Will Still rung the changes and changed the side drastically, for a long droid it might look like we would have gotten away with it too, but then popped up that meddling Kaly Sene to be the latest person to score a goal he really should not of against Saints.
There were 6 changes for from the embarrassing performance at Hull City, the most surprising being the demotion to the bench of Captain Jack, Taylor Harwood-Bellis & Gavin Bazunu, but in fairness to the manager he went with his convictions and gut feelings rather than with the favourites.
For long periods it looked like it would pay off, in many respects this was possibly our best performance of the season, when we were under pressure we coped, when we got the ball in midfield we turned and went forward rather than backwards and up front we looked lively.
Charles & Jander looked a good pairing and were not afraid to turn on the ball and use it, for me Charles was the man of the match.
Boro arrived top of the League and in fine form and high on confidence, but we grew into this game, our back four looked balanced and strong and although at times Boro got hold of the ball and looked dangerous they could not convert it into actual chances.
At the break we looked like we were growing in confidence and continued that in the second half and when the ball fell to Adam Armstrong on the hour mark, he put it away like if was 2023/24 season, it all looked good.
So where did it go wrong ?
The answer is simple, we made substitutions when we didn’t need to make them, we unbalanced the side, Finn Azaz was replaced by a winger in Leo Scienza, then 3 minutes before the equaliser Tom Fellows was taken off, only a minute before he had been on a run that saw him beat several players, he looked like he was a man full of confidence and ready to tear the opposition apart, it wasn’t tiredness or a lack of legs as ~i said a minute earlier he had run past the opposition like they weren’t there.
But the balance had been upset, we went from a team that was playing in an organised manner to one that was finding its feet again and Boro made us pay, yes their man got the ball in a good position, that happens in games, he got a deflection, that also happens, but what should noy have happened was that Alex McCarthy should have watched the ball got past him with his hands at his side, where were his reactions, his hands were just not in a natural place for a keeper they weren’t coiled ready ready to be thrown out when the ball are his way they were at his side and therefore he made no attempt to stop the ball and that is unacceptable.
That was the only shot on target that Boro had, that perhaps tells you something about this performance, it wasn’t a bad one, we were after all playing the most in form team in the Championship, it was a good one, a tough game that we had grown into and deservedly put ourselves in a winning position, I think I could have stopped this goal, if only because my natural reaction would have been to put my hands up to protect my face, so why was McCarthy not doing that.
The final 20 minutes or so saw both sides cagey, we did our usual multiple changes in the final minutes Robinson getting 4 minutes at the end and again bizarrely Elias Jelert for Ryan Manning, again what was the point of that.
So in conclusion things did get better and the table would have looked a lot better had we seen this game out, but it doesn’t and we have to put that aside and look at the plus points, rather than the negatives.
But we have to start winning games soon, two many games have seen points dropped that should never have been and that has to stop.
It will be interesting to see what Will Still does at Sheffield `United on Tuesday night, before the game I wasn’t sure whether this was a brave manager trying something different or one like a rabbit in the headlights not knowing what to do.
The answer is it might well have been a bit of both, but there was enough seen out there to suggest that Will Still has something about him and is not a man to stick with the obvious or those who flatter to deceive.