Not the end of the world, wasn't great but a better second half and Stoke deserved all 3 points. It has raised some questions which were already being asked by Appleton about where he needs to strengthen.
Positives for me were: Williams and Thompson looked assured in defence and Thompson really gets involved. I thought Madine was doing well until he got injured and that's a big blow for me. Yates did well up top but got barely anything to feed from, Bowler is our best player by a country mile and I thought Corbeneau was tidy and clever.
Negatives; I thought Marv had a poor game, didn't defend brilliantly and his distribution was awful, it may be because Connolly had as bad a game as he had a good one last week and he looks far from being a right back probably not helped by Bowler's lack of defending ability, although I think Conno;;y\s best position is defensive midfield.
I thought the midfield was poor for 90 minutes, the starting 3 were too lightweight, Fiorini isn't a holding midfielder and he lost confidence after the first half. Virtue shouldn't be near the subs bench never mind the starting XI and Carey had no protection or help in the first half. We improved when Dougall came on for Virtue and I thought Carey had a decent second half. It was too late to see what Patino can offer and hopefully he will start against Barrow. Even though we improved with Dougall on, he didn't make enough difference and if Stewart was fit or Connolly wasn't right back he's be 3rd choice, 4th if you think Apper's prefers Fiorini over him.
So, my thoughts are that we have too many mediocre players from the Quitchley reign, Virtue, Lavery (he looked terrible again), CJ, Dougall (decent league 1 player), Dale, Garbutt & Luballa. That's 7 players who we just wouldn't miss. I think we have to get another right back and a really decent commanding holding midfielder who can control the game and give confidence to the defence and the 2 in front, other than Stewart we don't have anyone who can do that to Championship standard. If we lose Bowler, then we will really see us struggle as the opposition are scared to death of him.
It's going to be an up and down start to the season, we will win some and lose some until the players gel and we have the right players in the team. It's going to change and it will be fine, we just need a bit of patience.