Here's a sentence I won't type very often - today I felt quite a lot of sympathy for Kevin Blackwell. We more or less had the upper hand in the majority of this game, playing some good, sensible, quick football, with passes to feet, excellent use of the width of the pitch - particularly from Carole who had a storming first half and a less effective but still decent second - good support play, particularly from Westlake and with a bit more luck and composure in front of goal, we'd have had 3 or 4. But as dear old Brian Clough used to say, it only takes a second to score a goal and in the 91st that's exactly what they did. Some backing off in the middle of the field and the lad wallops it into the top corner, he could try and do it again all year and never will, that's life. I think its tough on Warner to criticise him, the bigger problem was the lack of concentration in front of him - of course if you shove your centre halves forward searching for a winner in a 0-0 draw against a decent team, you might leave youselves vulnerable at the back... The end result of all of all this is that love him or loathe him, Blackwell now looks like a dead man walking. He's lost the crowd (I use that word loosely). The team seem incapable of scoring from open play. The belief is fragile - Wednesday's game will show how many of the players have been dented by this bit of larceny. Wolves are a physically big and brutal team - their 3 or 4 bookings were well short of what they deserved, but they are not top quality, even in this division. Its certainly true that Wolves had other chances - a couple of quick saves at the start of the second half from Warner were important - their number 13 gave Butler a mauling and made a fool of Kilgallon a couple of times in the first half, before going off on 80 minutes, at which point we all thought Wolves had settled for the draw. Despite this we had good chances missed or saved from Killa, Healy, Douglas, Westlake, Moore, Butler, Carole - all in the first half. The chances were there, they just needed to be taken. There seems to be a chronic lack of confidence somewhere - got to be down to the coaching. Our main game plan was to launch the ball out to Carole on the right - Crainey or Kilgallon - or play it out there through the team - Douglas, Westlake, Healy and Kelly - let him beat his man, or two and get the crosses in. Or sometimes he'd skip inside and play it across the box. He was doing this so well that their left back was substituted after 42 minutes for a smaller faster version - and one that hadn't already been booked. Its hard to say how all of our pressure and the balls being pinged across the box didn't result in a goal or two, especially as their keeper took a severe turn for the shite with about 30 minutes to go - coming for crosses he had no hope of getting, and twice getting caught by half-hit shots that dribbled by him only to be cleared off the line or scrambled round the post by defenders. In general I was lifted by the performance but that made the gutting of the result hurt even more. WARNER - a decent game - looked mainly steady - had composure under a couple of tricky situations - decent distribution KELLY - in the main linked well with Healy & Carole down the right - good running and crossing. CRAINEY - apart from the barrage of excellent cross-field balls to Carole - he started mainly clueless and often beaten - needing a lot of cover from Kilgallon - did gradually improve but never gave the feeling of security BUTLER - again a fast, direct striker cause problems - again used as a battering ram up front for the last ten minutes - again to no effect KILGALLON - generally good game but still he is maintaining that tendency to cock-up big style once a game - someone rather unkindly referred to him as the new Gary Sprake CAROLE - man of the match by a country mile - caused havoc, created chances - should have scored, REALLY SHOULD HAVE SCORED - tackled back and was a general nightmare for whichever 2 or 3 Wolves players were marking him - one absolutely dreamlike first touch off a high ball simultaneously controlled it, beat his man and rolled the ball 15 yards forward to exactly the spot he wanted to cross it from... DOUGLAS - quiet return - didn't notice him much except when he burst into the box and collected the ball with a touch that was either too heavy or meant for a faster player WESTLAKE - pretty decent midfield performance - tackled, supported, pushed forward - couple of wayward efforts LEWIS - v quiet game - save for one free kick and a couple of good crosses HEALY - one of his best in a Leeds shirt - which is of course nothing like as good as in a N Ireland shirt. MOORE - runs a lot - still shit - could have scored if he was prepared to take a shot left footed rather than with the outside of his right when through the middle SUBS encouragingly BECKFORD - came on and played some of his best and most direct football in a Leeds shirt STONE - came on - did zip ----------------- CROWD ? 16000 - who's fault is this - is it the quality of the football - and the results? Or is it the prices? or Both? Either way 16,000 ? Big Club ? not any more.
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