A pretty poor game this, with few chances from either side.
We looked a bit shaky at the back, particularly in the first half, with Edgehill again looking nervous, and Rose making a number of errors - luckily Reading failed to capitalise. I’m glad to hear that we’ve signed a left back this week, as I don’t really understand why we’ve got Edgehill playing there (what’s wrong with Gino?).
I am beginning to sound like a stuck record, but again there was a big hole in midfield. Cook was ok on the left, but Rowlands was anonymous again on the right - I don’t understand why Ainsworth didn’t start as he looked much brighter than Rowlands when he finally came on.
Bircham was better but still not his old self. Santos was like a pinball machine, with the ball pinging off him in random directions. We completely failed to keep possession, and our distribution was poor, which left the front pair pretty damn isolated. We are badly in need of a play maker, and could also do with a backup ‘terrier’ until the real Birch returns.
Ollie obviously read my last post, because shock-horror he made a change reasonably early in the second half. Thorpe, Ainsworth and Cureton arrived in fairly quick succession, and for five minutes or so the sheer energy of these three looked like it might have turned the tide. Unfortunately it soon became apparent that nobody now knew where they were playing - with Santos dropping back into defense, Cureton on the left (I think), Ainsworth on the right, Gallen now in midfield presumably, and Thorpe up front with Furlong.
I wish that Ollie wasn’t so keen to play people out of position - it always seems like a waste to me - making average players look bad, and wasting the talents of good players. It can’t be great for the confidence of someone like Cureton that almost all of the starts he has made for the club haven’t been in his favoured position.
Oh well, I think that the season is probably over in terms of making the playoffs, but it could have been worse on the day, and I’ll take a mid-table finish quite happily since I thought we were going to struggle to stay up.
The summer is going to be very interesting… lots of players out of contract, and one wonders where the hell we’re going to find the money to replace them with equal quality, let alone improve.