This is not the time for us Irons to beat ourselves up

By Hughie Southon

Well it wasn’t as bad as it might have been but that’s about the best you can say!

Manchester City – to state the very obvious – are entirely different class, among the best three or four teams in world football so let’s not beat ourselves up.

Having said that it took a penalty created by Haaland’s speed and some shoddy defending for the second  for them to put it across us and there were moments when we looked quite decent notably ahead of the second goal.

Our ratings from Dave don’t tell the full story and personally – against a strike force such as City’s – a word for Ben Johnson in central defence wouldn’t be out of place. The guy is becoming a very important member of the squad.

I very much liked the look of Gianluca Scamacca following his second half appearance as a sub but Tomas Soucek continues to look like a player with things on his mind – his body language is not good.

A creative spark is seriously missing and following his cameo in the last pre-season when setting up Jarrod Bowen I seriously hope we see Conor Coventry given some minutes before long.

Next Sunday at the City Ground in Nottingham we are likely to learn much more and given the fixtures that follow this is a game we very much need to win.