LAST night's defeat at Bromsgrove Rovers was concerning and we will have to address certain aspects of our game if we are to get past Prescot Cables this Saturday in the FA Trophy.
It may have been the Worcestershire FA Senior Cup, but I've seen bad habits come out of games like this that could so easily be transferred into future matches.
We've served up some poor performances during my time in this competition and we were well off the pace all night. I don't like losing any game, and it was not just the result that concerned me but the manner of the performance. It was unrecognisable to the way we have been playing in our last four or five matches.
I thought our forward play was poor, we took far too long in getting the ball forward, and made mistakes in the middle and our final defensive third.
We should have dealt better with their pace up front. A lot of the stuff that was happening in midfield, when balls were being knocked into their front two, we didn't get across to stop that happening.
However, my biggest worry is that we are back into conceding goals again. We have not made any mistakes at the back recently, yet we made three last night and it cost us dearly. We simply cannot afford similar errors against Prescot or else we may find ourselves out of another cup competition.
I felt Danny McDonnell's positioning was wrong for the first goal, he should have come and mopped the danger up. It's a bit harsh on Carl Heeley but he misjudged the bounce of the ball when Bromsgrove scored their second, and Jai Stanley has given it away for the third.
We scored a decent equaliser through James Smith when we had a bit of purpose about us, but credit to Bromsgrove, they fully deserved the victory. They looked as if they wanted it a bit more and showed more enthusiasm and determination.
There were too many individuals that went missing for us, they were nowhere to be seen. Of all the players, I thought Tom Warmer played the game as well as I expected it to be played. He gave another good account of himself.
Dean Clarke came in and showed a few good touches on the right wing. I decided to mix things up a bit and felt it was the right time to have a look at a couple of the younger players, such as Dean and Luke Whittington.
At some stage you have to give them an opportunity to see if they can bridge the gap from the youth team to the first team. But they can't just be thrown into the rigours of league football.
It is a big step up for the young lads to make but the bottom line is whether or not they can handle the demands of first team football. With all due respect to Bromsgrove, we will have to judge them against much higher opposition.
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