There's a New Dan In Town
Needless to say I don’t know very much about Shrewsbury or any of their players. I know that Steve Cotterill is the manager and he was painfully funny when he was manager of that lock down the road a few years ago. However, it appears that Cotterill has been in intensive care with Covid and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody so I hope he makes a full recovery soon. He is apparently improving but let’s just help his recovery by giving him one less thing to worry about by knocking his team out of the FA Cup this evening.
It’s been a guessing game as to who the hell will play for us today given the amount of injuries that we’ve got and the natural desire to rest a few players against lower league opposition. In the event, as expected, we mix-and-match with Fraser Forster in goal – we put Fraser in goal when we’re playing supposedly weaker sides like Shrewsbury and Liverpool. Both regular centre backs are present and the second string fullbacks in Yan Valery and Jake Vokins. It’s an interesting one for Vokins because Ryan Bertrand is suspended for the Arsenal league game which is coming up a week today, so he needs to prove that he’s up to it. The regular central midfielders are there today in JWP and Diallo but on the wings we have two academy boys making full debits in Kegs Chauke and Caleb Watts, midfield players from South Africa and Australia respectively. Up front it’s a full debut for Dan N’Lundulu and Shane Long gets to practice the timing of his runs.
Away we go and we appear to only be playing 3 at the back because Vokins is so far forward he’s halfway down Brittania Road. However, he returns in time to get a shot in which forces keeper Sarkic to shovel over the bar.
It’s the first effort before 20 minutes and JWP pings it forward from the centre circle to where Caleb Watts has made a good run into the penalty area. He controls it with his shoulder before it’s half cleared and it drops to Dan N’Lundulu who takes it round one defender and fires it back across into the far side of the net as the keeper watches on. Shrewsbury are appealing for handball against Watts and I haven’t got a fucking clue whether VAR are applies for this game or not until the screen pops up saying “VAR check no handball”. Happy days, 1-0.
It takes half an hour for Shrewsbury to do anything as we don’t deal with a bouncing ball in the middle of the pitch and Udo finds Whalley who fires it well over the bar. The next action is Shrewsbury winning a corner which is half cleared and it works its way out a Whalley again, who this time gets his curled effort below the crossbar but Fraser is easily equal to it and it’s offside anyway.
Half time and the young lads have done well. N’Lundulu has told the ref to fuck off as well so he’s learning. Chauke and Watts in particular have shown up well and so far so good. It’s not been particularly flowing but it was never going to be.
The second half starts and Shrewsbury are just sitting back and waiting for us to make a mistake and then trying to break which they do down the right hand side through Chapman who looks a little bit like a fat Charlie Austin and the comparison doesn’t end there as he launches the shot over the bar. Saints are doing most of the attacking without creating very much but a shot from Valery wins a corner which is taken by JWP, flicked on by Shane Long and Stephens knocks it goalwards but unfortunately it’s straight at the keeper who parries it away.
There's a glorious chance to score after a rare Shewsbury attack as Long leads the break with Chauke. It's 2 on one and all the two of them have to do is manage one pass but Shane predictably underhits it and Chauke get tackled by the only Shrewsbury outfield player in their half. Shane's pass was crap and Kegs didn't make a good enough angle.
We get with about 2 centimetres of scoring again when JWP picks out Vokins on the left and his pull back is met by Watts and blocked by a combination of goalkeeper and defender and the ball looks like it’s going to go into the net but a defender gets a boot to it with about 95% of the ball over the line.
We’ve got to the 70th minute before the subs start with Che Adams and Stuart Armstrong on for Long and Chauke and a few minutes after, Alex Jankewitz is on for Watts. The youngsters have been promising whereas the old man has been poor again.
Saints produce a lovely move down the left hand side to find Vokins and he slides Adams clean through against the goalkeeper. He skips around the keeper to the left but for some reason doesn’t want to roll into the empty net with his left foot and switches it back onto his right and allows a Shrewsbury defender to get back and clear it. The ball pops up to Jankewitz who has followed the move into the box but his shot is also blocked for a corner.
90, 91, 92 and Shrewsbury don’t remotely look like scoring. Diallo picks up the ball and runs and gets upended on the left hand side of the penalty area. It is in that mythical area called JWP territory and the main man sends the free kick fizzing over the wall and in at the near post despite Sarkic getting a touch so at least he can say he has let in a JWP free kick in identical fashion to David de Gea.
Guess Where This Is Going?
Another sub as barely 17 year old Ryan Finnigan comes on for Diallo and there is a chance to score another as Jankewitz does well to find Valery on the right hand side and he should hit first time but takes a touch and gets tackled and the game ends with N’Lundulu trying to score goal of the season from the edge of the box and instead hitting Row Z. It's pissing down and no one can be arsed to get the ball so the game ends.
Well it wasn’t pretty but the job got done and we are through to the next round which is all that really matters, and deservedly so. I couldn’t quite work out what Shrewsbury‘s game plan was as they never really opened up and tried to attack at any point, even as they started running out of time. I felt certain from about 50 minutes that we were going to win 1-0 but the second goal was a nice bit of icing on the cake, seeing as it was another brilliant free kick from JWP.
It’s great for Big Dan to get a goal and some of his play in the first half in particular was really good though he did fade in the second half. He is interesting in that he is a big unit but he doesn’t really play like it. It’s not as if he’s holding the play up and bringing others into play like Graziano Pelle. He almost seemed to play as a number 10 at times and his first touch was sometimes very good and sometimes very, very bad. Still, he did okay and he was better than his partner up front who did at least manage not to get caught offside.
The pick of the kids was Caleb Watts who looked totally unfazed by first-team football, wasn’t afraid to get stuck in and look to have a really good touch about him. He had a lot of confidence in his own ability and I think he will go up the pecking order a little bit based on that. Kegs Chauke found a little bit more difficult but he too showed some nice touches and wasn’t afraid to get stuck in, launching one player up in the air to get booked. It would have been nice if Long’s pass had got to him in the second-half to see what he did one-on-one with the keeper but alas, not to be. The other youngster we saw briefly was Alex Jankewitz and you can see why there have been some very positive reviews of him even though he only played a few minutes. He had a swagger about him and a lovely touch. All promising stuff.
The fullbacks, Valey and Vokins are basically both wingers. In exactly the same way as he did in the FA Cup 3rd Round last year, Vokins always seems to be about 20 yards further forward than where he should be. Quite often he was standing behind the opposition full back when our the central midfield had the ball and they couldn’t pass to him because he hadn’t made an angle. It is definitely something he needs to work on. Defensively, he kind of settles for being in the vicinity rather than actually making a challenge and after watching that today, it would worry me slightly if he was pitched in when Bertrand is suspended. I suspect that we won’t have much of a choice however. Yan Valery on the right hand side was pretty good going forward, always wanting to drive at defenders although the final ball didn’t come off on a number of occasions. For me, he showed that he has something to offer, probably as a winger rather than a full back. Defensively he didn’t have anything to do but he got through 90 minutes and had a decent enough game.
The only other moment worth mentioning really, concerned Che Adams who needs a goal and it is slightly worrying when you go round the goalkeeper and have an open goal to roll it into, and don’t trust your left foot to do it. We need other strikers, other than Danny Ings, to be finding the net.
Almost forgot that I’ve left the best till last. Ibrahima Diallo was brilliant again. This boy has a fantastic attitude and he has the ability to match. He’s going to be a very good player and he already is to be honest. When you think that some people was saying in the summer that we should get Mario Lemina back in the squad. Instead of that waster, we have a player with as much ability but a determination and an attitude to get the best out of it, be it against Liverpool or against Shrewsbury. Oh and his social media doesn’t make him look like a bell end either – no rapping videos or LemsLife documentary. If Diallo starts making You Tube videos called “IbraLife” or whatever, they we’ll have to have words.
Next it’s two games against Arsenal, just when they have begun to start playing well again. Saturday in the FA Cup and then Tuesday in the league. Of course, The Arse are the current FA Cup holders. Cedric was in their side for the last league game so hopefully will get to see him – no doubt his social media will be full off “The Hero Returns” or somesuch tight shirt no socks boyband bollocks. Even if Cedric is playing, it’ll still be two hard games. The right to left diagonal should be out in force.
Job done tonight with a glimpse of the future it was bright and bring on the 4th Round.
