That was as poor a performance as we have produced since Mellon took over. The result on Tuesday night had clearly affected the players, as there was a visible lack of confidence, with all of the senior players - Jennings, Norwood, Norburn - retreating into their shells. At the back, we were totally disorganised for most of the game in the absence of McNulty, with Maidstone creating half-chances from nothing balls into the box that big Steve would normally head clear. Our three goals were, I believe, our only three efforts on target in the match, and two of those were an OG and a penalty.
All of that said, the victory was vital. If we had lost today I think we could have gone on a downward spiral, as the players were visibly shaken by the Macc debacle. As it was, the manner of the victory will lift spirits and the players looked made up at the final whistle.
Individually, we were varying shades of terrible. I thought Dunn was poor for the majority of the game. He had a lot of the ball but his decision making was poor. For the penalty incident, he failed to track his man back, then realised he had lost him and dragged him down in the box. He did redeem himself with the assist for the second goal, the only decent move we put together all game.
Monthe was a mixture of good and bad. He looked very weak in the air and failed to dominate, but has decent pace and strength and was good going man-to-man against their forwards. I think he will be ok alongside McNulty, but is no replacement for him.
Tollitt made a difference when he came on in a wing back role after we switched to 352 in the second half, and probably escapes criticism. Mellon does also deserve some credit for the substitutions, as we did perk up a bit in the last fifteen minutes, albeit a bit late in the day.
We won't get away with playing this badly again.