The fullbacks main role is to defend, forget what they do going forwards for now because they aren’t doing the fundamental part of their role.
How many crosses into the box did either of them stop?
I can’t remember a single one.
If you aren’t doing that, you aren’t worthy of a place in the side regardless of how well you can attack.
I feel sorry for whoever plays upfront at the moment as they are largely feeding off scraps and when they do manage to make something of the balls forward they are often left to fend off three defenders until they inevitably lose the ball.
The poor performances of Mackie and Hall today didn’t really give Smith much of a chance to make an impact on the game.
Of course Eastwood’s injury wasn’t ideal, but did this really have an impact on the result?
Not for me. The first goal was an easy finish that not many keepers would have saved, the penalty whilst reckless was at a stage where the game was gone.
I can’t see what kind of leaders and scrappers we have in the side now, think back to the team from around 96/97 ish and the names who were part of that:
Mike Ford
Martin Gray
Stuart Massey
Matt Elliott
Paul Moody
Darren Purse
Players who could take the team by the scruff of the neck and pull them through poor performances through work rate and endeavour.
Who do we have in that mould now?
I can’t think of a single one.
