IT was a strange game on Saturday. Normally you would take a 0-0 away from home and, when you have a look at the basic statistics, we have kept a clean sheet, had five chances, three of which were on target, and two of which forced top-drawer saves.

But performance wise it was not good enough. There was not enough movement or urgency and in many ways it was a typical end-of-season game with nothing to play.

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But, even though we now look safe, we can’t afford to have that attitude because we need to keep the optimism as high as possible.

We should be able to do that given the games we have got left. They are all against teams in and around us, and they are teams we should realistically be taking points from.

But whether we do that remains to be seen because we are just massively inconsistent.

There’s a handful of players who have been consistent but as a team we have just not been able to string results and performances together.

I still believe we’ve got a squad of players who can get results on a regular basis but unfortunately it is the same three or four players doing it for us every week.

Ben Marshall is playing very well, Shane Duffy and Grant Hanley are playing well, so they’re the three outfield players who are consistent. I also think Jason Steele has been reasonably consistent.

That’s three of the back four and the goalkeeper and that explains why we have a good defensive record.

But where are we going forward?

We’re not scoring enough goals, particularly from midfield, and we’re not creating an awful lot of chances.

And, even when we do, like on Saturday, we’re not taking them.

I think we’re missing what I would call a ‘sniffer’. Our centre-backs create countless chances in and around the box but we don’t have a sniffer there to put the ball in the back of the net.

We need a centre-forward or a centre-midfielder pushing the centre-half away to get the chance.

I’m looking at someone like an Elliott Bennett, as a second striker, to get in there.

We need to take a gamble. We need to be more proactive. That’s the only way we’ll get consistency.

In that respect it hasn’t massively changed under Paul Lambert.

But at the end of the day the manager picks a team and then it is up to the players to go out there and perform.

And the players can’t say they haven’t been given the chance. Paul hasn’t chopped and changed much of late apart from suspensions and injuries.

More players need to be more consistent and, while we’ve not got long left, they’ve still got time to show they can.