MK Dons 1 - 3 Derby County

What a nuts game I don’t know what to make of it.

MK Dons in the first half seemed to get to the 2nd ball the quickest and a lot of our players were 7/10-ing it. Feel like after the Burnley effort we were either a tad tired ourselves or possibly falling into that same trap of last year – taking our foot off the gas against bottom half teams.

In terms of Baird I think Griff made a good point wtf was Butterfield doing? In his defence I’m not sure he knew either. He started off playing very deep almost at right back at times with Christie and Ince way ahead of him, then noticing that Christie and Ince were a bit 5hit going forward he literally disappeared. Meaning Baird was having to cover Butterfield’s passing lane, as well as picking up Reeves.

Our defending from set pieces was particularly poor, with Carson and 5hite finishing helping us out on a few occasions. About 20 mins into the game I found Butterfield again, he was ahead of Martin doing an impression of me playing the game, running around lots but nowhere near the play. It looked like we were playing a 4-4-2. Butters was way ahead of 'City' and Baird for it to be a 4-5-1. Why we were doing this? I have no clue, I thought possibly we wanted someone on Poyet but BF wasn’t sticking to him. The only reason I think was we wanted to stop their centre backs from playing the ball out and weren’t too scared of their full backs venturing forward.

As a result Russell and Ince played a lot deeper, Warnock and Christie were stuck behind them and Butterfield was as confused as me as to where the feck he should be playing and what the feck he should be doing. With BF occupying No man’s land and Martin being closely monitored our forward play had very little options which probably made Baird look 5hiter than he was. BJ’s energy was about the only highlight of the first half, that said Ince and Martin had two good chances that they should have scored from to match MK Dons’ two.

Second half was reyt crazy, we pushed our full backs on a little bit more and this allowed Warnock space to run and cut back very well for Johnson to slightly mishit his shot causing him to pull it beautifully to the left of the goalkeeper. 1-0 then we went 5hite and chased shadows as MK Dons came at us. Their goal was bad all round Butterfield could have pressed harder but allowed the midfield to pass it back to the defence who switched play, Johnson looked like the MK player might have followed through on him but the ball went to one of their players, Baird was isolated and with Ince out wide and Butterfield in no man’s land, Baird was easy to bypass and the ball was played between him and Butterfield where two unmarked players occupied a healthy gap between our midfield and our defence, Keogh came out but the distance was a long way, the player ran past him and Christie and crossed it in where their striker ran in from behind the defensive line to stumble it in away from from Shackell, had Keogh continued his run though and kept in line with play he would have blocked the cross easily. It was a collective f up to be fair and communication was as much to blame as individual error.

Then it all went manic, Weimann came on for BF and for the next 10 minutes or so Baird and Johnson were forced deep, we seemed to be going for a 4-2-3-1 with Ince moving central, Russell out wide and Weimann being the fast chap that he is playing left midfield, winger, number 10 and striker all in one. We were looking a tad shaky at this point.

Then Maynard came on for Church and if Clement did this on purpose he’s a tactical genius. Knowing that Maynard was in such bad form even Forest didn't want him and knowing that he holds up play like a dead Conor Sammon, Hendrick came on immediately for Baird.

At this point we seemed to want to go for a 4-2-4 a la Stevie Mac then realising that Maynard was unlikely to get the ball we went for it in a way that Stevie Mac wouldn’t have ever dared two at one point it was a 2-8. With this many options ahead of him Hendrick came into his own and as much as I criticise him his energy and quick movement of the ball both in distribution and running were excellent yesterday.

We suddenly woke up and started getting to the 2nd ball as well as MK tiring. However, for those criticising Baird it’s worth noting that Baird had done the dirty work defensively to allow this to happen. If we’d started like this we’d have been cut open on the counter and probably should have been if you see how exposed we were on the times we lost possession.

Hall went on for Reeves and I think as much as anything it was the difference in our quality from the bench that probably won it. Hall was no physical match for Johnson, Bent came on for a not quite at it Martin and we went into overdrive. I think it was probably more numbers and speed that won it as opposed to guile but win it we did. Hendrick picked out the widening gaps in MK’s fraying 4-2-3-1 and took advantage with a great run across and behind the defence from Ince to set up Bent.

Having scored we seemed to attempt to get a shape back together again with a 4-2-3-1 looking thing. Carson managed to back spin the ball towards our net off another wild right hook, Weimann saved the day. Then Ince made it 3-1 with an amazing turn of speed to pressure Poyet into a mistake and 3 goals and 3 points. Thank you very much. Special note on Weimann, he’s all over the shop but his speed is amazing, he can track back though play is 30 yards ahead of him and still get back in time to take up a defensive position.

In summary I have no idea what that 4-4-2 with BF was about in the first half, I guess it worked in terms of 0-0, Hendrick looked good but the dirty work was done to allow this by the functional Baird and hard hitting BJ, also MK Dons lack of options off the bench allowed us to really go for it and to be fair we did and we reaped the rewards. We absorbed the pressure and then panda’d them, ate, shot and left.

Too many 7/10 performances still, but imagine what we can do if 7’s become 8’s become 9’s and then one day just one day maybe 10’s. Give Baird and my BF a break. Hendrick is the ace in the pack after our functional MF's set him up. That said BF's form and role in the team needs to be worked on a tad.

BF will become an integral part off out midfield, it's finding the best combo to bring the best out his skills.

The Burnley effort can hardly be taken into consideration, MK dons got tonked 0-6 at home on Wednesday night and played us of the park for the best part of it.

Baird needs to be benched and work out our best starting 11 from there.

We finish well for the most part, we need to start quick and impose.

I hate to say it but Boro are already doing that and we really need to start doing it at home.

Balancing our MF does still seem a problem a bit annoying when I did it for them in the summer.

BF and Johnson both aren't that pacy and or ping the ball around, GT in there allows for a bit of distribution so I think that's our most balanced three but GT's always out which makes it difficult. If one of Johnson or BF were a playmaker then I think Baird would be welcomed like the Eust was welcomed it's just finding that playmaker that can defend and doesn't go on a jolly every now and again giving the ball away or letting players run past him. If BF continues to struggle though I wonder if Bryson the forgotten boy of DCFC could be about ready to make 666's dreams come true again.

Borough are boring as f.ck.

So are we.

They have 6 wins on the trot.

Bore me senseless if you please.

Saturday wasn't boring in my book,a bit weird maybe,I only really think we got outplayed for a short spell 10-15 mins after we scored.

Karanka the dancer has been at Borough for 3 years solid now, I actually thought they might not do so well this year but guess I was wrong, hopefully it's teams learning not to fall into their defensive traps and then they'll be back to the strong but not all that when you play sensibly against them.

Wellies, all that superb analysis, yet no mention of Jamie Hanson.
He's one of our own, you know....

Ang - Hanson is GT's understudy he'll get the nod next year, not sure he's right for the Attacking Central Midfield positions...but after Saturday anything is possible?

Have a look at Keogh's fantastic effort when Carson did his super save: it's the opening scenes of the highlights ViewFrom kindly posted.

I say 'fantastic effort' and it truly was, however not so much at defending. Put a tophat on the twaţ and spray him gold and he'd make a basţard fortune in Covent Garden.

True though.