It was the same for Crooks and Hackney. If we had a fully fit squad then all 3 would have been off. That’s why the result was so impressiveClearly not fit, shows how stretched we are with him on the bench, was totally spent for most of the second half making him look well out of his depth.
We badly need some more options
Crooks was excellent but i was astonished at the work rate and stamina of Hackney given the amount of time out.It was the same for Crooks and Hackney. If we had a fully fit squad then all 3 would have been off. That’s why the result was so impressive
O’Brien too may come off the bench on SaturdayJosh gives as good as he gets and will only get stronger for the experience, he is a handful, last night showed areas of his game that he needs to fine tune but overall yet again I thought he was an outstanding focal point to try and build off.
I thought we really missed morgan Rogers running power with the ball too.
Be nice to see Azaz, Rogers, Greenwood and potentially Ayling fresh for Saturday away to Millwall.
Did he actually have any easy options 90% of the time though? He was smothered by their defence with no one within 20-30 yards of him most of the match.I think this is going to be an unpopular opinion and I felt sorry for him to be honest but he looked a fish out of water at times. Definitely put it down to his fitness but also I think that he's just a young lad still and was against much better players. We see him hold the ball up and lay it off well in the championship but last night he just couldn't do it all, and the amount of times he gave the ball away was frustrating. But then a lot of our lads did the same thing. Probably easier to criticise the striker who has done nothing all game with no service when he makes a mistake. I'd still have him in over latte lath in the league though