Blues go down 2-1 at home to Barnsley. Andy Munro is feeling blue.
It’s a headline made for Aitor Karanka to ponder after another dismal performance which, to parody an old chant, made Barnsley look just like Brazil. It’s bad enough watching Blues scratching painfully for points, but the performances are 
cringingly painful as the team look constrained and nervous with reverse, not forward, the most used gear as we are continually on the back foot with our footballing nirvana merely to constrain.
Scott Hogan’s long-awaited and well-worked goal was the only bright spot (apart possibly from some glimpses of class from Ivan Sanchez) and after having made that breakthrough, straightaway we retreated tortoise-like into our shell. This was no great surprise, as we’d generally played at the same pace as the said animal up to the point of scoring.
As a result, Barnsley took the game to us with the unsurprising result being an eventual 2-1 win, helped by our great Dane clumsily being tempted into a stupid challenge to concede the visitors’ match-winning penalty.
Our first touches were generally awful, meaning we continually lost possession and gave the opposition impetus. Up front, Sanchez apart we lacked direction and threat with Hogan and Jonathan Leko showing the sort of partnership and understanding which needed a footballing equivalent of the Marriage Guidance Council to be called in.
The substitutions were made reluctantly and too late to have an effect, unlike those made by the opposition. It’s all a bit depressing and there’s only one hombre to blame.
