Already disheartened

Yeah they were badly fluffed chances weren't they.
And as much as I've wanted to and tried to defend Cosgrove and Watters, its getting harder to because they have been so disappointing.
I hope the owners have got plans, and did we really want Keillor Dunn, as he's not the out and out striker we need.

 

Poor first 30 mins but when he changed formation we looked far more solid' i've been saying it for the past 2 seasons we aren't good enough to play a back 3. After the break there was only 1 team in it but our weakness in front of goal was plain to see' overall disappointing but get a decent striker in and we'll be fine' we need to play a back 4 though imo.

 

What did Killip do wrong? No chance for the first and very little chance for the 2nd. Other than that he made 1 really good save in the 2nd half and was generally OK.

For me he was one of the few that should come out of that game and be satisfied with their performance.

 

I think disheartened is how I feel.

Fair play to Clarke for changing things because if we'd carried on like that first 25 minutes, we were probably staring at a 7-0 defeat, though I thought it was strange to take Connell off (despite him suddenly thinking he was Neil Redfearn).

For me though, the balance of the squad just looks all wrong. And aside from set pieces, freaky own goals, speculative long range efforts and percentage football breaks of luck... i don't know where goals are coming from.

I think we could be in for a long season unless a lot of good business is done in the remaining period of the transfer window.

We need to get some money in for Styles and some fringe players and given a ghost of a performance, if anyone is willing to pay us money for Phillips, I'd be very interested in taking it now.

That performance might turn out to be the shock we need, but there are so many questions. We didn't look ready for the season. There was no energy. In and out of possession, we looked all over the place. So many issues and not obvious quick fixes.

In the poll i thought we'd finish 7th to 10th. I'd take that gladly now.

But one swallow doesn't make a summer and an opening day defeat doesn't make a season... but crikey, it doesn't half knock the wind out of you, especially when its at home and against a team you wouldn't expect to lose to with seemingly much tougher games to come.

 

Just out of curiosity, what changes would you have made to the starting XI?

 

Missed Cole, but I saw a lot to give me hope of a good season. We need better options up front, but we could have got something from the game. Craig feeling his way, more to come from him. Phillips and Connel a great pairing, not sure what the Mansfield lad would add. Strikers got in position to score, but need confidence to finish it. We probably can’t afford better.

 

Would have played with Smith in goal and would have started with Hourihane

 

I think that if one or two of the chances Luca had would have fallen to Phillips or Conor we’d have been looking at a different result.

 

Killip didn't do anything wrong, he had no chance with the goals, made a few decent saves and his distribution was good /ok.

 

Hindsight is brilliant to say someone got it wrong.
Bad first 25 mins, it happens. I didn't think it would pan out like that when I saw the team sheet.
I know now he got it wrong. Hindsight.

 

I’m sitting in Spain and so watched on TV. I actually thought we looked pretty good once the change was made. We certainly moved the ball around much faster than we did last season, and I don’t recall that many misplaced passes. But we simply can’t afford to squander the relatively straightforward chances we did last night. Otherwise we are going to need a much better defence than we have currently. That’s not to criticise the defence, which played pretty well in my opinion (including MDG by the way), but when your strikers don’t score it’s fairly obvious you are going to have a bit of a problem.

 

Phillips was playing!?

 

I personally expected Smith and Styles to play over Killip and Gent, but when I saw the starting line up, I didn't think there was much wrong with it. Whether it's a hangover from last season or not, we seem to be slow starters. I don't think either player you would have started would have made much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. The first goal was poor tactics, the second, poor defending.

 

Killip gets hammered on here, and not saying he’s a great keeper, but he’s nowhere near as bad as he’s made out to be on here.