Whilst disappointed, I don't have any complaints with the scoreline last night, Swansea deserved to win fair and square.
I was surprised with the amount of changes Martinez made, I thought he'd do a similar thing to what he done on Sunday and just make around 4 changes. Can't blame Martinez for making these changes though, don't get me wrong, I want to try out hardest in all the competitions we play in, but when I seen the draw for this round of the cup, I had a feeling we'd get beat regardless of who we put out. It's a Tuesday night away to decent opposition hemmed into a busy fixture period. In hindsight, I'm glad that we preserved the energy of most of our first 11 for the weekend.
I thought we looked decent enough in the first half. Considering how many changes we made, we were bound to lose a bit of shape. I think their goal knocked the wind out of sails a bit and from then on we couldn't really get back into the game. Looking at the positives (as there are plenty of posters who have looked at the negatives
), at least we got to have a look at a our fringe players/long-term absentees.
Howard had a poor game, and to me it looks like his confidence is shot. Thought he could have done better for the third goal, that was poor. Not much he could have done for the first two goals. But he had a lot of panicky clearances and I thought it was strange how he punched away that header rather than catching it.
Garbutt had a good game defensively, but I thought he was a bit timid going forward. Saying that, I thought his corners were excellent, first time we've looked a threat from corners for ages. Nice to know that we've got a player like this to come through over the next 5 years.
Distin played well despite his clanger, but unfortunately, that clanger was were the game ended. We need to stop these silly individual mistakes as they are punishing us so much and making it feel a lot worse than it actually is. Think Stones and Jagielka is our best pairing, but Distin will remain in with a shout.
Alcaraz was so so. Some wayward passing at times but didn't do anything too bad. He's nowhere the other three CBs in the pecking order though.
Hibbert is gonna get a lot of the blame for the first goal, and to be fair, for a player of his experience who is regarded as a traditional fullback, you would have hoped he could have done better at preventing the cross. Montero ran him ragged all game, and I think we all agree that Hibbert's is going to be of very limited use for us from now on.
Gibson looked off the pace to me, understandably considering how long he has been out. But 90 minutes of football will have done him good for his fitness. He played some good passed, but looked quite panicky on the ball at times, and kept resorting to passes back to Howard, which were often over hit and put Howard under unnecessary pressure.
Besic impressed me at times, I always like it when a player likes to have a shot. Thought his movement and passing was good at times and his pressing towards the end was good too. He's not ready to start a big game yet, but we should definitely give half an hour in Premier League soon.
Oviedo did well and looked bright through the first half, he's quite a creative player. Delighted to have him back. Barring injury, he's not gonna dislodge Baines, and so he has to make a case for the left wing slot, and to be fair, I thought he done a lot more than McGeady did in the first half.
McGeady was unimpressive for me, again. He had a couple of good moments which nearly paid off, but he's gonna have to do much more I think. I want him to succeed, but he's gotta step it up a gear.
Atsu showed promise, as he did in the game on Sunday. I think as the season goes on, he'll be a really useful player. He's a completely different player than what we had with Deulofeu last season. Sometimes frustrating the way he turns and cuts inwards and then back, rather than going for the byline, but I guess he was limited with options having Hibbert behind him. Thought he tired a lot though, and was quite anonymous towards the end of the game.
Eto'o had a really quiet game unfortunately, he was totally uninvolved, probably because we didn't have anyone playing a proper no 10 role. But from his other performances this season, I've not doubts of his ability.
The subs made little difference and were a bit too late in my opinion. McCarty's pressing was good, and Lukaku offered much more than Eto'o did. But we were missing the spark of Naismith and Mirrallas to create a goal in my opinion, and the game was dead after the second goal.
All in all, I thought the first 60 minutes were half decent, I would have took a 1-0 then and been able to see the positives. But the last half hour when our players tired just compounded the panic feeling a bit and I worry that they'll have a psychological effect on us.
It's not the end the of the world, we made a lot of changes. I think we know our best 11, we just need to iron out silly mistakes and keep going and we'll click into gear. The derby would be a good time for it to all fall into place
