Whilst trying to avoid saying the obvious cliche of good teams winning whilst playing badly, that is pretty much what happened. We beat a pretty decent team, even though no-one played a stormer: Taylor and Whittaker were quiet, Ruebs, although superb as usual defensively, hoofed it more than usual, neither of the front two were at their best and even MOM ratter's passing wasn't up to his usual standards. There were so many home games like that against middling opposition last season, the only difference is that last season we would have drawn or even lost that game. The difference seems to be the attitude of the players as a team; last season after an early goal we always sat back and invited pressure until the inevitable equaliser. Yesterday, however, we kept the pace up and always offered options going forward, and the workrate was superb defensively, with players covering each other all over the park. That kind of workrate was only reserved for the 'bigger' games last year and hence we always tend to do well agains the likes of Leeds and the dippers. That's why I think yesterday was such an important result and standard to set.
It's interesting that of all the new signings, only Whitts is catching, but the depth in squad is meaning that everyone knows that they have to put in that effort every game or there's someone to replace them; for example I think that Liddell is playing the best football he has for us, knowing that Deano is ready and waiting to take his place.