Terrific win in the end, and a victory for some good honest pragmatism by DS.
We know that we currently lack a bit of pace and guile, the hard working Hogan's lack of clear chances is testament to this. We also know that our inability to keep clean sheets and defend properly has been a constant issue during our time in this division. Yesterday we kept it simple, DS set the side up the best way he could, we stayed in the game for 30 minutes and then figured out a way to win it, and without conceding. For the moment the sight of our GK rolling out the ball and us playing out from the back has gone, yet we looked very solid across the back, and the intricate passing (sometimes over passing) replaced with high pressing and industrious ball hunting across the the midfield. Interesting too that the likes of mceachran, KK & Hoffmann are not trusted with much game time - with Yennaris, Macleod & Colin all back and doing really well. It is interesting that with notable exeptions (Colin, Woods) our hopes for the season are still very much resting in the hands of the new boys and a crop of players signed during Warburton's reign - yet for a variety of reasons Nico, Lewis, & Scott actually seem like new players to us. Maybe the fear of getting it wrong is still hampering our moves to improve the squad?
Anyway it was a win and a good day for the coach and his flexibility yesterday, whilst we may not yet have the quality to trouble the top sides, we should have too much quality to be relegation fodder. We do need to pick up good home points and to make GP more of a fortress, and our superb fans need to step it up a bit now, believe trust and support and we'll be OK. Sit back arms folded, waiting for something and we'll throw points away.
Always loads to talk about in the championship - what a great division it is, oh and I see that Forestieri has gone and done a Tarkowski - we all know how that one will end don't we!
Get down to GP on Tuesday and roar the boys on, another 3 points would be very nice indeed.