Overall, I'm really happy with the three points and the second half performance. The first half was pretty dire stuff, though, and while some will say it was the fault of the formation I would disagree. Playing with 3 CBs and 2 WBs CAN work out quite nicely for us. Downing and Johnson found themselves with a good deal of room on the flanks, but our midfield in the first half was very poor. Coutinho had to collect ball on our half because midfield played too deep.
On the Berbatov goal, another cross that we're not able to deal with. Obviously, the inability to mark cost us again, but you also can't forget this: Riether was given far too much time and space to pick a cross out. This has been another of our big problems this year, and it isn't just one player, either. Johnson, Enrique, Downing, Wisdom, etc have all been guilty of it at times this season.
Second half, though, we switched back to our usual formation and we bossed the game from there on. Sturridge was both brilliant and frustrating. His ability to finish is a definite strong point of his game, and when he flicks on for teammates, it really sets us up nicely. But his decision-making is still needs some work. We could have put the game away a bit sooner had he passed, but in the end, I'm glad he got his hat-trick. He certainly deserved it and was really just about the only effective attacker we had in the first half.
We went away from home, scored three goals, broke a club record for away goals in the Premier League, and did the double over a team that beat us twice last season. Really can't complain about that.
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