IT is Wednesday morning and I still can't quite believe Saturday really happened. I suppose though the match was in many ways a metaphor for the season as a whole: Start OK. Middle excellent. End disaster.

How can it be that a team which earlier in the season positively oozed self belief and confidence, never gave up till the final whistle and won points at the death is now such a soft touch.

OK, we could plead injuries and suspensions as mitigating circumstances but that does not explain why we dissolved into such an unprofessional panic after looking so confident earlier on.

I think there are a number of factors:

Earlier in the season the squad had a point to prove - that they were better than last season's poor results suggested.

The loss of Ryan Kidd was desperately important. I know some don't rate him but we haven't looked as confident without him.

David Eyres has been sorely missed in so many games. The large part of Basham's goals have been scored from crosses from Eyres.

Jason Harris should be kept in his roles as super-sub because he is not worth the full 90 minutes.

Where are the forwards who can score? Three strike forwards on the pitch again on Saturday and who scored? A midfielder and a defender!

Team selection and substitutions seem to have gone astray. Early in the season Moyes seemed to have the magic touch. But on Saturday, why was Winstanley not on the bench? Surely he was bought as utility defensive cover.

Anyway, if we can find the magic touch again I believe Wembley will be the easy part.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.