WHILST I understand the manager's disappointment at losing the final, hitting out at all and sundry does neither him nor the club any credit.

"If I makes mistakes I get the sack he says." Wrong. The last few weeks has been littered with his mistakes but the sack isn't on the agenda. Obvious ones are Sundays substitutions. Nice chap apparently, popular in the changing room, but as yet, on the pitch Javi Marena has done nothing, and no-one was suprised when this happened again on Sunday.This strange substitution meant we were

playing 4-2-4 for a while, as Nolan didn't drop back and just led to even more hopeless long balls being knocked into the area. This isn't how we play, this isn't how we were so good against Arsenal and other teams, so why resort to it in our most important game of the season? The team was crying out for four players in midfield, not two or three, then our players who are good on the ball would have had a chance to play a chance to play. The other mistakes include the alarming team selection for the game with City. Three points would have virtually sealed our Premiership status and sent all of us into the Final in a good frame of mind after the distractions of the previous week.These are not with hindsight reflections, they are things that seemed obvious to most at the time. I could go on but as I wrote earlier, hitting out really does do any good at all, and anyway he is a good manager .However he ought to remember that it's no good getting older unless you get wiser,so wise up Sam admit to you miistakes learn from them and move on. Let's get three points on Saturday!

Robert Stevens

Aldsworth

Cheltenham