Robinson needs to take some credit from that match IMO. With game lost at half time the temptation would have been to really go for it but they didn't -they kept it tight and kept probing hoping for something to happen rather than exposing themselves defensively. Using the fact that we were not goint to take risks and push people forwards. On the other hand, we were hoping they would leave gaps which largely they didn't.
Professionally this was fine as I think we were pretty comfortable, but it wasn't pretty on theg eye. The MK Dons plan relied on them keeping defensively sound, probing when they could and scoring and then us panicking but they scored a bit late in the day. I certainly wasn't biting my fingernails. It was pretty boring to watch, but an important 3 points against one of the better teams.
We are running out of the better teams to play - of course we won't win all our games against the lesser teams but we have put ourselves in a position where we don't have to. Against the better teams we only have Stevenage at home and Huddersfield away left. It is looking really good for us.
Hate to say it but Kermorgant was lucky not to be sent off. He had a sly kick at their number 5 follwoing Stephens (correct me if I am wrong) shot that was cleared following a corner. This started all the trouble. When the ref stopped play and spoke to the lino I thought he was in big trouble. When he sent their player off and we got a pen to say I was surprised is an understatement. Not that I am complaining but it could easily have gone the other way.
Firstly I will mention that I had a fresh, independent perspective from my brother whom lives and works overseas and thus had not seen us since the Premiership days although, when in the UK, he was a season ticket holder of many years standing. In summary his view was that, as we are, we will struggle in the Championship next season although we have some decent individuals capable of making the step up. He wasn't happy at the way we could easily have blown it by sitting back and allowing the 10 men of MK Dons to dominate possession and come at us. We had a needlessly nervy final 15 minutes or so (including time added on) once they scored!
Now for the boring bit, my thoughts:
The overriding fact is that we won and gained 3 points and that must temper any negatives.
Hamer has had his detractors but in my view his saves ensured us the 3 points last night. The back 4 has done well as has been well documented but, on last nights evidence, we have a decent back 5. That said I couldn't help but briefly wonder how the much maligned Robbie Elliot would do behind our current back 4 as opposed to the platoon of Dad's Army he served with last season. We will obviously never know but in the 4 games he did play earlier in the season he had two clean sheets so perhaps we can surmise that he would have been ok.
Green is a frustrating player to watch capable of that wonderful 50 yard crossfield pass from left to right in the second half to Haynes intermingled with regular bottling of challenges and losing the ball needlessly. SCP will do what he considers right but I think the time might be right to freshen it up a bit with a hopefully fired up Waggy.
BWP's first touch let him down on a number of occasions and that was perhaps highlighted more by Yann's superb first touch. My brother was very impressed with Yann, less so by BWP. BWP would have buried that swivel and shot in the second half earlier in the season so maybe he is lacking a little in confidence.
The midfield did enough but must be primarily at fault for enabling the oppo to have so much of the second half despite being a man down. Big Balls Jackson (what a man with those two penalties) went off on the hour or thereabouts (?injury) and I thought we looked worse when he left.
As I said at the start though the important stat is the 3 points we won!
Wasnt there last night, However it seems jacko is more and more evidently our key player and must be the main candidate for pots, a lot of others in line fir runner up though. Hope he can stay fit
Wasnt at the game so can only go on what im reading from those that went..
This is a results business. Get 3 points. then move on. yep, the team seems to have tightened up but that s to be expected, and by the sounds of it we scored the pens then sat back to Orders... i hate it when we do that and allow the opposition to come on to us, id much prefer to get the ball , keep it and pass it around and move , making the chances and the best form of defence is attack ......but hey, SCP got his 3 points and what do i know managing a football team against a team like MK Dons who are no mugs....im just glad where we are
Great result, poor performance. MK made us look very ordinary with their ten men in the 2nd half. The unbeaten run is great but the entertainment is lacking. I thought Stephens looked quite classy at times but the team hasn't looked as good since the Hollands/Hughes era. Enjoyed the antics of the MK fans more than the football. Well done to Hamer for his saves and to Jackson for his two penalties. He's going to end up our top scorer.
When Green hit that 40 yarder into the corner frame of the goal it showed just how much more quality we do have in our team than MK, when half their shots dribbled wide or straight into Hamer, bar a few..
They played better passing football, but we played for 3pts nout else. I was expecting 1-1 as MKD aren't bad
Great result, poor performance especially 2nd half. They passed us to death for 10 - 15 mins in he 2nd half and didn't look like the side with 10 men. Maybe they were under orders to 'kill' the game rather than get a third which really would have killed it. Too many of our usually solid performance had a poor night - Solly, Wiggins, Morrison. However, a win, another three points and if we can keep winning playing like that I'll be a happy man! Alan Smith, how the mighty fall.....
Against our top 4 rival teams in the league our record is: Sheff Utd 6 pts, Sheff Wed 4 pts, Huddersfield 3 points our of 3 and MK Dons 4 points. That is Played 7 Points gained 17, Points lost 4. Who cares about the performance last night.
2 halves - 2 different games of football. In the first we looked bright, passed it well and attacked with pace. Pity we couldn't have scored from open play, but we were clearly the better side. 2nd half was awful, we rarely attacked couldn't string a decent set of passes together, panicked on the ball and kept playing it back to the centre-backs & keeper. Not sure if we were match fit after a long break, or whether it was a deliberate tactic, but at times we just looked scared of them. It looked like we were the team with 10 men. Glad it didn't go on for 5 minutes longer, I could have seen us losing that. Overall verdict, great result poor performance. Got to start playing for 90 minutes.
On the BWP debate. I thought he worked hard and got into some very good positions. Gave himself 3-4 really good chances to score but couldn't put any of them away. Whether that's bad luck or poor finishing is open to conjecture, but the longer the goal drought continues, the easier it is to argue for the latter.
The team was definitely not 'under orders' to play as they did in the second half. Driving home I heard Chris Powell on the radio and he seemed as puzzled and disappointed by the performance as we were.
Great win and gap between us and 1st is widening nicely. Kermogant is a massive player for us and Stephens makes us tick. Also whenever we have a penalty i just know Jackson will score!
Got our tactics wrong in the 2nd half; should have shown more respect for MK and got on with making the man advantage count and ensuring BWP & Big Yann got more scoring chances. That being said we got the result despite taking our foot of the pedal should set us up well for Tranmere on Saturday. Agree with those who thought Hamer had a good game but agree his speed of distribution could be improved. Yet again, Yann was impressive in the air, particularly in the first half, and convinced BWP will be back in the goals very soon.
I wouldn't think it was an injury to JJ. He looked knackered before he went off. But, you know, we had two games called off, we're allowed to be a bit heavy-legged.
I wouldn't think it was an injury to JJ. He looked knackered before he went off. But, you know, we had two games called off, we're allowed to be a bit heavy-legged.
He's never been the speediest player but since his return from the hamstring injury he's looked really, really slow. Still has a huge influence on the game but his lack of pace is still hurting us on occasion.
I wouldn't think it was an injury to JJ. He looked knackered before he went off. But, you know, we had two games called off, we're allowed to be a bit heavy-legged.
Powell has said it was an injury "I think it's his calf or his achilles but I'm not exactly sure"
As the players were celebrating the first goal, Danny Hollands and CP were making tactical signals to each other. I don't know exactly what they meant but my guess would be:
We are 1 up at home to a top-six side, shut it all down till the break.
The 2nd half was all about stopping MKD from playing the way they wanted (tricky with 10 men anyway), and you could see why. After they scored, we looked wobbly for the last 5 mins.
Getting out of this piss poor league is about grinding-out results. It may not have been gripping stuff - but there will be plenty of that next season, if we can grind-out another 6 or 7 wins like this one.
1st was exactly what we wanted ,2nd half its one of those do we go for it or stay with what we have got and by the way we played we did the latter not a great 2nd half but its all about picking up the points, BWP badly needs a goal sure the goals we flow for him again soon.
As the players were celebrating the first goal, Danny Hollands and CP were making tactical signals to each other. I don't know exactly what they meant but my guess would be:
We are 1 up at home to a top-six side, shut it all down till the break.
The 2nd half was all about stopping MKD from playing the way they wanted (tricky with 10 men anyway), and you could see why. After they scored, we looked wobbly for the last 5 mins.
Getting out of this piss poor league is about grinding-out results. It may not have been gripping stuff - but there will be plenty of that next season, if we can grind-out another 6 or 7 wins like this one.
Comments
Professionally this was fine as I think we were pretty comfortable, but it wasn't pretty on theg eye. The MK Dons plan relied on them keeping defensively sound, probing when they could and scoring and then us panicking but they scored a bit late in the day. I certainly wasn't biting my fingernails. It was pretty boring to watch, but an important 3 points against one of the better teams.
We are running out of the better teams to play - of course we won't win all our games against the lesser teams but we have put ourselves in a position where we don't have to. Against the better teams we only have Stevenage at home and Huddersfield away left. It is looking really good for us.
Firstly I will mention that I had a fresh, independent perspective from my brother whom lives and works overseas and thus had not seen us since the Premiership days although, when in the UK, he was a season ticket holder of many years standing. In summary his view was that, as we are, we will struggle in the Championship next season although we have some decent individuals capable of making the step up. He wasn't happy at the way we could easily have blown it by sitting back and allowing the 10 men of MK Dons to dominate possession and come at us. We had a needlessly nervy final 15 minutes or so (including time added on) once they scored!
Now for the boring bit, my thoughts:
The overriding fact is that we won and gained 3 points and that must temper any negatives.
Hamer has had his detractors but in my view his saves ensured us the 3 points last night. The back 4 has done well as has been well documented but, on last nights evidence, we have a decent back 5. That said I couldn't help but briefly wonder how the much maligned Robbie Elliot would do behind our current back 4 as opposed to the platoon of Dad's Army he served with last season. We will obviously never know but in the 4 games he did play earlier in the season he had two clean sheets so perhaps we can surmise that he would have been ok.
Green is a frustrating player to watch capable of that wonderful 50 yard crossfield pass from left to right in the second half to Haynes intermingled with regular bottling of challenges and losing the ball needlessly. SCP will do what he considers right but I think the time might be right to freshen it up a bit with a hopefully fired up Waggy.
BWP's first touch let him down on a number of occasions and that was perhaps highlighted more by Yann's superb first touch. My brother was very impressed with Yann, less so by BWP. BWP would have buried that swivel and shot in the second half earlier in the season so maybe he is lacking a little in confidence.
The midfield did enough but must be primarily at fault for enabling the oppo to have so much of the second half despite being a man down. Big Balls Jackson (what a man with those two penalties) went off on the hour or thereabouts (?injury) and I thought we looked worse when he left.
As I said at the start though the important stat is the 3 points we won!
ONE AIM! COYR!
This is a results business. Get 3 points. then move on. yep, the team seems to have tightened up but that s to be expected, and by the sounds of it we scored the pens then sat back to Orders... i hate it when we do that and allow the opposition to come on to us, id much prefer to get the ball , keep it and pass it around and move , making the chances and the best form of defence is attack ......but hey, SCP got his 3 points and what do i know managing a football team against a team like MK Dons who are no mugs....im just glad where we are
They played better passing football, but we played for 3pts nout else. I was expecting 1-1 as MKD aren't bad
Sounds like my favourite keeper earnt his money this week so good on him
Reckon 20 more points for promotion and 25 for the title
However, a win, another three points and if we can keep winning playing like that I'll be a happy man!
Alan Smith, how the mighty fall.....
Thought Haynes looked lively , would like to see him up front with Kermo.
On the BWP debate. I thought he worked hard and got into some very good positions. Gave himself 3-4 really good chances to score but couldn't put any of them away. Whether that's bad luck or poor finishing is open to conjecture, but the longer the goal drought continues, the easier it is to argue for the latter.
Agree with those who thought Hamer had a good game but agree his speed of distribution could be improved. Yet again, Yann was impressive in the air, particularly in the first half, and convinced BWP will be back in the goals very soon.
We are 1 up at home to a top-six side, shut it all down till the break.
The 2nd half was all about stopping MKD from playing the way they wanted (tricky with 10 men anyway), and you could see why. After they scored, we looked wobbly for the last 5 mins.
Getting out of this piss poor league is about grinding-out results. It may not have been gripping stuff - but there will be plenty of that next season, if we can grind-out another 6 or 7 wins like this one.
Happy.
Onwards to Tranmere .