I went and our attendance yesterday was appauling - the one coach was no where near full and in the end 87 people were standing then a further 40 or so sitting, totalling around 130 travelling fans.
On to the game, I feel Brian once again messed it up but I do feel his options were limited when firstly Sam Aiston went off injured and then things got worse when O'Leary was sent off - Little now really couldn't change it around much.
However, it was 1-0 was 30 minutes to go but Brian still left it until there was about 5 minutes (inc. injury time) to play before he brought on Steve Davies - why? We had nothing to lose.
First half he started playing Facey on the wing when Aiston went off injured and O'Leary was sent off. Big mistake Brian. This meant forthe majority of the game Greenacre was playing upfront on his own and he couldn't win anything, no matter how hard he tried (I felt sorry for the guy because of all the effort he put in but got nothing). we kept on pumping long balls forward to Greenacre and they were headed straight back. Why Facey wasn't in the middle with Greenacre I don't know.
I also question why the ball always fell to Steven Jennings when we had a good chance. Two headers he had but why was he the player nearest the goal? Why not Greenacre or Facey - the two strikers.
In the end, I feel we put in the effort but couldnt manage a shot on target again and this is actually the FOURTH, yes FOURTH time this season we've gone on a run of three games (or more) without scoring a goal. And it's now 22 away league games, 14 goals. An appauling record. Just one more stat, if we fail to score against Bristol City, they will be added to the already long(ish) list of teams we have failed to score against this season, these so far being Colchester, Bournemouth, Huddersfield and Nottingham Forest - Brian needs to sort that out.
In all, I feel that although Brian in the end had only 10 men (or 9 at one point after Sharps was elbowed and had to go off) and therefore the changes he could make were limited. However, I still feel there were alot of things he could have done better than what he did do and his substitutes were strange or far too late (same old same old I suppose).
The referee by the way was quite possibly the worst this season. When he sent O'Leary off, he should have sent their player off too for pushing O'Leary in the face but he only got a yellow card. Consistently through the game he gave little decisions to them which mounted up and we eventually got 4 or 5 yellows plus a red - thats another fine which we could do without. We should have had a penalty in second half when Greenacre was pushed over but got nothing yet when we did the same thing our player often recieved a yellow card. Also the linesman at the other end was there to be seen and not to do his "linesmaning", with his flag going up ever 50 seconds.
MOTM: Jennings had a great game but his shooting was poor whilst Goodison was really calm yet made the odd error. Therefore, again I give it to Steve Wilson. Brilliant game in goal with some fantastic saves and he could do nothing about the goal. One more year please Brian.