To me, the worst thing about the pass back wasn't the pass itself, it was the arrogance with which it was delayed by Stones when it should have gone earlier instead of throwing in a needless shimmy. The pass itself however, was still fine in my eyes. There was a great replay showing Howard actually taking a step back when the ball was on the way to him, at the same time as stepping back, his eyes were firmly fixed on the incoming striker... I can't actually imagine what was going through Tim's head instead of actually moving towards the ball when he saw it was coming, but there again, he has turned incredible error prone, incredibly quickly.
I'd place a 20/80 ratio of blame to Stones/Howard on that, but really, it has been coming for weeks with arrogant play at the back from Stones. Swansea were terrible and scored from pretty much their only forays forwards and were very organised at the back when they parked the bus. We never really looked like scoring and don't really have an viable alternative if Lukaku is off the pace like today.
We really need to stop buying for the future now and actually improve the first eleven. Too many players in the squad such as Hibbert, Osman, Gibson, Kone and McGeady that are just a waste of wages. No back up to Right Back, Jags out, McCarthy out, Kev injured, Besic injured... we just look paper thin again.
We will still win matches this season, and enough to stay out of real trouble, but the underlying issues remain... Teams know how to play against us because we only have 1 plan. I also think our weak goalkeeper is the biggest reason behind Stones' form. I've seen it happen at other clubs recently where the defenders don't trust the keeper and they instantly look shaky and start making mistakes (Middlesbrough, the difference between the defence in front of Tomas Meijas/Dimi Konstantopolis as one external example).
Sorry for the length of the post, don't normally post much but needed to vent today because that should have been an easy win today.
