Encouraging though Saturday's result was I don't think anyone would argue that Brizzle were much brighter than us for the first twenty minutes and nobody could have complained if we had gone 1-0 down early on. Against Ipswich we nearly gifted them a lead after twenty seconds which made us jittery and it was game over before half time. Against both Fulham and MK Dons we leaked early goals and they resulted in heavy home defeats to ordinary teams. When we are in games level at the half hour mark and beyond we tend to do OK, but especially at home we start nervously and make it hard for ourselves. We will never know for sure, but if we had gone 1-0 down early on Saturday would the crowd have got edgy and would the players' heads have dropped? Whatever the answer is, we need to start games and especially home games better. Hopefully that bit of confidence we have now got will help.
It s also been noticeable how badly we have started some second half's too.
Im not sure but I remember Evans kept saying he just wanted to stay in games up to 70 min mark and we had a chance. Woeful idea really. I heard Redfern come out with the same Mantra on one occasion.
Sounds very negative to me and perhaps a mind set that encourages the mind to wander from the immediate.
Im all for a steady ship up to the final lap but sometimes an early knock down is the price for playing the long game. I think I got enough mixed metaphors in there.