European Euphoria and Domestic Doom

As the dust has settled on the weekends display against Dundee, we find ourselves in the all too familiar situation of big European nights and performances while landing back to domestic duties with a stutter.

Have the opening domestic games just been blips on the road for the manager and squad. As has been the case for a number of seasons now this team seems to suffer European hangovers like no other. However is there cause for alarm or is there green shoots of recovery?

This weekend the team showed a level of fight in them when down to 10 men that in previous seasons we would have likely dropped all 3 points in. Refreshingly the manager has been candid and honest in his answers and quest root out what’s causing this ongoing issue.

As we know in Europe we tend to get more space to play in and room to manoeuvre. But back in the bread and butter this isn’t something that’s afforded. With one foot now into the next round of Champions league qualification there’s an acid test of character to come this weekend against Alloa.

This should be the time for the manager to be able to give minutes to those who have so far been restricted to cameos or nothing. However given the start to the domestic season could we see the manager use this as a true test of individuals character?

The last two domestic games post Europe the manager will have been able to form his own character assessment of who’s only there for the big European lights under the lights and who can’t then put the same heart and desire into the bread and butter.

For the moment a question hangs over the manager on tactics and personnel domestically. With time still left in the window it’s now time for the manager and Thelwell to ensure what we see are players with the right character and mindset to balance the big nights to the domestic duties.

We’re all watching and willing the team to reach the levels of consistency we all once grew up watching with ease. With questions to answer the manager has a big couple of weeks ahead, what we should see is bit changes from players and big calls from the manager. While he finds that level from the team we may need to be patient