We won the match yesterday and it will be the managers' prerogative to stick with a team that is currently winning. But for me there were some clear warning signs in yesterday's performance and things do need freshening up a little bit.
Chorley were from a lower league and it showed. How many times in the early stages did their players dribble the ball straight out of play whilst not under pressure? In truth, I don't think Chorley were much better than Spalding. A win is a win, but it should have been a whole lot more convincing.
We started the game well and were two goals up very early on. But after that, complacency seemed to set in. It was Lowestoft all over again, but with the safety of a two goal cushion. At times yesterday I thought Chorley looked like they wanted it more than we did.
Any teams that finds itself two goals up at home, especially against lower league opposition, and then gets pegged back, deserves a rollocking.
Luck played a part in yesterday's result. Did Davidson really mean to score the opening goal, or was it meant to be a flick to the far post? And the chance that Chorley missed when their striker blasted the ball into Tom Evans' face had "goal" written all over it. Good save or bad miss? I don't think Tom knew too much about it so I'm going with the latter.
Some of our forward players are equally guilty of missing good chances. The cross that Dan Cotton put into the box in the second half was an absolute beach. If David Beckham had put that ball into the box heaven knows when Steve Bruce would stop talking about it. Newsham simply had to score. But the header was tame and straight at the goalkeeper. Newsham may be our leading goalscorer, but his ratio of missed chances to goals is still rising and he doesn't often seem able to find the target from outside the six yard box. Maybe he needs glasses? Joking aside, I think there are other forward players in the squad who are a bit more clinical in front of goal (Clarke,Kennedy, etc) and are perhaps not getting enough of a look in at the moment.