Wycombe (a) – The ACN Review

Biggest positive 

Yet another away win, yet another clean sheet, yet another Buendia to Pukki goal combination. It’s a predictable but enjoyable state of affairs.

Weekend whinge

After all the commendable effort Wycombe had put in during the first half, in the ten minutes after half time their defence left themselves more exposed than Gareth Ainsworth’s chest. During that period, as well as scoring a goal we created another three chances it seemed easier to score, with Onel going wide twice and Buendia shooting over – putting ourselves out of sight would have saved a fair bit of angst later on in the half, especially given there wouldn’t have been much argument had the ref spotted Krul’s arm-to-face incident. I don’t fancy seeing us spurn that many chances against Brentford.

Moment of the match

One minute Max Aarons is running around with his mutilated socks flapping all over the place and a roll of yellow tape in his hand, the next he’s chucked it aside, rampaged up the right and slid in Buendia, who brilliantly keeps his balance to spin away from the defender, has a quick look to see where Pukki is and sends in a ball with exactly the right amount of power and accuracy that it’s only going to end up in one place. Perfect timing all round, not only to give us the lead in a crucial period but also to give Max the break in play he needed to do whatever it is footballers do with their socks these days.

Star Performer

Emi. Emi. Emi. Is it too early to start talking about Player of the Season yet? Because it really, really has to be Emi.

Farke watch

No need for any quintuple substitutions from the away dugout – apart from struggling a bit with Stockdale’s pings over the top we always seemed pretty well in control of this one, and bringing Adam Idah on meant we had a sharp striker in the right place at the right time to finish the job.

Summary

Plenty could have gone wrong these last two days. We could have had to sit and watch the chasing pack all win on Saturday, then banana-skinned ourselves at the bottom team in front of the watching nation. Instead, two of our promotion rivals slipped up and we did what we needed to do. Brentford on Wednesday will be as tough as it gets, but for now the sun is shining and City are three points closer – as lockdown weekends go, this has been a good one.