Town fan here.
Our best performance of the season and a pleasant surprise. Definitely some parallels between our games with Leeds two years ago where we finished above them but they comfortably beat us in both matches. Think that’s partly because Cov are a nice style match up for us but I felt Lampard had an off-day tactically.
I was puzzled by the gameplan, particularly in the first half. The pressing was poor, with that really narrow triangle at the fron leaving loads of space behind in the midfield once we’d played through them. Possibly Hirst’s goal at our place influenced Lampard’s thinking with wanting a deeper defensive line, but it didn’t make much sense to put three players so far forward at the same time.
Cov being too passive in the middle was a theme of the game, both of our big chances in the first half should’ve been cut out. Rushworth was absolutely outstanding though. He’s one we tried to sign the summer we got promoted and it’s a shame it never got over the line. Thought DaSilva was a big miss too, from what I’ve seen he’s really kicked on in the last year.
On the controversial decisions, thought we got away with one a couple of times, first with the Furlong/EMC incident. Kipre on Sakamoto was a definite penalty, although whether that would have made much difference in the 94th minute I’m not sure…
You’ll be promoted comfortably. We’ll need an excellent January to be consistent enough to bridge that ten point gap and even if we do, I doubt Boro will as well. Get some cover for Sakamoto, one more attacking addition plus another midfielder and the squad looks very strong