Mike’s thoughts on the Strollers game.

Posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Last night provided another encouraging performance tempered by an obvious room for improvement. As I told the players at half-time “when we’re good we’re very, very good but when we’re not….we’re not”. As against Lothian on Saturday we were hesitant defensively in the first half costing us the lead and at times our passing was sloppy. I suppose credit must go to both Lothian and Strollers for trying to play good passing football on our new surface but on both occasions we looked shaky in our final third early on. We were fortunate to equalise as quickly as we did and Cloudie’s well worked goal settled us down and the passes began to flow (at times).

Donal was carrying an injury but despite that and his and Archie’s excellent performances against Lothian we were always going to bring Deano and Danny back in to freshen things up. Sam and I are spoilt for choice and Omar, Michael and Chris will have to remain patient at present. Their time will come. Also with Eck and Kevin soon back available there will be even greater competition for places. What is our best starting eleven? I doubt there is one as different opposition and different situations require players with different qualities.

Finally a word of encouragement for David. He was a bit down after Saturday but he needn’t have been. Goals aren’t everything and we know we can score from an number of areas. His work rate and contribution in the last two games have played a big part in both victories. The goals will come big man.