TWO games into the new season I think you have to say it’s been a positive start to the campaign for us.

I thought we more than matched Fleetwood on the opening day and should definitely have beaten Brighton & Hove Albion in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday night.

I watched the DVD of the whole game again yesterday and it didn’t change my opinion that we were the better team after the first 30 minutes.

I think to begin with we maybe showed Brighton too much respect and it was almost as though we feared them a little bit.

That’s something I think we need to learn from because we are going to be coming up against other big clubs this season and we can’t afford to be standing off them like that.

We need to take the game by the scruff of the neck because once we did that against Brighton we saw how good we were.

We created chances to win the game with Ryan Leonard and Myles Weston going close and Anthony Wordsworth having a great effort saved by their goalkeeper.

It was therefore really disappointing to let in an injury time goal like we did but the only plus side is that it didn’t go to extra time.

We have another very big game on Saturday when we face Walsall on Roots Hall and we can now go into that feeling fresher than if we had played extra time.

We will have other opportunities in cup competitions later on in the season and hopefully we will be able to do better in them because we remain disappointed to have been beaten in the first round of this one.

I FANCY MANCHESTER CITY TO WIN PREMIER LEAGUE THIS SEASON

I THOUGHT it was a very interesting start to the Premier League season at the weekend.

I have to say I was particularly impressed by Manchester City who passed West Bromwich Albion off the pitch.

They completed 692 passes and that’s just incredible.

Tougher tests lie in wait and, while I do expect Manchester United to be far more resolute this season, it’s City I’m backing to win the title.

WHY ROOTS HALL PITCH HAS BEEN NARROWED

THE pitch at Roots Hall has become a little bit narrower but it’s nothing to do with tactical reasons or anything like that.

The truth of the matter is that we had a couple of games last season which were in doubt because where the linesman had to run was not in very good condition.

With that in mind, we’ve brought the touchline in a little bit to stop that happening again this year.