[St Charles Owl]

Playing Hooper on his own from the start is the only forward permutation we have yet to try, I wonder if thats what we will see on Sunday?? I know it sounds great to start the game with the front three that finished last night, and I think it could certainly see us get off to a better start, but the downside is that if it isn't going well or we still find ourselves losing after an hour, it leaves virtually nothing on the bench that would provide any impact to turn the game around. Our bench with that starting 11 would consist of Lopez, Nuhiu, Sougou, Helan, Wildsmith, McGugan & Semedo!! Only McGugan and maybe Helan would make any real difference if we are chasing a game.

For me, last night showed we are still very much a work in progress and that when you peel back the initial layers of skin the squad drops off in terms of ability. Lopez was disappointing last night because I thought he would push on from a decent performance on Saturday, lets hope last night is actually the blip and not the performance on Saturday!! Sougou hasn't done well for a while now after initially showing some promise, in fact Helan may actually be more consistent than he is!! McGugan is getting zero opportunities to show anything, no idea why, maybe he is the one that suffers from us needing to generally use one sub for an injury and the other two to add the two strikers to try to change the game. Semedo is a lovely chap and a good servant to the club, enough said!!!

We need to get Matias back after his hernia, Melo seems to be one of those players destined to see his time at S6 blighted by injury and Bus is god knows where!! Matias could make a difference, he was a stand out player in a dysfunctional team at the start of the season and could still play a major role for us in the second half.

All of this really points to the fact we have progressed as a club but there is still a long way to go.