Scunnied
Scunthorpe Utd 2 - 1 Newcastle Utd
Our winless run continued on Tuesday night, as we left the smallest ground in the league with nothing to show for our efforts other than a one match suspension for our captain following his fifth booking of the season.
With soon-to-be-appointed-permanent-manager Chris Hughton shuffling his side after Saturday's disappointing loss to Forest, Geremi and Spiderman came into the starting XI in place of the lacklustre Lovenkrands and Homer. However, it was the home team who started the brighter, creating a number of good chances to open the scoring. At the other end, Bigger Lad was proving to be a handful for the home side, and saw a number of shots well saved by Joe Murphy in the Scunny goal.
Level at half time, things took a turn for the worst early in the second half when a long ball over the top saw Zurab Khizanishvili out muscled by Scunny number 10 Gary Hooper, and with Danny Simpson moving across to cover, Martyn Woolford was left completely unmarked and free to slot the ball past Steve Harper to give the home team the lead.
That lead only lasted 11 minutes when Danny Guthrie dribbled his way into the penalty area, before laying the ball square for Kevin Nolan to stroke home in to the bottom corner of the net and restore parity.
However, with both sides searching for a winner it was the home side who ultimately snatched all the points when further poor defending saw Woolford again unmarked and left with another simple finish to wrap up the points.
Whilst the Baggies proved incapable of beating Swansea and opening up a gap at the top of the table, wins for the teams below us (including one in vain for now departed smoggy manager Gareth Southgate) meant that there is now only 6 points between the top half of the league. If we hadn't realised that this season was going to be a hard fought battle, then that message must surely now have been driven home to the players, while we are all left ruing our recent run of poor performances which has kept us embroiled in the dog fight rather than several points clear at the top of the league.
What this again proves is that without our first choice central defensive partnership our resources simply aren't good enough to cope. Whether Fat Mike allows Hughton to do anything about that though is unfortunately doubtful.
Other reports: BBC
Our winless run continued on Tuesday night, as we left the smallest ground in the league with nothing to show for our efforts other than a one match suspension for our captain following his fifth booking of the season.
With soon-to-be-appointed-permanent-manager Chris Hughton shuffling his side after Saturday's disappointing loss to Forest, Geremi and Spiderman came into the starting XI in place of the lacklustre Lovenkrands and Homer. However, it was the home team who started the brighter, creating a number of good chances to open the scoring. At the other end, Bigger Lad was proving to be a handful for the home side, and saw a number of shots well saved by Joe Murphy in the Scunny goal.
Level at half time, things took a turn for the worst early in the second half when a long ball over the top saw Zurab Khizanishvili out muscled by Scunny number 10 Gary Hooper, and with Danny Simpson moving across to cover, Martyn Woolford was left completely unmarked and free to slot the ball past Steve Harper to give the home team the lead.
That lead only lasted 11 minutes when Danny Guthrie dribbled his way into the penalty area, before laying the ball square for Kevin Nolan to stroke home in to the bottom corner of the net and restore parity.
However, with both sides searching for a winner it was the home side who ultimately snatched all the points when further poor defending saw Woolford again unmarked and left with another simple finish to wrap up the points.
Whilst the Baggies proved incapable of beating Swansea and opening up a gap at the top of the table, wins for the teams below us (including one in vain for now departed smoggy manager Gareth Southgate) meant that there is now only 6 points between the top half of the league. If we hadn't realised that this season was going to be a hard fought battle, then that message must surely now have been driven home to the players, while we are all left ruing our recent run of poor performances which has kept us embroiled in the dog fight rather than several points clear at the top of the league.
What this again proves is that without our first choice central defensive partnership our resources simply aren't good enough to cope. Whether Fat Mike allows Hughton to do anything about that though is unfortunately doubtful.
Other reports: BBC
posted by Paul at 12:13 pm
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