BLOG: Don't play Novak and Ebanks-Blake together in dog fight

Against both Fleetwood and Oldham we have not really looked like scoring, which is very troubling, especially as these two sides are below us in the table. On Saturday we never really showed any real signs of breaking down the opposition defence, despite Jamal Ryce-Campbell and Lee Novak having good games, neither seemed like breaking the deadlock.

Even more worrying for Danny Wilson would be the statistic that we didn’t have a single shot on target, we can’t expect to stay up if we can’t trouble their keeper.

Oldham on Monday was more of the same.

They certainly had the better of the first half; their midfield was allowed a lot of time and space to pick out passes and barring a great save by Tommy Lee we would have found ourselves a goal down at the break.

The second half saw us pick up; Gboly Ariyibi, who was virtually anonymous during the first half, was beginning to ask questions of their left-back and was beginning to get round him.

However after being on top we fell to sleep at the back which resulted in their winning goal and this certainly needs cutting out if we are going to stay in this division.

Once more the fact remained at the end of the match that we had failed to gain a single shot on target.

The most frustrating part of the situation we find ourselves in is that the fans know we can play so much better than we have been doing.

For instance the 7-1 victory over Shrewsbury in January is evidence of our attacking credentials yet at the moment we appear to be short of confidence in front of goal.

There is definitely a lot of pressure on Novak who we know is an accomplished striker but he isn’t very mobile and needs someone with him who is willing to open up chances and Ebanks-Blake isn’t that player.

I don’t believe you can play both Ebanks-Blake and Novak together; instead we should look towards Jordan Slew and Rai Simons who work hard and chase everything to partner either Sylvan or Lee.

Wilson also needs to address the midfield.

O’Shea is a very talented player but he is completely wasted on the wing, he is so much more of a threat down the middle.

We may as well not play him if he is going to be stuck out wide.

Perhaps a change of formation is needed in order to see O’Shea back to his best.

Despite all of this I still believe we will stay up because there are certainly four teams worse than us in this division.

We now need to be beating teams that are above us which is bound to be tricky but we certainly have it in us to turn this around.