I never thought before the start of the season that "Clare-Long-Atkinson-Mous-Moore-Jones-Ruffels" is a good defence. In fact I said in the Summer that if we go into this season with Eastwood, Ruffels and Long as starting players then we will be in trouble.
Long and Ruffels should have never been first choices. They are nothing more than squad players. People won't like that but that's the truth. They are good squad players but nothing more. Management would even agree hence we have signed multiple Right Backs in the past few years. Unfortunately Cadden was the only one that really worked out but now he's rotting away in the MLS.
Atikison before this season had never kicked a ball in the Football League. It's a big ask for him to jump from the conference to a league one team that is expected to fight for promotion. Mousinho was going to retire before last season started. He is now mainly apart of the management team and is struggling with injures. There were times last season where he looked off it, and his only appearance this season he got dragged about. It was very clear that a 34 year old John Mousinho this season should have been no where near the starting lineup, and only be used to play games such as the Checktrade ones.
Nico Jones is a 17 year old kid. I think it was quite obvious that he was never going be in the first team picture. The issue with the defence isn't a new one. It has been here for nearly a couple years now. The management should have seen this coming. It was very obvious in the Summer that we needed to replace Dickie with another CB who would partner Moore. That would be our main partnership. We would then have Atikinson as the third CB. He would still be developing in training, would play the cup games and push the other 2 for a starting spot. Mousinho would then be the 4th CB who would cover for any injuries etc.
You build a team from the back. When theres question marks over your Goalie, left back, centre back and right back you're not going to get very far.
