Topic Originator: Socks
Date: Sat 31 Jul 21:18
First game for me this year and nice to get back to it. Obviously we deserved to win, but losing 5 was probably a wee bit harsh on Arbroath who competed pretty well for much of it, first half in particular. However, they really didn't threaten very much after going ahead, and their keeper made two excellent saves to stop us going 2-1 up before making a complete mess of it when we finally did get ahead.
Overall not too bad, and we made plenty of chances to score in the second half. My first impression of the new defence is that it looks much the same in standard as last season. Perhaps that's a bit unfair on them as, like has been mentioned, the defending from the midfield players often wasn't what it should have been and in that sense I think we missed Bell who is far more likely to put a tackle in than Phinn. The biggest concern though is how dodgy we looked at balls into the box. The loss of Graham Bayne hurts us just as much in this sense as it does at the other end. I don't think Smith was at fault for the first goal, it just looked to be absolutely awful marking. The next corner we defended OK but the one after that wasn't too good either, and it's going to take quite bit of work to improve that based on today. I find it quite unbelievable that Smith is being blamed by someone for the 2nd goal as well - as GJS says, it was right in at the corner and was a very good finish, although it came from slack play, Gary Mason I think it was who gave it away on the edge of the box. I don't think Smith did much wrong today, and it must be annoying for him to lose two goals in a game like that.
Quite a bit still to work on, but overall we did what we needed to do, and that was the main thing. Nice to see us score a few goals as well after going behind.
"comment of the day from back of main stand regarding the main standside assistant on his level of ability as proportionate to his level of hair was superb!"
It was me who was guilty of that one!
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