I suppose the real question for Formartine supporters is when does playing better, which compared to this time a year back, we clearly are, become good enough to mount a serious challenge for the title?
The last couple of games -which have been a bit like shooting fish in a barrel at times and produced 16 goals spread between eight players have shown that we can put together a high tempo pressing game, get the ball quickly from back to front and put it in the back of the net.
All these are definitely plus points and I’m not in the slightest doubt that we are going to win a lot of games. I’m also very relieved that a distinct tendency to underperform against teams that we are expected to beat seems so far to be at an end.
However we are still in the early stages of a radically new regime – only two of yesterday’s starting 11 were regular starters at the end of last season and that’s a big, big rebuild.
Is it too big to give us a realistic chance this season? Even in these two big wins there were patches when I had some doubts – at Vale we seemed to take our foot of the throttle a bit after the interval and needed to lose a goal before getting back up to speed and on Saturday – call me an ungrateful niggler if you must – we seemed at times to play cat and mouse, dropping the pace a bit before stepping it up again.
It cost us two goals and bits of slackness in midfield and wobbles at the back left Lossie with two or three other chances (a couple brought superb saves from Andy Reid) which other teams might well have put away.
Looking for too much or still a way to go – only time will tell.