I thought the scoreline was a fair reflection of the ninety minutes. However, having weathered the storm in the first half, we should have taken something with an improved display after half time.
In the first period Rochdale caused us a lot of problems in midfield with the movement and positional play of Newby and Odo, but I thought we defended the eighteen yard box very well to restrict them to relatively few chances despite a lot of pressure. However, our attacking threat was sporadic, with Nevitt too isolated and MacManaman ineffective, although on the occasions when Hawkes did link the play with the other attackers we looked threatening, most notably in the move which resulted in Hawkes hitting the post with a brilliant effort.
In the second half I thought we improved significantly. We got tighter in midfield and did not give Rochdale as much freedom, and the injury to MacManaman helped us as Feeney was more effective and helped us retain possession better high up the pitch. We started to threaten more down the right side through Cogley who delivered a number of decent balls into the box, which again were not attacked. Rochdale's winner was slightly against the run of play at that point in the game, but was probably deserved overall.
Individually, I did not think there were any standout performers. Nevitt worked hard, but his movement and sharpness around the box was limited again. Maynard looked decent when he came on, and certainly gave us more of an attacking threat. Morris was fine on the ball, but struggled again defensively. I think the centre halves were our best players and deserve credit for keeping us in the game when we were not functioning in the first period.
Our performances are very disjointed at the moment, and there is no real pattern of play. However, it is far too early to talk about useless recruitment and writing the season off: I am not sure we have enough in the centre forward position to challenge for promotion, but I certainly think we can improve given the huge number of players we have had to absorb in a short period of time.
How can we get more creativity and goals into our game ? I think we have to play two up front and get Maynard fit, as I think he is the only striker we have who is capable of scoring regularly, certainly on the evidence so far. The five at the back could also be ditched, at least at home, and the shape of midfield changed to bring greater fluency, and make us less reliant on the full backs as our only real attacking threat. In particular, I think Watson needs to do more and justify his place, as he is a passenger at the moment for the most part.