A few things about the points raised;
I've seen us live 4 times and watched the Ifollow Swindon game in full. It's clear Rovers are improving, as they get used to Micky's tactics and their new team-mates. This was a better performance than the last home game I saw v Pools, Rovers were on the front foot for most of the game and should have made the game safe before the equaliser. However Crawley had their moments and might feel that with their regular central defenders available they could have done better for our goals too. None of the teams I've seen us play seemed significantly worse than us and Forest Green aside there don't appear to be any stand out good teams, while we've lost to 2 of the perceived poorer sides in Oldham and Scunthorpe. League placings could be determined by fine margins this season.
I posed the question as to whether Maynard would have been the better lone striker yesterday, on the basis of the number of quality balls into the box that neither Nevitt or anyone else made much attempt to reach. I think Nicky would play further forward and might have done something with them, but Elliott's style of play and making himself more of a physical presence contributes more to the way that Micky has set us up. Neither are a Norwood-style striker adept at playing the solo role and if we're to continue down this route then the finishing of others has got to improve to compensate for the lack of goals from the forward. It may become important enough for MM to start playing a pair of strikers, but that doesn't seem likely soon.
There were defensive failings before Doohan had the shot to save leading to the Crawley goal yesterday, but I agree that his putting it back into the danger zone with his parry was poor. I thought it was the right decision to start him for this game based on recent decent performances after coming into the side and one error, which thankfully didn't prove costly, shouldn't result in him being dropped. However, I disagree with dismissing Murphy's great start to the season as being simply down to a good defence in front of him. The test of a good keeper is being able to deal with things that come your way even when they are rare because of the protection you're getting. I suspect Joe would have dealt much better with the initial Crawley shot. I also feel Murphy's distribution is better than either Doohan or Scott Davies.
