Appy Says! Sheff Utd reaction

I do not think that it would be unfair to say that we were worthy of a point at Bramall Lane last night, would it?

As it was we suffered a second successive defeat with Sheffield United managing a 1-0 win in the Monday night live game on sky sports...

Appy knows that we were not really put under that much pressure and just a 'rush of blood' from Lubomir Michalik in conceding the penalty was the difference: 'Mikkel only had one save to make in the first 20 seconds of the game.

'And then obviously there was a crazy bit of defending from Lubo that stopped us from getting a point out of the game.

'The boy was going away from danger and it's just a rush of blood to the head. It was something he didn't need to do.'

Without a shadow of a doubt, on the night, we were the better 'footballing side' so if we can continue to perform more like that, 10pts deduced or not, we 'should' quite comfortably finish in a midtable(ish) position.

My concern is that it is 'unnecessary errors' like the penalty conceded that is costing us, when it really should not and we do sometimes look 'bereft of ideas' when we fall behind, especially against the better teams.

Cut out these costly errors and have a little more belief coming forward and it will make all the difference, like it did in our recent run.

We can definitely take positives from it though and the second debut of Scott Allan, signed that lunchtime, was one of them: 'I thought Scott was very good - he was outstanding in the first half and almost unplayable at times.

'He tired a bit towards the end, but hasn't had too much football and the more game he plays, the better his performances are going to get.'

Support is going to be needed for Izale McLeod though as he is not the type of striker that can play the lone striker role - he does not hold the ball up well enough to do this and is better off spinning off into space alongside someone else.

If Appy persists in using him in such a role it will do him no favours, which will then do us no favours either! He will become isolated, get more and more frustrated and eventually less and less interested and the McLeod we have started to see in recent times will be lost as I am almost certain the goals will dry up, and the confidence zap away again..

Like I say we have positives to take from the game, and Appy also knows this and wants us to move on from this learning something from it as we do: 'we have to move on from that because I thought there were some very good performances from our players and at times we had them on the back foot.'

Changes will be made to the FA cup side at the weekend, mostly because I would expect the clubs loaning players to us will not want them cup-tied but it gives players coming in a chance to shine and prove that they are worthy of a run.

I know that the league is the priority but money, and we need all we can, can be made from the cup so lets just hope we do not rollover and hand the tie to Notts County...

PLAY UP POMPEY!

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