WBAUnofficial

(01-21-2020, 01:19 PM)Duffers Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-21-2020, 12:39 PM)Cheshire East Baggie Wrote: [ -> ]I've wasted my lunch-break watching the highlights. Bartley and Johnstone are being cut way too much slack IMO. In the old days of good defending (Foster/McAuley/Olsson, Godden/Wile /Robertson etc), if one player slipped up, his mates would anticipate and be covering. Not only was Bartley out of position, he showed no sign of urgency in getting back to cover (or is he really that slow?) - as if he just assumed Hegazi would clear it. And Johnstone's feeble effort at stopping the shot was inexcusable. Getting two hands to the ball and failing to get it past the post was very poor indeed.

As I've posted before, it isn't about the individuals (much as I think Bartley is over-rated), it's about coaching and character. Hegazi and Bartley would have had the bollocking of their lives from some coached (Megson, Pulis, maybe Hodgson, certainly Buckley or Gould). Does this happen nowadays?

You slated three individuals in the first paragraph.

I slated them for their apparent weak character and implied that they were poorly coached. You can't deny that between the three of them they made a proper mess of what shouldn't have been too dangerous a situation.

Who knows how good they would have been with different coaching? Who knows if better players would have done better in Bilic's side? I'd have Foster, McAuley and Olsson back in a flash if it were possible to re-generate them. TBH Foster would be a big improvement right now.

As with most goals there was more than one error involved but for me the biggest culprit has to be Bartley.
As soon as the ball was played over the top of Townsend Bartley could see Campbell making a run towards the box and should have been busting a gut to get goal side instead of trotting along behind him.