00:00 An improved performance and certainly a lot of positive aspects of the game that we could take from it.
00:07 But ultimately, I think we all have been a little let down by the slow aspect of the summer recruitment here,
00:20 given that in the second half of the match,
00:26 with a couple of players cramping up and a couple of players picking up knocks,
00:30 Paul Hengelbollam was forced to look towards a few kids who have little or no Premier League experience,
00:37 very little championship experience for that matter,
00:39 coming off the bench.
00:41 And that is ultimately where, well, certainly from my point of view,
00:46 I'll put it to you, that's where the difference was, wasn't it, I'm afraid, I think?
00:50 Yeah, 100%.
00:53 I think you nailed it there in that it's not even Premier League experience,
00:56 it's not even championship experience, it's football experience, isn't it?
00:59 These boys have barely kicked a ball in senior football,
01:03 and I'm almost a bit wary of being too critical of them.
01:07 Obviously, it's not their fault at all.
01:09 Nobody's saying that these boys have kind of won a raffle to part of the squad or anything.
01:13 They're obviously very good footballers who are in the squad on merit.
01:17 But at the same time, the fact that Paul Hengelbollam is calling on them,
01:23 in a real-life, actual Premier League game at this stage of the season,
01:29 when points are, as we know, points are always important in the Premier League, aren't they?
01:33 But at the start, when you can sort of put a marker down and get a bit of positive momentum building,
01:40 now they're arguably more important than ever for Sheffield United at the start of the season.
01:44 The fact that they are turning to players of their, not of their calibre,
01:48 but of their experience level and their greenness, for want of a better word,
01:53 lack of experience, naivety in a few different aspects.
01:58 Paul touched on it afterwards.
01:59 Something that we sort of overlooked in that Forrest's winning goal came from
02:05 Atkford not pressing the centre-half as he should or was told to,
02:10 or as a more experienced striker, you imagine, would just know to do.
02:14 And that forces Brooks to go out and leave the spare man.
02:17 The cross comes in and obviously Chris Wood, £15 million Forrest sub,
02:24 that kind of highlighted the difference perfectly, didn't it?
02:27 You know, they brought on Wood and Alanga, £30 million worth of talent.
02:31 And United brought on Atkford and Brooks,
02:34 who obviously have very limited football experience between them.
02:37 So, yeah, that's the difference.
02:39 And it just sort of killed the momentum a little bit, didn't it?
02:42 You know, as Hekia touched on afterwards with us,
02:46 imagine if that had been two different strikers,
02:50 maybe an Archer or someone up front starting the game,
02:54 and then Willa Sula and Benny Traore coming on for the last 15, 20 minutes.
02:59 You know, you wouldn't want to be a defender,
03:02 you know, at any level, really, facing that sort of pace and direct threat at any point, would you?
03:07 So, yeah, we'll never know for sure.
03:10 But, yeah, you're right in that, you know, it just leaves more unanswered questions.
03:13 I mean, what if? What if?
03:14 That's the biggest thing for me, in that, you know,
03:17 God forbid this season ends how we all don't want it to end.
03:20 You know, you look back with questions of what if we'd done this better?
03:23 What if we had of, you know, got someone in sooner?
03:26 What if they had hit the ground running?
03:29 And that's exactly what you don't want, is that you don't want those unanswered questions.
03:32 You want to give yourself every opportunity that you can to hit the ground running,
03:36 to get those points on the board, to build that momentum as it stands from two pretty winnable games,
03:42 with no disrespect to Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest.
03:44 But with two games that, you know, it wouldn't be the biggest shock in the world,
03:48 but a full strength.
03:49 You know, last season, the Sheffield United arguably beat at least one of those teams.
03:54 Yeah, you would not be stunned if the team from last season,
04:01 the team that finished last season, took four points from the opening two games.
04:04 Yeah, 100%.
04:05 And that's, look, again, we go back to the last Premier League season,
04:08 the last first Premier League season, if that makes sense, when they got promoted.
04:12 That four points in the first two games set them up so well, didn't it, for what happened afterwards?
04:17 It sent a message, if you like, to the rest of the Premier League, saying,
04:21 'These lads are not to be messed with.'
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