I agree with quite a lot of what Boz says about the individual performances. Tollitt was not ready to start in such a high pressure game and I have not been able to understand why Ridehalgh has been preferred to Clarke. Liam unfortunately went back to his old self last night and was woeful. He is a confidence player, but in big games the best players show mental toughness and unfortunately Liam has shown weakness under pressure on a number of occasions now.
More generally, I think our midfield has become disjointed in recent weeks. The gaps between the midfield four are too big, both in and out of possession, and they are not working as a unit. While we have comfortably beaten the cannon fodder, we were outpassed away at Orient for long spells and our weaknesses were always going to be exposed against a really good team. Playing Jennings out of position on the left hand side does not matter against poor teams, but was a problem last night as Durrell was given complete freedom down that side.
On other matters, Palios was on Radio Merseyside this evening. He said that finishing first is still our target despite last night and his positivity at least perked me up as I felt completely numb this morning. Discussing more general issues, he asid that the summer signings were entirely Mellon's choices and that he does not actively interfere in transfer policy, contrary to comments on social media; he seemed to suggest he had considered sacking Mellon in the autumn but did not because he thought removing him was a greater risk than keeping him; he seemed happy enough with Mellon's performance since then and our position now; he was asked about the performance of the players we brought in in the summer but did not give much away.
Finally, he said he thinks we have a better squad than Macclesfield, which I agree with. The problem for me is that in big matches our collection of individuals simply have not functioned as a reliable team in the way Macc's did last night, or Lincoln and Cheltenham did in the previous two seasons. None of those clubs had the best players in the division in my view.