As a Blues fan, yesterday's game was incredibly painful to watch. We've dropped so far in 4 years - it's astounding that we were expecting to lose at home to Bournemouth, but that's where we are now. Bournemouth were 4-0 up at our ground without doing anything particularly special. We were so, so poor and deserved to lose 5 or 6-0. Federico Macheda's brace saved us from total embarrassment, though it's just paper over the cracks. We then made a change which completely ruined any momentum we may have had, killing the game.
These are my ratings for the players and reasoning. They may seem slightly harsh but we were absolutely dire bar around 20 minutes.
Randolph - 4
Spector - 2
Robbo - 4
Martin - 5
Blackett - 3
Caddis - 5
Reilly - 5
Burke - 5
Shinnie - 5
Ibe - 6
Zigic - 5
Macheda - 8
Lovenkrands - 3
Novak - 7
Randolph - Randolph has been good for us this season, but he was poor yesterday. The last few weeks he has been shaky and yesterday he gave away a needless penalty which killed the game. Admittedly, we were already 2-0 down, but he just needed to stay on his feet and Grabban would have run out of play. Diving in was needless and dropped us in it even more. He did make a few good saves later on, including one from Grabban to deny him a hat-trick, but it didn't matter.
Spector - I realise that people may disagree. I know that people will look at the 2 rating and say 'Really?'. I know it's a bit generous, but he was playing out of position so I gave him a mark for at least trying when he really isn't a right back. He was awful though. Genuinely awful. He gave the ball away consistently, was out of position a lot and didn't contribute going forward. One of the worst performances I've seen in a long time. Really, really bad.
Robbo - Robinson didn't have a great game yesterday. His lack of pace was shown by Grabban who ran him all day long. He worked hard and he made some good challenges but he wasn't helped by the complete incompetence of the full backs. He tried to lead from the back but he struggled too much.
Martin - Martin actually didn't play too badly. He was the best defender though that wasn't much of a challenge. He made a few good challenges and won a lot of headers. He didn't make too many mistakes but looked fairly uncomfortable on the ball and his distribution wasn't great.
Blackett - Tyler Blackett isn't very good. That's not an attack on him or his effort because he works hard and obviously wants to succeed, but he simply isn't a good footballer. He's clumsy and is constantly out of position - look at the first goal, where his positioning meant that the ball went over his head straight to the onrushing winger. He's fairly quick and strong and he can cross a ball quite nicely (which makes him better than Spector) but he can't really control a ball.
Caddis - Played out of position because Clark just has to make one stupid decision every week, Caddis did his best but he isn't a midfielder, plain and simple. He worked hard, tried to close down and distribute but we were terrible in midfield. It's not his fault, but Caddis was very poor in midfield. It also meant that any threat we had down the right was nullified as Spector is about as useful going forward from right back as David Murphy's hairbrush.
Reilly - Reilly works really hard and you can see that it matters to him. He's a player who never gives up, but unfortunately he isn't good enough on the ball. He'd be ok with a passing midfielder (e.g Huws) alongside him with Reilly as a destroyer, but he struggles next to a right back, unsurprisingly. He gives us energy but his positional sense isn't there yet, but he can at least improve. He wasn't bad yesterday but he didn't affect the game enough.
Burke - Burke didn't do anything of note. He was severely hampered by the fact that Spector doesn't help him going forward, but he was quite poor anyway. He should be grabbing games by the scruff of the neck and really impacting them, as he has the ability, but instead he twists and turns and hits the first man. A frustrating performance from the wideman.
Shinnie - Hauled off before he could do anything, Shinnie didn't really affect the game. He was invisible when he was on and didn't do anything that I can actually remember.
Ibe - One player who is genuinely exciting to watch at Blues is Ibe. He has blistering pace and good ball control. He's also very strong for his size. He runs at defenders which is always good to see and was easily our best player in the first half hour. He needs to work on his corners but he has potential. He played well yesterday in parts of the game but went missing, unsurprisingly, when we started capitulating.
Zigic - Zigic was unfairly booed off. He didn't play too badly; he won a few flick-ons and a couple of nice passes. He didn't really get a chance in front of goal and wasn't impressive as such, but he was nowhere near the worst player on the pitch. He gave the ball away a couple of times but so did every single one of our players.
Macheda - Easily our best player yesterday, Macheda looks like a genuine centre-forward. He holds the ball up, is mobile and can pass. He scored two good goals - the first a poacher's finish, sliding tidily home with his left foot from six yards, the second drilled into the corner from just outside the area. He worked hard, kept the ball and grabbed a brace - you can't ask for more than that.
Novak - Novak's intelligent movement created space for Macheda to exploit, which seemed like a good partnership. Admittedly Novak fouled the centre-back for the second, but the ref was so incompetent that it didn't really matter. That was up until Clark killed all the momentum we had at 4-2 when Bournemouth were bricking it by moving him into midfield and bringing Lovenkrands on (I think? I don't remember seeing him). That made us completely toothless.
Lovenkrands - As I said, I'm not sure he actually came on. It was officially announced and all but he was invisible. He added nothing and killed the game off. I gave him a 3 because he actually made us worse, though that's mostly Clark's fault.
All in all, a disappointing result and an abysmal performance. We have to improve or there is a genuine chance of relegation. As the song goes, 'there will be joys and sorrows', but this season has been more sorrow than joy. I for one am 'Tired and Weary' of it, but let's keep right on and let's stay up.
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