mhead bee
Well-known member
walsall reports
An outstanding performance today from all players, the only thing missing was our ability to stick the ball in the net!
We dominated the whole game and kept walsall down to two chances, a flying header from the backtracking tabb and a shot from leitao when clean through magnificently saved by nelson.
Rather then go on about the chances a brief summary of who should have scored in the first half. Hargreaves from a burton set up, rhodes from a one in one from a burton through ball then a sitter when set up by burton. Rankin put clean through by burton but leaves ball behind. Burton turns defence inside out and hits post. Hutch had two good header oppoprtunities and rhodes one.
All in all we absolutely slaughtered them first half and only goal is a fumbled corner that somehow sneaked in.
Second half much of the same as burton slides rhodes through for a one on one and he drags ball wide. Again we create dozens of opportunities but just can't seem to convert. At 1.0 you are always nervy as walsall smacked long balls into the wind that we coped very well with with nelson coming out to punch a bouncing ball when their player looked favourite then saving point blank in the last minute from a scramble.
We were denied 3 cast iron pens in the 2nd half the like I have never seen. Firstly rhodes again tore into them, cut inside the right back and was heading for goal when he was brought down from behind. OK, maybe the defender got a touch but the ref was the only one who saw it. With us all fuming the ref was given the perfect opportunity to make amends when less than a minute later ranking went round two players and as he looked to cut back from the byline just inside the 6 yard box he was clearly upended only for thr ref to give a goal kick. I could not believe it. About 5 minutes later we pinged a free kick into the box and burton went to chest it but their defender had both arms round his neck and dragged him to the floor, ref plays on. The ref kind of lost it after the pen incidents and started doing very strange things but the worst decision of all was when rhodes was flying down the left wing and their full back bodychecked him and he flew into the boarding. After a brief mellee rhodes had to go off injured and the ref gave them a throw on.
The ref only made 1 real blunder in the first half which was to book merson for diving when it was a cast iron foul against sodje. The lino on new road put his flag up on average about 5-10 seconds after the event so was making a rod for his own back as nobody knew what he was flaging for.
All in all, 10/10's go to hargreaves, burton, rhodes, and eddie with all following close behind except lawrence who gets downmarked for a first half performance where he appeared to be on another planet!
We dominated the whole game and kept walsall down to two chances, a flying header from the backtracking tabb and a shot from leitao when clean through magnificently saved by nelson.
Rather then go on about the chances a brief summary of who should have scored in the first half. Hargreaves from a burton set up, rhodes from a one in one from a burton through ball then a sitter when set up by burton. Rankin put clean through by burton but leaves ball behind. Burton turns defence inside out and hits post. Hutch had two good header oppoprtunities and rhodes one.
All in all we absolutely slaughtered them first half and only goal is a fumbled corner that somehow sneaked in.
Second half much of the same as burton slides rhodes through for a one on one and he drags ball wide. Again we create dozens of opportunities but just can't seem to convert. At 1.0 you are always nervy as walsall smacked long balls into the wind that we coped very well with with nelson coming out to punch a bouncing ball when their player looked favourite then saving point blank in the last minute from a scramble.
We were denied 3 cast iron pens in the 2nd half the like I have never seen. Firstly rhodes again tore into them, cut inside the right back and was heading for goal when he was brought down from behind. OK, maybe the defender got a touch but the ref was the only one who saw it. With us all fuming the ref was given the perfect opportunity to make amends when less than a minute later ranking went round two players and as he looked to cut back from the byline just inside the 6 yard box he was clearly upended only for thr ref to give a goal kick. I could not believe it. About 5 minutes later we pinged a free kick into the box and burton went to chest it but their defender had both arms round his neck and dragged him to the floor, ref plays on. The ref kind of lost it after the pen incidents and started doing very strange things but the worst decision of all was when rhodes was flying down the left wing and their full back bodychecked him and he flew into the boarding. After a brief mellee rhodes had to go off injured and the ref gave them a throw on.
The ref only made 1 real blunder in the first half which was to book merson for diving when it was a cast iron foul against sodje. The lino on new road put his flag up on average about 5-10 seconds after the event so was making a rod for his own back as nobody knew what he was flaging for.
All in all, 10/10's go to hargreaves, burton, rhodes, and eddie with all following close behind except lawrence who gets downmarked for a first half performance where he appeared to be on another planet!
