Player Ratings vs Pissants

Half full approach for me. No mention of refs.

Paston - 4 - Shocking performance. Did not command area or organise backline
Bertos - 7 - Good again from Leo. Attacked and covered well
Sigmund - 5 - Mixed from Siggy, so much space in first half. 
Durante - 5 - may have been injured, but often pushed forward a lot which left loads of space in defense
Lochhead - 5 - Attacked well, may have let men get behind him a few times
Manny - 8 - Great game first half in midfield- manny of old. At CB was also good and made some important tackles
Lia - 7 - Quality distribution. Poor shooting
Sanchez - 8- Got tired at end, but chnaged our attack completely. Opened up a lot of space. Deserved goal.
Fenton - 6 - Dangerous and menacing - but feel like he lacks the final ball or shot often.
Ifill - 7 - back to his attacking best. Unlucky a few times, but looking a lot better.
Huysegems - 5 - doing what he has to as a loan striker, holding ball up and passing it off. Not in enough scoring areas though.
Smith - 5 - Hit and miss. Was the right man to be dropped, doesnt make right decision every time
Boyd - 8 - Dangerous and smart. Great assist. Great curved runs. Good vision. Great pen as well. Unlucky.
Totori - 6 - Attacked well and dangerous. Perhaps under utilised.

Liked Leo's work

Boyd's best game

Wouldn't rate Lia, maybe I am missing something

Manny I'd give more like 6+, him and Lia have to take some of the responsibility for the goals

Totori up a bit

Ifill just a six for me

Think we attacked well, and then lost the ball and realised there were no other players left between them and our defense. Lia and manny were suspect for that, should have stepped up and given them less space.

But really the CBs should have commanded the edge of the box, yet all their goals came from either paston being shite, or our players standing off.

Paston 5 - does not inspire confidence IMO, too slow, too casual, too old 

Bertos 6 - seemed to get forward a bit more, but poor crosses time and time again, standard Bertos

Lochhead 3 - out of position constantly, cannot pass a ball, poor touch, rarely gets a decent cross in.  Performance summed up by him jogging back while his opponent was scoring the 3rd goal.

Sigmund 5 - gets a 5 due to collectively poor defensive performance, they were waltzing through the defence first half

Durante 5 - see above

Muscat 6 - can't remember him doing too much, but could argue he shored up the defence in 2nd half

Lia 5 - doesn't do enough IMO. Waste of time actually having him go forward as he'll score about 1 in every 100 chances

Sanchez 7 - adds something going forward, and already shown he can get forward and get a goal

Fenton 5 - cannot seem to beat a player but prefers to run straight into them instead. Bad miss when clean through on goal

Ifill 4 - 1 decent move for the (not) offside goal, otherwise, just a shadow of his former self

Huysegems 5 - not up to much when no chances are created for him, but at least he doesn't tend to give the ball away

Subs

Smith 4 - looked rather lazy to me and really didn't add much at all

Boyd 7 - best I've seen him play so far, slightly unlucky with the pen, too slow and casual with the follow up which should've been buried

Totori 6 - should have started IMO, adds another dimension to the team and did not too badly when he came on

 Perhaps I was watching another game.

Lochhead and Lia were awful.

Lia's passing and distribution was actually very good overall but when the ball comes free near the opposition goal and you see Lia addressing the ball your heart sinks. He butchered a superb little cut back from Boyd, not to mention a couple of other poor shots.

The obvious lack of a goal scoring mid is another thing to add to our list of woes.

Thanks PWF for the ratings, yeh I thought it was positive too. Lia was good with his switches of play. Manny was an improvement in the defence. Steiny was unlucky, but doesn't make you think he'll ever score many. Boyd very good.

Ref ...  how could he forget a high foot is an indirect free kick????

AR - give the benefit to the attackers if you don't bloody know!

Lochhead 2

Paston 3

FFS.

Fenton 3

You might think "a bit harsh" but when you think of his 1v1 which he fucked up, we could have been 3-2 before the penalty... Butterfly effect. Lesson ? Take your chances. We need to be more clinical.

The horrible suspicion has been growing on me that Huysegems might be a bit of a dud. Sure, he scored some nice goals and has good close-ball skills but his lack of pace and aerial ability, and his generally lacklustre presence in the front third is a concern for me. Not that I expect him to be tearing defences apart, but I've noticed that even when he finds himself in space his inclination seems to be to carefully lay the ball off rather than try to make something happen, which frankly I thought was the reason we signed him up.

The problem with Stein is he won't just pass it off when he's in a good attacking position, he'll stand on the ball, slow it down and then pass it backwards.

Donkey Stein... The love affair is over..

was he really that bad? Surely he's doing the same type of work as greenacre has been doing in past years. Dropping just as deep as guys like Berisha do to get touches on the ball.

Only issue is his lack of goal scoring chances, but to be fair, our best one of the first half was the one he scored

But is there anyone forward of him to pass it to? It almost all case no.

Same. Was Paston really that bad??

Lia's long balls (passes ?_??) were very impressive. If he can keep that up and he doesn't take too many shots, I wont mind him keeping Smiths place, although I do prefer Smith. Lia was awful last week. 50/50 this week.
I thought Fenton was pretty bad. Did pick up when Boyd came on, but I wouldn't be starting Fenton next week, regardless of Brockie's return.

I think Paston should have done better for the 3rd goal, but that goal and the 2nd took deflections because they weren't closed down fast enough. Second goal Lochead had overlapped Fenton when Ifill gave the ball away, he had a long way to run back and Durante didn't close down well. 

i thought we played really well aside from the obvious defensive lapses - although the first goal shouldn't have been direct (didnt know that rule until this game... apparently strebre didnt either)

the difference sanchez made to the midfield was massive

We had big chances in that first half too, huysegems should've shot but laid off to iffy. Iffy also missed that free header in the first minute. We could've had 5 in that game, and they should've only had 2. Guess that's why they're top two, they took most of their chances, we didn't. 

Very encouraging for me, especially from sanchez and the fringe players. Thought Lia looked more comfortable with dani there too, and some of his big switches were real quality, he really has added that to his game in the last 2 seasons. 

I'd like to see this next week;

                    Paston

Bertos-Durante`-Sigmund-Lochead

                Muscat-Lia

           Boyd-Sanchez-Ifill

                    Brockie