The View From Churchmans

In the end, going down to a dodgy penalty to one of the best club sides in the world (even with some absentees) is no disgrace. If we'd tried this hard in the games which mattered (we've discussed here before that, in our minds, we should be competing in a theoretical "mini-league" of the bottom ten teams, and that's the one we have to do well in), this result wouldn't be that disappointing. ... More...

Well, we made hard work of it against a poor Middlesbrough side, but it's the points which matter. We'll have to play a lot better to get the points on Saturday, but there were some big performances tonight, and some big lessons to be learned too. When the time came for players to stand up and be counted, several really did so, and they can be very proud of themselves. The defence took ... More...

I kept reminding myself after the game that I'd said from the outset that if I could award most of the team 3, or preferably 4, out of 5 for effort this afternoon, perhaps the result wouldn't matter. Well, they tried. But in the end, it did matter. At half time the consensus of opinion around us was that "a draw was of no use to either side". But it was. Chances ... More...

In the Premiership, it's probably possible to get by on commitment alone, but you've got to do it week in, week out. If we'd played with this amount of enthusiasm in all or most of our fixtures this season, we'd be as safe as houses by now. But of course, this afternoon was the exception in that respect, not the norm, and that's why we're in desperate trouble. And the match also showed ... More...