Gary Johnson

[swindlered]

One of the problems with last nights performance for me was that the warning signs were there on Saturday when we played Brentford. Bar the early goal we rarely threatened playing 3-5-2 and looked much more balanced when we switched to 4-4-2 and bought on Russell and McAllister. This switched Orr to right-back who I then thought had one of his best 45 minutes in a City shirt offering genuine purpose in the opposition half.

Rightly or wrongly Johnson sticks to the premise that if a team wins he rarely changes the personnel next time round and I wander what the score would have been last night had we started with the following line-up.

Orr-Carey-McCombe-McAllister

Betsy-Noble-Russell-Wilson

Showunmi-Jevons

I think that the above would have offered us much better shape and led to less individual errors. That said you can't fault the last three away performances and it wouldn't be a surprise if we persist with the formation at Crewe. Without Varney and Maynard we have a good chance of getting a result.