Just Back...on the bus.

McAtee is clearly a big miss and Taylor has been a shadow of himself without him too, although some of that may be the Covid interruption. The 3 questions I have are:

How long is it going to be until he's back up to speed?
Who can we sign that will offer what McAtee does?
What is an alternative style that we can play effectively without McAtee?

Two struggling teams on current form but the one who wanted it more got the win they deserved. Despite having played in midweek Aldershot looked better prepared than us, had good set pieces that had clearly been worked on, and despite their recent record looked still to have more confidence to try and play than us. Therefore you have to wonder about our preparation it’s almost like we didn’t know what to expect and couldn’t react.

Surely we knew Aldershot had a long throw weapon and had given some thought to how to defend it? Crookes was surely a better option defensively than Revan, I can’t imagine he would have given such a quality assist from the near post on that throw? Although I also wonder if some of the defensive frailty stems from a lack of confidence in McKeown. We seem to look like we are going to concede a goal from any set piece at present, compare his performance with the Aldershot keeper who collected everything put into his area with confidence.

Thought when we went forward with pace we still looked a threat it’s just we are misplacing or over hitting passes that earlier in the season we’re on target. We are not that far away it’s just a lack of confidence a scruffy win may be all it takes to turn things round again. Problem yesterday was everything was static on the left side and there was no threat so Aldershot could afford to gang up on Sousa. I didn’t think Efete played too badly actually, again it was more a lack of confidence which probably stopped him taking too much responsibility. Taylor is clearly not yet fit and should have buried his chance near the end, I was getting ready to celebrate as he pulled his foot back and I can’t believe he hit the ball low and not lift it into an empty net. Unfortunately at the moment there is no alternative to him.

Clifton was excellent first half but for some reason disappeared in the second whilst Fox seemed to have difficulty passing the ball forward. All just so frustrating, you cannot win this league if you’re not good enough to win at the likes of Aldershot, and you can’t even compete with them when they’ve lost their last eleven home games.

I think we need new blood. A left sided player so we can stretch the pitch and stop defences putting numbers on Sousa because there is another threat to worry about. And obviously a striker who will score the type of chances Taylor and Bapaga missed late on yesterday. I still think there is a team there but we know Hurst reverts to type too quickly and all the tinkering is clearly messing with the players minds. If he keeps on stubbornly on the current trajectory I fear even for our chances of making the playoffs but if he realises what needs to be done, and it’s looking pretty obvious now, we can still get the season back on track.