MDWat wrote:Pope 7
Lowton 6
Tarkowski 6
Mee 5
Ward 6
Arfield 5
Cork 6
Defour 8*
Brady 5
Hendrick 4
Wood 4
Same from me, other than I'd give Pope a 6.
I did think before the game that playing Arfield 'wide' yet still having Hendrick in that advanced role would just cause confusion, because Arfield always plays very centrally anyway. As it was, neither of them were good enough and it would have been better with one of them out of the team for Gudmundsson. Arfield would be the one who got the nod for me, with Hendrick still recovering.
The thing is though, neither of them are the crafty, neat player who excels in that hole. That's who we're missing and other than Defour we haven't got a player technically good enough to do that role well. Defour is needed further back though, where he's been excellent in that quarterback style role, always being there to receive a pass and recycle it intelligently.
Cork had his poorest game since rejoining, and the whole team other than Defour were guilty time after time of waiting for the ball to come to them rather than being proactive and dynamic and meeting the ball with a bit of purpose. We were slow in possession, no movement off the ball, and harried and bullied all over the pitch.
Wood showed absolutely nothing today and I'd have been irate if I was Vokes staying on the bench while watching that stinker.
Defour was the best player on the park, just beating Mooy and their defenders, who were completely unfazed by our predictable and easy to play against hoofs.
The one time we did look threatening was when we got bodies up the pitch with some incisive passing, but were ultimately toothless. Why we didn't try that approach with anywhere near that vigour in the 85 other minutes of the game I don't know.
Very, very poor from Dyche and Burnley today. Our failure to buy a pacy striker remotely near fitness is biting us on the arse, and better teams than Huddersfield will relish playing against such a blunt attack.
