Just reading Lolo's forum where they were dead excited as the game was on their digital channel and utterly disgusted that he didn't play. However, the opinion is that "it wasn't too bad but they were clearly missing someone on the left and Lolo would have made the difference". Mind you, they are biased.

Clarky, I checked the "no reply" box.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

Answers

that was actually my main observation of the manure game - a VERY imbalanced midfield [Why no Bernard?] and Solano failing to track Scholes for two goals.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

Don't blame Solano before you point a finger at Hughes, Dabs. Distin and Elliot! Yes they should 'defend as a team' but that includes the defence! Thought Nobby did Ok overall.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

There were gaping holes down both flanks. Solano wasn't blameless but the FBs must take the biggest share. I believe YBR wanted to bring in Rob Lee as experience. I think this was wrong (with hindsight) in that it slowed things down in MF which ManUre were able to capitalise on. Had Robert or Bernard played, we would have had more pace in MF which would have worried ManUre far more than we did. That's why in my TeamPick I dropped Elliott for Bernard to give us the option of more movement up front/in the middle. Clearly, with Robert being injured, part of that was not possible. But we could have still played Bernard and had Rob Lee as Robert's replacement. At this stage in his career, I wouldn't start Lua x2 against a team so proficcient as ManUre. He gives the ball away far too much (same can be said of Elliott too). A fit Acuna would have been a decent option.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

I've been amazed at how many times Nobby is the closest to the man scoring -

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2002