The one where our forest is fire proof

1: Tremendous response after losing Miles. I’m absolutely gutted for him. Looks he he’s done his Achilles too and will then most likely miss out on the World Cup. I really didn’t see much different in terms of our attacking play today. We just finished chances. If you want to point to anything that’s different in this game I suppose being better positioned for opportunities in and around the box would be it. But the build up and chance creation was pretty similar. 

 

2: Set pieces are still an issue but at least we cleaned things up after that first goal. It’s still maddening to concede like that so often but at least we’re not consistently leaking goals from the run of play. 

 

3: There were some out there who wrote off Cisneros early on. It’s almost as if players shouldn’t be written off after just a couple matches in which they are playing with different teammates each time. He’s been getting better and better each game and then today he hits a hatty. They were all great finishes. Real striker goals. He was confident on the ball and positioned well to either receive the final ball and have a go or clean up a deflection or save. You might even say the goals were Josef-esque. Let’s be clear, it’s still Josef’s job but let’s be happy we’ve got our own Ronaldo in the meantime. 

 

4: Shuttleworth has been very good so far. He looks like a very calm presence in the back. His short distribution game is quite good. He’s got no fear in playing it short with defenders close by. Today he made good passes that got the attack going from our own end. He even hit on most of his long balls. He also made a fearless save towards the end of the second half. The front office deserves a lot of credit for going out and getting a veteran keeper as a backup. His experience and mentality is going to be very important for us going forward. 

 

5: If pressure makes diamonds, “we gon’ shine”. The goals were great today. Goals beget goals. It builds confidence. Thankfully we have a nice run of home matches. Now how we deal with the injuries I do not know. It’s massive. It’s never ending. They are serious real factors. We, as a fan base have got to understand how difficult it is to build consistency when you have none. Losing both Miles and Caleb is gonna suck. Hopefully Caleb is just a knock but he wasn’t able to continue. With Mulraney now gone, we’re gonna be a little thin.