Just back

Shocking conditions yesterday i was freezing but warmed up when winner went in , we was better team by far , on to southend hotel booked hope we can get 4/500 even though i appreciate it a long old slog midweek utm

I must say the highlights made us look a lot better than you lot make it sound!

Came here to say the same thing. Burgess looked decent to me from the highlights too, good passing and a fair bit of play went through him.

Quoted from BeijingMariner

I must say the highlights made us look a lot better than you lot make it sound!

The clue is in the word ‘highlights’

Had we not scored there would have been a few (undeserved) boos. But it was a poor game in poor conditions.
But 3 very welcome and overall deserved points.

UTM

Not the best performance and the conditions didnt help.

But we kept going to the end and got our reward.

Abrahams looked very lively. Was my MOM. Defence looked solid with Pearson outstanding.

I thought Jones looked decent, especially with his lack pf preparation. Wanted. the ball , kept it moving,  tried to go forward. I dont think i was watching the same game according to some of the comments aimed at him. McAtee his usual busy self.

Clifton and especially Sousa below par. But a vital win albeit an ugly one i dont care.

I do wonder if Burgess and Jones will work as a pair. Perhaps a bit lightweight. When Fox is fit he perhaps come back in.

I wouldn't say we have recaptured the form we showed at the start of the season. We still look a bit laboured at times but at least we seem to have got over that wretched run that saw us plummet down the table. We are back in the hunt for the play-offs at least so plenty to play for. We will need to improve further i feel to firstly get into the play offs and certainly to make any progress.

Some big games coming up starting with Southend.

Was neither a great performance nor a game, but you can probably blame the conditions for both of those.  They were truly dreadful.  First half especially you could see the wind just ruining any attempt to play football.

Usually agree with a lot of Maringer's posts but I think he's well off in regards Jones.  I thought he had a very decent debut, regardless of his lack of time with his team-mates.  He and Burgess are both very tidy and look to play it on the deck at pace.  Very, very difficult to assess on one performance but they did look a bit too similar as a pairing though.  Felt that it was lacking one of them wanting to really drive forward with it.  Perhaps that comes with more understanding but it's looking like that could be the pairing for a bit with current injuries etc.  

Up top I thought Abrahams looked a different animal compared to the player who started his first few games on the wing.   If that's the benchmark for his performances, Taylor may well struggle to get back in.  The attacking midfield 3 of McAtee, Sousa and Clifton all looked below par for me.  Sousa slowed it down too much, again, for my liking.  He's fast becoming the biggest frustration we've had for a while.  Absolutely everything in his locker apart from that end product.  That said, the moment he discovers it we've absolutely no chance of holding onto him.  Clifton has been excellent all season so you can almost forgive his performance, just one of those days were nothing comes off.  

This may prove unpopular regards McAtee but he's as much of an asset as he is a hinderance at times.  I get it that he's the talisman and you shouldn't suffocate a creative talent etc.  But if our game is going to go through him as much as it does, he can't just wander about looking for the ball all the time.  Yes, he can drift a little and he can see where pockets of play might be opening up. The problem is that he can spend 30 minutes doing this.  That then leaves a bloody massive gap between attack and midfield, in the absence of a central midfielder who bombs on and/or a wideman who stretches play it makes us quite ineffective.  As with Sousa though, I guess if he was perfect he wouldn't be here.

The return of Maguire-Drew will be huge as he a) drifts inside b) stretches play and c) carries the ball forward.  Since his injury we've not really done any of those 3 things and it's largely why I think we're quite predictable in our attack.

Great celebrations at the end and absolutely fantastic to see the Woking players drop in defeat after their time wasting and play acting all game.  

Another win and whilst it may have gone under the radar a little bit we're on a decent run of late, to the point we're joint top of the form table (https://thefishy.co.uk/formtable.php?table=5).  

Quoted from diehardmariner

Great celebrations at the end and absolutely fantastic to see the Woking players drop in defeat after their time wasting and play acting all game.

It felt like I was watching a cup game when they dropped to their knees. I thought their 17 was a good player and they took him off early as they looked to grind out the draw. We had more than enough chances but they had a couple of good chances too; especially the one that hit the side netting towards the end. Late winners are great for morale though.

On Saturday I didn't think Abrahams had a great game but on reflection he was never going to win any long balls against 6ft8 Diarra. First half in particular, nobody was within 5 yards of their defenders when we punted it up. The highlights show that he did play well though.

Burgess and Jones are similar but I do think we saw enough to suggest they can have a decent partnership once they get to understand each others game better. My only worry is that Jones is here for an initial month and Hull are 13 points clear of the drop zone so we might get another month out of him but I think they will want to play him once they are mathematically safe.

Suppose it could work the other way for us.  The sooner Hull secure safety, the higher their hopes for next season will be and with that a view to kicking on with better signings under their new ownership.

Jones, on the other hand, will continue to get games here rather when games matter rather the odd five minutes in a dead rubber type fixture.  I have to confess I've no idea how highly rated he is over the bridge.  

Quoted from Civvy at last

The clue is in the word ‘highlights’

Well, yes, understood But I have seen loads of 'highlights' with a lot less decent play in than those. But yeah, I take your point and am aware highlights can be deceptive. Having said that, some promising movement in the team and I agree with Sam GY that Burgess looked pretty useful, again, I wasn't there but the highlights gave the impression he contributed well

Quoted from diehardmariner

Suppose it could work the other way for us.  The sooner Hull secure safety, the higher their hopes for next season will be and with that a view to kicking on with better signings under their new ownership.

Jones, on the other hand, will continue to get games here rather when games matter rather the odd five minutes in a dead rubber type fixture.  I have to confess I've no idea how highly rated he is over the bridge.  

Jones has played 18 League One games for Morecambe this season. He was recalled in January and played 2 games for Hull meaning he couldn't go on loan anywhere else in the EFL. Now that the window is closed too, his only option for regular football is at this level or in the U23s so it does look like a coup for us. Peterborough look like going down and are now managed by Grant McCann who I assume played him for Hull this season. At 20 years old and with proven League One ability, he fits the Peterborough business model so I wouldn't be surprised to see him go there in the summer. A few more Championship appearances would probably push that fee up a little bit. Based on his debut, I hope we can keep him here. He has the potential of a Wembley promotion on his CV at 20 if he stays here.