Is it just me??

After 20 minutes, I thought we would go on to win but mistakes cost matches.

I cannot recall Weaver making any saves.

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Comforting to hear Steve.....hope you were at the match and not just basing this on hearsay!

We were poor yesterday, make no mistake about it. We huffed and puffed and lacked creativity. We basically played with two very static lines of four with a gap a mile wide between the midfield and the strikers. Neither central midfielder was anywhere near as effective as v. Rochdale but they were given too few options by a pair of strikers who didn't work hard enough. Madine wasd poor- he didn't win enough in the air, didn't hold the ball up well enough and went to ground much too easily at times when challenged. He also wasted the best chance we created. Unfortunately Morrison was no better. Bennett was poor. On the plus side, Baath was solid as was Buxton apart from his error on the second goal. Lines also looked bright and busy and provided the link between midfield and front two that we had been crying out for- with the result that we started to look a little more threatening. Shame he didn't get longer or he could have been a real influence.

I thoroughly believe we will improve. Madine and Morrison do not work as a pairing and while Madine has been poor so far this season I believe he will improve when a) he gets a new partner and b) gets better service. With two, basically defensive minded midfielders in the centre we need an outlet. As well as two strikers who can provide the midfielders with options we need both pace and width - at present we have neither.

Oh, we also need to vary our approach. We are too reliant on the long ball and on set peices. And we need much more variety on the latter, we were much too predictable yesterday.

Anyone see Heffernan scored a brace for Killie? ahhh you've got to laugh

Dreadful performance, madine and Morrison might as well have not played, their attitude was even worse. Rob jones cost us both goals though did save one off the line. The worrying thing is bournemouth have sold all their best players yet still
managed to beat us. We've improved from last year and they haven't, yet we lose.. Weaver looked poor aswell, get rod in net I say. All that way for nothing

Alf,
Thanks for that, as an outsider it seems we have gone for a defensive minded pairing in centre mid, which needs creativity to be provided by the wings if we hve johnson back wil this solve the problem?

Up front do you think o grady or ucheichi can give us what we are missing?

In answer to your 2nd question SARS - I don't know enough about either one to be honest. I've only seen O'Grady in a couple of games against us last season and I vaguely remember him playing for Rovrum against us a few years back in a League Cup game. He's big and strong and quick enough, qualities which fit into Megson's robust type of tactics, but I admit I do worry about players like him. He's 25 and , including loans, we are his 9th or 10th club and he hasn't really fully established himself anywhere apart from possibly Rochdale (where he played around 100 games). Still, he's young enough to improve. Uchechi I know even less about. He wasn't particularly impressive v Blackpool but it would be extremely harsh to judge him purely on that 1 game.

I understand Megson's desire to add solidity to the central midfield and the added protection for the defence. Many good managers down the years have followed the dictum of building from the back- the 'if we don't concede we don't lose' theory. But if we are going to make progress we need the that pace and width with the way that Megson is currently setting up the team. JJ will obviously bring that but everyone knows how inconsistent (and injury prone) he is. When we last went up from this division we had Brunt & McGovern on the wings with strikers that would 'work the channels' and give options to the midfielders. I remember Waddle saying how he liked strikers to make his mind up for him- they make the move, show him where they wanted to go and he would provide the pass. That's what we need now (not that we're gonna get that kind of class of course, but you get my drift!)

Good summary Alf although I wouldn't have been so harsh on Madine & Morrison. I think the lack of supply was the main problem & I thought that they worked hard with very little. Madine sprinted from our box to the other box in the first half to give Palmer an option on the break but he never looked up.

I agree that M & M don't work well together. Madine worked well with Mellor so let's hope that he can work with O'Grady. Lines could be the key as we finally have a midfielder that likes to get in the box.

I watched the O'Grady compilation on You Tube and he seems to like chasing flick ons and has a knack for finding the right position in the box which should complement Madine.

True Blue, I was at Bournemouth. There are people that comment who clearly were not there. It was a frustrating performance for me because we could have won. We were not as bad as some suggest but we were not as good as some suggested last week. The main differences from last week were that we made two defensive errors and didn't score from our set pieces this week.

i'm not too worried, if we can muster 2 points per game we should be there or there abouts come april, we need to go for it tuesday night though, not just sit and defend all night, we are a big powerful side now, so let's start pushing defences about a bit. If that's whats needed to get out of this league then go for it i say...
last season we were the ones getting pushed about and kicked in the air.

onwards and upwards

Not at all surprised by Saturdays result.

We all know the squad is missing key players (no width, only one decent forward) so we'll struggle & huff and puff until those issues are resolved and the team has proper balance.