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With todays defending we are going to have score a lot of goals to win games....3 or 4 I would say because we look extremely niave and weak. Atieno is much better paired with Howe and I think Kee would be better of than the disappointing Stevens. Mid table or below finish at the end of the season

I think the defence will only get better. Early days yet so plenty of time to bring it up to scratch and in Shaun Taylor we have the ideal person coaching them into a cohesive unit. They were poor as a group today but I'm not overly concerned.

Yes they will get better but then so will other attacking units. I thought Burton were quite wasteful given they had 10 shots on target

We'll be fine. No need to start pressing the panic button. Yes my preference would always be an untried but promising and raw 8 year old over the selection of Danny Stevens, which ironically is what Stevens is give or take 15 years or so. We've got our first point and scored twice. Ling will have seen the effectiveness of Atieno against league opposition and he will have also seen a defence prone to an error or two with a dose of lack of concentration thrown in. He knows what the score is and will work to try and address this. Just a thought but if Saah turns out to be a dud (i know its only game 1 and give him time) but why not go for Ellis at CB?

Southampton Gull wrote:I think the defence will only get better. Early days yet so plenty of time to bring it up to scratch and in Shaun Taylor we have the ideal person coaching them into a cohesive unit. They were poor as a group today but I'm not overly concerned.

I though Nico was pretty solid today (although Robbo had to cover his spot a couple of times when he was caught out by pace), Robbo looked fine (despite the oft repeated moaning about wrestling, the ref only saw fit to award one free kick against him the entire match) and Oastler would have looked better and more comfortable with a bit more assistance from the right winger on overlaps.
The main concern for me was Saah, either he is going to take a few matches to get used to L2 pace/playing with the rest of the back 4, or he is somewhat overrated. I hope its the former and not the latter

andygullagain wrote: he will have also seen a defence prone to an error or two with a dose of lack of concentration thrown in. He knows what the score is and will work to try and address this. Just a thought but if Saah turns out to be a dud (i know its only game 1 and give him time) but why not go for Ellis at CB?

You pretty much answered your own question earlier in your post (its the bit in red)

Pretty much what I said in my player review really mate. I think we saw the same game

Father Jack wrote: You pretty much answered your own question earlier in your post (its the bit in red)

I know its late mate but are you saying that Ellis is prone to errors and concentration lapses? Apologies if its obvious.

Southampton Gull wrote:Pretty much what I said in my player review really mate. I think we saw the same game

I get the feeling from some of the opinions on the match thread that not everyone did

andygullagain wrote: I know its late mate but are you saying that Ellis is prone to errors and concentration lapses? Apologies if its obvious.

Yes. He was pretty poor from Christmas/New Year onwards (to be replaced by Robertson)

People, its only been one game. Not every game will be that bad.
If it happends constantly for the next 5 games then yeah fine worry.

Theres a thing called training, we made mistakes yes but we can work and correct it. Its football, we cant have it all our own way or we would win the league after conceeding 0 goals.

At the end of the day the result could have been alot worse, we got a point. Ling has come out and said what went wrong in the interview on bbc, at least we know hes going to work on it. We are a league 2 side and mistakes will happen, give it time.

Stevens did not have a bad game; and I think he will improve as a player with Martin Ling in charge; don't think he was able to do that previously with Paul Buckle. I'm not saying he's Premier League talent, but, given the opportunity and guidance under Ling which he never had with Buckle, he'll improve and go on to make a very useful contribution to the Gulls squad.

Stevens was awful, barely made one successful forward pass and in the whole of the game he made one tackle and the ball rebounded to a Burton player. Exactly what did he contribute to warrant you saying he didn't have a bad game?

Agreed, neither of the wingers had anything like a reasonable game.

Stevens had a few good runs in the first half, and as every other outfield player was poor first half you could argue that Stevens was ok. He does lack that through ball which Eunan can do with his eyes closed. Yesterday we lacked an organiser at the back, Branston would have made sure Oastler was better positioned (particularly in the build up to the second goal). It wouldn't be a popular decision with the player or some fans, but as well as Mansell played second half he may have to go to right back if Oastler performs as poorly again.