by manxaccie » Wed Feb 08, 2023 4:15 pm
First game in a while and I enjoyed it and looking forward to the cup final. I don't care if its seen as a bit of a diddy cup as we don't get to see many finals as an Accies fan. As an ageing fan of many years, I've been to all the B&Q (I know it's not called that anymore) finals and remember bits of them all fondly. This will be the first one with my son and to see him excited about the final and having something positive about the Accies to look forward to for a change has rekindled some of the lost passion about what it means to be an Accies fan.
I know we don't do everything right and a lot of people have bona fide complaints about certain individuals and some of the going ons, but my son even got to give his Grandpa a birthday shout out on the mic at half time! He was also really well looked after being a mascot a couple of years ago and for me as a lifetime fan to get a look behind the scenes and speak to Martin Canning & Dougie before the match was pretty special. I don't imagine you get a lot of that sort of thing at any of the big 2. It's such a shame we can't harness more of that and encourage a few more supporters along as a result. We need to be more unique and sell ourselves a bit more to get people away from the obvious other choices.
Anyhow, there's definitely the making of a team there considering where we are in the league right now. I thought Lewis Smith was impressive, Martin gave us a bit of a steel in the middle of the park and the defence, on the whole, looked fairly solid. I liked the look of De Bolle in midfield and McGowan at the back. The new boy who came on late on looked a big improvement on Doyle at right back, although I thought Owens looked pretty decent before he went off. QOTS did play through us a few times but overall I thought we were pretty good throughout, although maybe a bit toothless upfront? I was also a bit surprised to see Shiels upfront late on! He missed a sitter but otherwise did ok I suppose. It shows our obvious deficiency in that position though.
It looks as if we are far stronger after the recent in and outs. We haven't upset the balance too much but improved significantly. We might just get out of the relegation mess and win a final too - who knows!