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Showing results for tags 'dire'.
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I was at the match on Saturday and the whole thing was a little flat. The atmosphere was lacking and pre-match stuff was lack lustre apart from the flag rolling across the North Stand. The performance was dire and only when we smelt the fear of defeat did we up the tempo and look like scoring. It was crazy as for as dire as we were we could still have pinched the win. What Strachan has to ascertain or instill into the players is that the intensity has to be there from the first whistle which it wasn't on Saturday. The tempo we had in the last 10 minutes is how we should have started so why didn't we? Now onto player performances - well who comes out of it with pass marks? Well I thought Patterson was decent enough as was Robertson and the direct attacking of Burke were refreshing and all we had to cling to in the first half in an attacking sense. I expected Chris Martin would be getting slated post-match and so he is but considering he was given jack-sh1t of a supply I don't see what else he could do. He did come closest to scoring for us with a glancing header and when changes were made even those coming on made no real difference (Griffiths missed a golden chance with a header unmarked eight yards out and Forrest dragged a shot wide from a similar range). As I see it just now if we don't score a few goals per game we will struggle to get a result as our defence (as a unit) is so fragile and looks likely to ship goals at every attack so attack is crucial (especially for tomorrow). The result was a nightmare as a win was assumed to be a given but the way the match panned out and how bereft we looked for long spells then a draw is a point salvaged. As we saw with Wales yesterday no results in international football now can be taken for granted and I reckon Lithuania are capable of taking points off of other teams in our group as well which will help. However, after two games our qualifying hopes are already looking precarious at best but a win tomorrow will steady the ship and eliminate Slovakia from contention. Therefore, we must put aside the disaster of Saturday as a win tomorrow could put a far rosier complexion on things.