L1: Yeovil 0 Swindon 1

Oh dear. We didn't start too badly yesterday, by which I mean we had most of the play and managed to get the ball into Swindon's box on three or four occasions in the first 15 minutes, but without ever looking too threatening and without managing as something as basic as forcing their keeper into making a save. But gradually as the game wore on we became less and less effective, the movement of the players off the ball into space ceased and the long ball became the only option - meat and drink to the big Swindon centre-backs. A final tally of five attempts on goal, two on target, tells it's own story - not good enough, especially at home, especially for a derby match.

For what they're worth, the usual marks for the players:

1. Alex McCarthy: 6/10 - Not at fault for the goal, another competent display. Didn't have a great deal to do in truth.

2. Craig Alcock: 4/10 - Looked okay going forward, but I'm still not convinced about his defensive attributes. Yet again the goal came from a cross from his side of the pitch with him nowhere in sight. What does he bring to the team as captain? I'm yet to work it out.

5. Steven Caulker: 7/10 - A cut above the rest of the team. Solid defensively and went forward impressively a couple of times in the second half. Looks so comfortable on the ball, especially for a centre-back.

6. Terrell Forbes: 7/10 - My man of the match yesterday. Led by example, strong at the back and played with as much enthusiasm and energy as I've seen from him. Marked him down a point for the own-goal though.

3. Nathan Jones: 4/10 - A mirror-image of Alcock - okay defensively, but nowhere to be seen going forward. If he'd spent as much time passing the ball to Nathan Smith as he did shouting at him then we might have got somewhere.

11. Andy Welsh: 5/10 - Played on the right wing, an odd choice for such a predominately left-footed player. Thought it was going to pay off briefly when he got into some good positions on the by-line in the first half, but nothing ever came of them. Faded from the game completely until the inevitable substitution.

13. Ryan Mason: 6/10 - Didn't do badly considering he was playing the entire Swindon midfield trio on his own. You just get the feeling we're wasting him at the moment. He should be used 'in the hole' as an attacking midfielder or even further up the pitch as a second striker. As it is he's expending his energy and skill trying to make tackles all over the park, which just isn't his game.

8. Keiran Murtagh: 3/10 - I've got a lot of time for Murtagh generally, but even his mum would admit he had a stinker yesterday. Seemed to have no energy, no ball control, no movement - no nothing. A game to forget.

28. Nathan Smith: 3/10 - Surely proved once and for all that he's not a left-winger. Made one or two decent first half runs all the time looking like Bambi on ice, but no end product. Another one played out of position.

9. Sam Williams: 5/10 - Did well enough in the air on a diet of long-ball rubbish while he was on, but a striker is on the pitch to score goals, and again he came nowhere near to doing that. Starting to show signs of being worryingly fragile on top of that. Ho-hum.

26. Jonathan Obika: 4/10 - Didn't cope at all with the diet of long-ball rubbish coming his way, and it's hard to criticise him for that. Not hard to criticise him for his general lack of movement and enthusiasm however. If we can't improve the service to him he's not going to score goals and will eventually return to White Hart Lane vowing never to come back.

18. Andy Lindegaard (51 mins for Craig Alcock): 3/10 - When you're chasing the game you expect your full-back to get forward as often as possible and to deliver quality crosses into the box. Lindy failed on both counts.

21. Jean-Paul Kalala (78 mins for Andy Welsh): 6/10 - Did more in the 15-odd minutes he had on the pitch than Murtagh managed the whole game. Certainly did enough to suggest he might start next time.

32. Andre McCollin (22 mins for Sam Williams): 4/10 - Coped as poorly as Obika with the long-ball rubbish coming his way, but at least looked as if he was trying. Should be playing for Grays, or Ebbsfleet, or Hayes & Yeading, not an L1 side.

I wasn't impressed with Skivo's team selection or substitutions yesterday. I've said above that I felt both Smith and Welsh were played out of position and I'd like to see Mason pushed much further forward than he is. I felt that an opportunity was missed to change things positively when Williams was injured. Instead of the obvious striker-for-a-striker that Skivo employed when he brought on McCollin (a player incidentally that the gaffer has tacitly admitted that he doesn't rate by his placement on the transfer list), I would have preferred him to have added a midfielder in the shape of Kalala or O'Callaghan as it was already obvious by then that Murtagh was out of sorts, and pushed Mason up front just behind Obika, to renew the successful partnership the two enjoyed last season for the Tottenham youth team. I also felt he then missed another opportunity when Alcock was injured. I would have brought on Stam to add more height and experience at set-pieces in both attack and defence and moved Forbes to right-back. Instead Skivo again swapped like for like, bringing on the completely ineffective Lindegaard, and nothing changed.

I know, it's easy to say these things in hindsight, but they were exactly the changes I and those around me were saying we needed at the time yesterday. Substitutes should be used to try to change the game, especially if your team is already behind, but all our substitutes did yesterday was to ensure more of the same, which patently wasn't working. The frustration is that Swindon were no better or more effective than the mis-firing home side, and if 3 points were ever there for the taking, they were there yesterday.

Ah, enough of the second-guessing. It's far to soon for anyone to be panicking. We're not even 10 games into the new season yet. Skivo has made mistakes for sure, but so does any manager. He must be given the time to sort things out and to turn things around, as management change for changes sake is almost always counter-productive. For all our sakes let's hope Skivo learns from his mistakes quickly, and lets keep on backing him and the team in the meantime.