Aspin in!

[Biddulph_PV]

I admit I was critical of Aspin. Am I prepared to eat a slice of humble pie? Well, maybe, though perhaps not just yet.

 

We had a good start to his reign, then went downhill pretty quickly, albeit he did inherit a lot of dross. But remember, we murdered free-scoring Luton last year with that team.

 

I think he has, in the main, recruited well although his signing of Angus, Daniels, Quigley, Kanu have been a little strange. Tactics have been worrying at times, too concerned about the opposition meaning we were too conservative and resulted in some poor results at the back end of last year and this (Tranmere, Carlisle, Lincoln). This was not helped by the weird idea of playing players out of position (still doing this!) and the treatment of Gibbons and, to a lesser extent, Whitfield. Worrall has also gone down bank very quickly. We had one of the lower leagues best marksmen but have just not played to his strengths often enough.

 

The flip side is that Hannant, Manny, Conlon, Rawlinson and Clark were all unknowns who had/will be fantastic signings. Brown, Legge and Miller are also solid. And I get that we had a few injuries early doors.

 

I think the last 3 games have shown the potential of the team, although if we got injuries to key men then I think we’d struggle, and Manny and Conlon have already missed several games already.

 

As much as I enjoyed a good game on Saturday and the feeling that we played well, we weren’t quite as “good” as them IMHO. That said, I feel more positive than a few weeks ago and if Exeter are promo material then the play-offs must be our target.