A very poor performance and the scoreline flattered us. We have to work much harder without the ball and chase and press the opposition. Our success this season has been founded on our workrate, and that has disappeared in the last two matches. The back four is not the issue: there is absolutely no protection for the defence because we are not working as a unit when we are out of possession. For the second goal today, Crewe passed the ball from the back four to their forwards without a Rovers player getting within ten yards of the player in possession. If that continues, we will plummet like a stone. The margins at this level are fine, and our squad is not so much better than Crewe's or anybody else's, that we can simply coast through games like we did today's.
We were not great in possession today either, but if you concede three goals per game you have no platform to get a result. On a number of occasions this season we have put in average performances away from home - Northampton, MK Dons - but picked up a result because we stayed tight defensively. There was no chance of that today.
I still think the tactics we started with made sense, albeit Norwood was isolated again which Mellon responded to by putting Jennings alongside him after half an hour. However, the players who came in did not perform: Gilmour was completely anonymous, and Smith looked low on confidence and was poor. Mullin did liven things up when he came on, so perhaps we should go back to basics at Oxford in a 442 with two strikers ? There are certainly some big decisions for Mellon to make, but I maintain that the fundamental problem in the last two games has been what we have failed to do without the ball as a team, rather than individual displays.