feet anyway. This problem was obvious yesterday, as the contrast between Tuesday night showed that we had a better balance in the middle on Tuesday.
Which then leaves the huge dilemma - you can't possibly leave Lenny out of the side, and we ought to be building the midfield around him. If he leaves in the transfer window, we have enough talent to survive (i am not saying he wouldn't be missed, because it would be a bit of a disaster if he goes). However, while we have the luxury of having Lenny, Wordy, Kightly, McLaughlin, Josh Wright and young Yearwood coming through we do need to create a system that allows them to really thrive, when what we are seeing is them all tripping over each other. Much as I like Timlin as a player, his extended run at LB is becoming increasingly ill-conceived and I don't think there is space in the midfield for him now, regardless of whether Lenny leaves or not. To my mind, if you fix the issues in midfield, you also get a system that also delivers decent service to Cox and Ranger that they can get on the end of.
i personally think that this will get sorted, apparently Coker's recovery is on track, so hopefully we will have him back by Christmas. He is actually the key to balance, and I think the reason we haven't managed to get a grip on a settled system.
