Is this team really better than last seasons?

Quoted from Rhys_Mariners

i have said this before you can NOT replace team spirit, team spirit will overcome ability time and time again. The squad last year wanted to fight for each other week in week out and i am not seeing that from this current bunch.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Not sure that a team with so much Conference quality had that much team spirit week in, week out. They only finished a moderate 4th.

Quoted from diehardmariner

It's a completely different side, even our approach to games is different.  Last season was about pummelling sides who came to shut us out, this year we're more technical and definitely more athletic.  

Would the 11 who played yesterday beat the 11 who ended last season?  Probably.  Does that mean they're automatically good enough to be at the very least comfortable in this league?  Absolutely not.  Based on a couple of cup games we seem to have developed this mentality that the gap between the Conference and League Two hasn't moved in the 6 years we were absent.   Fewer teams are jumping from the Conference into League Two and succeeding straight away, that should give us the biggest indication of the gulf in class.

Last season we were miles off winning the league, we can dress it up all we like but we were fourth best in probably the worst Conference of the six seasons we were down there.  We got it right when it mattered and put in two of our best performances of the season when it mattered (well one and a half performances).  That team, as much as I loved that team, was never ever going to rattle through League Two on momentum alone.  It needed a massive quality upgrade.  

Losing Toto created a massive hole at the back.  We lack his pace, badly.  But for all his pace he had errors in him and we're already seeing that you don't get second chances at this level.  Ollie Palmer's goal was a classic example of the difference from last season.  Pearson was outstanding all game, got his footing wrong for a second....GOAL.  No chance to recover.  Game over.  That was the only mistake the defence made all game. McKeown's error was completely out of character and I'm afraid has to go down as one of those things.

Davies and Tait are probably on par, at a push I would take Tait at the minute but I think I would prefer Davies when he's got a proper licence to go forward, i.e a holding midfielder covering him and the other fullback.  Andrew is an upgrade on Robertson/Horwood.  Quicker, strong, more attacking, better delivery with crosses.  

In midfield we've upgraded beyond belief.  McAllister, Disley, Berrett and Summerfield are the strongest midfield options we've had for god knows how long.  Last season we had Craig Clay who was a 1 in 3 player in there to break play up alongside Craig Disley who was playing the deepest role of his career.  It's no wonder we didn't score many goals.  We rectified this by bringing in Jon Nolan who, as good as he was individually, completely upset the balance of the midfield and we got dominated by really poor sides as a result.  We're winning second balls now, we're carrying the ball forward from midfield and we're actually passing forward rather than to the side all the time.

Up front - that's the concern.  Vernon, Bogle and Jackson all look like they will be good as an alternative to a front pairing.  Someone to mix it up or offer something fresh from the bench.  None of them look like strikers you want to pin your season on.  Vernon of the three should be the one to start every game because he makes it stick, the other two need someone to work of.  The concern for me is that we've got two guys who've not played played in the league before this month and are making a bit step-up and a guy who isn't a renowned goalscorer either.  

I think we'll be fine, more than fine but we need to find our feet fast.  Yesterday when we conceded the first goal we just rolled over and accepted it.  Even in the final five minutes when we should have been really chasing the game we looked flat.  If there's a soft belly it needs sorting.

I don't think the formation is helping us.  There was a big clamour to return to 4-4-2 after a limp pre-season and, in my opinion, Hurst should have ignored it.  The striker looked too isolated in pre-season so it should have been about changing things in and around the lone striker, not the whole formation.  
Players were brought in to play a 4-3-3 (or whatever variation you want to use) and we're now trying to shoehorn them into a 4-4-2.  Andrew and Davies are wing-backs.  They're not traditional full backs and they want to get forward at every opportunity.  McAllister (I think Disley could do the job too) sitting in front of the two centre backs allowed them to do that in pre-season.  Now it's a 4-4-2 they haven't got that luxury.  We've four central midfielders who I think all look excellent. But we can only play 2.  That means Berrett is shunted out wide only to cut inside all the time, whilst we've got two wingers who want to run like intercourse at their fullbacks.

Whatever formation we go with I want Hurst to go for games.  Bolinarwa and Browne have that asset that defenders hate, at whatever level you're at, pure pace.  Their pace along with that of Jackson should be what we're attacking teams with.  I thought Chambers had an excellent game yesterday but all his best work was done inside, same for Berrett.  If we're going to play 4-4-2 you've got to have wingers who are going to stretch the opposition defence.  Yesterday was exactly the same as last season, we became too narrow far too early.