Individual and ill disciplined Bullard costs Latics

Jimmy Bullard: Awful yesterday

Bullard ran up 122 not out yesterday and his goal against Arsenal put him in the fans’ good books, but after yesterday’s performance against Tottenham he’ll be lucky to start next weekend against Liverpool.

Graham Kavanagh and Damien Francis sat too deep against defensive midfielders Carrick and Davids, gifting them too much space to dictate the play – something Carrick is particularly good at. While Bullard’s headless chicken impressive on the right flank hampered the performance of Pascal Chimbonda.

Tottenham lined up 4-4-2, the same as the Latics. Surely it would be a simple man-for-man marking job with each player concentrating on winning his own personal battle with his opposite number.

It wasn’t to be as Chimbonda after had to defend against both Tainio and YP Lee all because Bullard had gone walkies.

He was wasteful when in possession and his position sense was no better than any of the six year olds playing this morning at Goose Green (no disrespect meant to those six year olds).

It was obvious before the game that Tottenham would want to dictate the play. When you come up against players with the passing ability of Michael Carrick and Edgar Davids the best mentality is to mark your man and not start ball chasing.

Shame Bullard wasn’t listening to the team talk.

Yeah exactly...

This ball chasing from Bullard put extra strain on his team-mates as they had to cover the spare man that had been left by Bullard’s ball chasing. It’s a good job we now have Chimbonda and not Eaden otherwise it could have been four or five yesterday.

The real shame is that the alternative is Gary Teale…

Up front, if Henri Camara had the same effort and work-rate as Jason Roberts we would have two superb strikers. Unfortunately the Senegalese striker seems to be blowing hot and cold at the minute, while Jason Roberts did enough running for an entire team.

Mike Pollitt was commanding in goal and made some brave saves. Could have perhaps dealt better with Spurs’ opener but more than made up for that as the game drew on.

However, no matter how disciplined ten of the Latics players are, the ill disciplined performance of Jimmy Bullard will be costly at this level.

Player Ratings

Mike Pollitt – 7 – Good, confident goalkeeping, easily beaten for the first goal.
Pascal Chimbonda – 7 – Another good game, Bullard got in his way.
Leighton Baines – 8 – Another good performance from the young full back.
Arjan De Zeeuw – 7 – Made the critical error for Tottenham’s goal but made up for it.
Stephane Henchoz – 9 – Brilliant.
Jimmy Bullard – 3 – Terrible. Ball chasing, out of position, even worse in possession.
Lee McCulloch – 6- Not his best game but solid defensively. Some good headers.
Graham Kavanagh – 6 – Some awesome shooting, stayed a little deep and gave Carrick too much time.
Damien Francis – 6 – Second average performance. Didn’t get in his opposite numbers face.
Henri Camara – 6- Very little threat.
Jason Roberts – 8 – Ran himself into the floor for the team, deserved more support.