Don’t it always seem to be the way, when you are struggling? At the bottom, no confidence and you end up with two blind officials.
Broadhurst last might decided to match Bournemouth’s formation, in the absence of Gerrard (knee injury) and played a 3 5 2 of Oakes, Westwood, Mils, Roper, Pead, Leary, Osborn, Keates, Fox, Claridge and Constable. First half it didn’t work.
Pead seemed to get into his stride playing the wong back roll reasonably quickly, despite being caught out a couple of times, but didn’t really get forward enough in the first half. Fox was struggling with it, was not getting forward at all, and, with the midfield three not covering the gaps he left, Bournemouth had by far the better of the possession.
Accordingly, the first 45 went in similar fashion to Saturday. Roper dived in at the edge of the box and brought down his man, but this time Oakes brilliantly saved Hayter’s rather poor penalty. A few minutes later, a beautifully flighted free kick from the left was side footed home by the same player.
There were some differences, however, in that we also got some attacks in. Constable turned huis man brilliantly, then, one on one, dillied and dallied until the defender got back and shot weakly wide. Leary hammered in a piledriver, which was spilled by the keeper and Claridge should really have knocked in the rebound. Osborn hit a volley tamely at the keeper, with one of those that might just have flown in. All the same, we were also indebted to Oakes for two more fine saves, including a superb tip over from a sublime piece of skill from Fletcher and one tackle on Hayter from a break when he was one on one with Oakes and someone managed to get back to him.
Whatever the Manager said at half time worked, however. Pead and Fox pushed further forward (although neither really got enough croses in) and we completely dominated possession.
Half chances came and went to Claridge, Constable and Leary and the keeper pulled off one tremendous parry from Keates free kick, which somehow eluded in in rushing Mills.
However, to the referee. Leary went over on the edge of the box in what looked every inch a dive, but no penalty and no yellow card. One central defender climbed all over the back of Claridge with a clear foul, but nothing was given (and I admit they do get away with those quite often, but also they’re given quite often) and the referee missed a quite blatent handball. Nailed on penalty, no doubt. To top off all of that, a Westwood header was clearly a foot over the line before being cleared and wasn’t given. Frustration grew.
Eventually, Broadhurst decided to bring on some extra pace and creativity in the shape of Demontagnac and Timm, but, to be frank, the introduction of Timm was too late and Demontagnac came on for the wrong man, the impressive Claridge. I’d have brought Timmon for any of the midfield three much earlier.
All in all, you can’t complain about the effort, in the second hlaf at least, in a game we should really have got something from. We even scored a perfectly good goal, only to have it chalked off.
Oakes got the sponsor’s Man of the Match, quite understandably, but Claridge wasn’t far behind. Constable had his best game for us yet,but looked nervous in front of goal when he had to think about it and his movement needs to be much better. The midfield three were all much of a muchness and we need someone else in there who can inject some pace. They aren’t our best option as a partnership. Pead did reasonably well in an unfamilar role, as did Fox second half. The central defenders got better as the game went on, after a poor start, but, towards the end, with Bournemouth hanging on, three was probably one too many.
All in all, this was a much better performance, but it is too little, too late.
