Are draws the elephant in the room for Blues?
· Yahoo Sports
The first and most obvious takeaway from Saturday is that I would have taken a point for this game before kick-off, but conceding an equaliser in the last couple of minutes felt like Middlesbrough had managed a smash and grab raid on us.
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It was great to see Liam Millar get his first goal for Blues; it was a good reward for the way he has played in his first few games. He has really added something to the squad with pace and quick feet.
But are draws becoming the elephant in the room for Blues?
We're eight games into the season, and we have already notched up five, with three of those being courtesy of own goals.
The chat on social media is often that we're not scoring enough, and therefore we're only picking up draws when we should be scoring more and winning.
However, there are a few things to unpack from this.
We've had a fairly tough start to the season - we've already played some of the teams who are going to be chasing promotion or play-off places.
Looking at our next few fixtures, there's a reasonable expectation that we are going to be able to pick up some more wins.
Also, there's sometimes an argument that own goals somehow "don't count", and it means you're not scoring enough yourself and your opponents are gifting you points, rather than you getting them by your own efforts. I don't see it that way. Own goals mean that you're forcing errors and getting the benefit of them.
On Saturday, Cochrane's corner was aimed at the far post, headed down sharply by Stansfield and the resulting scramble in the goalmouth meant the ball went in off McGree, but this goal ultimately came from Blues' attacking efforts.
And yes, Beadle did spill the ball for the equaliser, but don't forget he has already kept us in games this season, and no keeper is immune from this sort of error.
Now we can all relax for the international break and look forward to a trip to The Hawthorns!
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