Just give what's becoming 'the usual'.
All 8's, hand out one 9, if you must, then move onto the next game.
All 8's, hand out one 9, if you must, then move onto the next game.
Stockdale - 8 - two great saves. Demonstrated terrific concentration. Kicking poor
Bruno - 8 - solid and classy
Duffy. - 8 - assured and dominant
Dunk - 9 - centre halves just don't pass the ball like that
Bong - 8 - won two crucial challenges when we were under the cosh
Norwood - 8 - best game for us
Stephens - 9 - an asssist and countless important challenges MOTM
March - 7 - a little patchy but sublime in spells
Knockeart - 8 - deserved his goal, even if he got a bit lucky with the finish
Baldock - 8 - terrific energy and an amazing strike
Murray - 7 - not his day, but cool calm and collected when it mattered
Hened - 7
Skalak - 6
Murphy - 7
Knockaert 8. Skill and graft, a legend. Found the celebration a bit OTT though.
Great to see all the 8's for Stockdale. Didn't have huge amounts to do, but at pivotal moments he was totally switched on with the reflexes of a CAT
Dunk 7, Stephens 6 and Bruno 9? Wow!
but made 2 or 3 critical saves...
Pretty much agree with this apart from Baldock. An absolute menace all game, so a 9 as well. Great to Stephens bossing the midfield as well, and Bong was immense in the 20-25 minute weaker spell we had in the first half.
Stephens had an excellent game. Really glad to see this.
Hardly wetting the bed about it. My exact word was "unnecessary" and then when questioned i justified why i said that
...and 3 worse than newcastle who it's not inconceivable we may be competing for second with (or even the title).
and yes it's 12 better than fulham but it won't be that much if they catch us up on points.
Give it a rest, accept that at the half way stage we are 2 points clear of the most fancied team in the history of the Championship and 8 clear of third. Stop sniping at individual players and accept what a fantastic job Hughton and his team have done and are doing! I am sure they will be looking at back up for Baldock, but don't expect a replacement any time soon!I will obviously get criticised but I watched Baldock closely all game. He gives the ball away/loses it/can't hold it up most of the time. Still if he scores a goal a game like the first we'd all take it so I'll get my tin hat. We DO need to sign a striker though in January. Why take the risk on relying on 3 when we are so close!