No, it's definitely not only you! I listened to most of it last night and Bournemouth bossed the game. Not many chances for our strikers and their first goal was coming for a long time. It was what some of the more negative fans were fearing over summer.

Hopefully someone will be along with some positives.

Stangely enough I am ok with yesterday's result. I think it might act as a wake up call to everyone at the club. Bottom line is I think we are better than last year but we are definitely not there yet with the team.

An unbeaten run at the start of the year would be great but if it takes the odd defeat to keep everyones feet on the ground and focussed on the final goal of promotion then games like this can be useful.

The acid test comes on Tuesday, good teams bounce back stronger after a defeat.

i agree we need to show a positive bounce back tuesday night, before people start losing interest quickly...

average 2 points per game this season and we should go up


up the owls
wednesday til li die

I think its too soon to worry, last season Brighton won drew and then lost in their first 3 games and ended August in 7th with 7 points (Wednesday were top with 10) end of September they were top with 20 (Wednesday were 16th with 11) I think we are infinitely better than last season and we should not worry about the odd away slip up

Bit annoying though would be great to see Wednesday come out of the blocks at a gallop for once!

UTO

Yesterday was a reality check for us. We are better than we were last season (don't look too much into the "we got a point off them last year when they were slightly better, us slightly worse", but atm we are like 7th-12th place standard wise. Bournemouth are about the same standard. They played some niche passing triangles like Bournemouth did, but like us didn't create a lot in front of goal.

If we are the good team we are meant to be we will bounce back quick and hopefully put Bury to the sword on Tuesday. I do think if we persist having Palmer and Sedgwick as wingers we are going to struggle. We beat Rochdale the other week by good use of set pieces, but the team needs to be able to create chances be it niche passing like Bournemouth, Rochdale do. Getting to the by-line and putting balls into the box. We still lack a full Arsenal atm.

On Tuesday I would sacrifice Palmer and put Lines in, playing a diamond in the middle with Semedo in front of the back four. Prutts and Sedgwick/JJ (if fit) on the sides of it and then Lines up top behind a front two of Madine and Uchechi.- think Morrison needs a rest and we need some more pace in the side, which should help Madine

I struggle to understand a lot of OWLS fans view.

Against Rochdale, we played ok but took two out of four or five chances and won. Yesterday we had more chances but didn't take any. We made a couple of defensive errors and were punished for both. Prutton & Palmer were poor in the first half although Prutton improved after the break. Lines kick started the attack by giving Madine & Morrison some support & we looked like scoring with every attack until JOC came on and we lost our shape.

As usual when JOC comes on, we conceded a goal within a few minutes as he seems to upset other players.

My ratings:

Weaver - 6 - had little to do but had little chance with either goal

Buxton - 7 - should have had a penalty, partly at fault for second goal, took yellow card after Palmer error

Batth - 8 - never put a foot wrong

Jones - 6 - generally great, cleared one off line but two errors led to goals

Bennett - 6 - picked up knock, needs to use right foot

Sedgwick - 5 - one great pass but otherwise little

Prutton - 6 - first half rubbish, second half very good

Semedo - 7 - controlled the midfield despite little support

Palmer - 5 - tried hard but looked like a boy in a man's match, probably tired after playing on Thursday, went for goal when a pass would have given Madine or Lines a tap in

Madine - 7 - much improved, won almost everything in the air, one brilliant turn, went close twice and set up several chances

Morrison - 6 - worked hard, missed our best two chances

Subs:

Lines - 8 - linked up play well and gave the front two some support, battled well

Semi - 6 - a couple of good crosses

JOC - 3 - as usual, we conceded within minutes of his arrival, at fault for 2nd goal, he confused our players

This result should make fans more realistic. At the moment we will finish between 7th & 12th. If we improve then we might make the top six.

Good to get your perspective Steve, it's not all doom and gloom, just disappointing to lose. I do worry about our away form though, as highlighted by Sky sport news our poor away form continues, we've won 1 in 16 I think he said. Oh well Bury next!

UTO

To be fair, I expected us to get a result at Bournemouth. What little fire power we have up front is reliant upon our defence to keep a clean sheet. Defence got caught out yesterday all too often. A point would have been totally acceptable playing away at one of last years better teams. Not to be. Its early days still.

Charlton beat the Cherries 3- 0 last week.No doubt we are going to be the team to beat.

Dissaponted to be honest thought we could have got something and should have.

I was expecting a draw but we could have won it without individual errors.

It is one of the tougher away matches but Bury on Tuesday is one of the easier ones so let's hope that we win there.

Bournemouth are a scoring team, I think we all know that and we went with the intent to defend (as always) Megson has to learn to adapt, constantly playing the tight defensive line against every team doesn't work every time!! You can tell after 30-40 mins that it isn't working but he wont stop pushing the tactic! and by the 70th minute we see changes...it's too late by that point.

We may be better than last year but last year we were supposed to be better than the previous year.. everyone forgotten that already?

It's only game 2 but a bitter disappointment and I hope it's woken some people up..

On balance of play, neither team deserved 3 points. We created very little, but so did Bournemouth. Before the goal I only thought we would win it, but goals change games and they played up after the goal. We played up after half time and they got a goal due to complete carelessness and mistakes

What narks me is that we are lacking in strikers.....yet we let Heffers go and he scored twice today in a 4-i win for Killie!!

When O'Grady is fit, we are not too badly off for strikers. Our problem yesterday was the creation of chances.

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

I cannot recall Weaver making any saves.

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.