I'd driven to Norwich wondering what the talking points would be. Saturday against Shrewsbury Town had laid bare most of the key things for Stevenage this year I thought. What else can they possibly have to show?

Turns out there is still plenty and while going forward this musings may become more about progression and improvement, or deterioration, a lot of things are giving me, and presumably others, food for thought.

These are what I came away with from the 4-3 Carabao Cup loss at Carrow Road.

Five things that made me think as Stevenage played Norwich?

1. Is the goalkeeping battle done?

It's a strange notion after conceding four goals but has Murphy Cooper done enough in just two games to warrant keeping his place when Taye Ashby-Hammond is fit again?

The signing of Dean Bouzanis was a surprise but hinted more at a set-back in the recovery of TAH from a finger injury than anything else.

Thoughts now are the former Fulham man will be out for another month but Cooper has already shown in two games that he has all the tools to be a very adequate replacement.

He made a decent save from a free-kick against Norwich before the craziness truly started and has looked very commanding in the two games, claiming crosses and seemingly controlling the defenders in front of him.

He's going to get the chance to stake his claim to the number one position over the next few weeks (don't see Bouzanis as anything other than a back-up, regardless of what Revs says) and at the minute, it seems like only a monumental mistake will shift him.

2. Formation guessing game

One upon a time, when old Shep was a boy, it was 4-4-2 and that was that (although weirdly when I was playing in the school team in the 80s, we played with half-backs and inside/outside forwards).

Point is you know week in, week out, how a team was going to line-up, it was just a matter of which personnel were going to fit where.

Fast forward to Revell 2.0 and I am scratching my head every week, both before and during.

Against Norwich it could have been five at the back but then it was a four with Nathan Thompson in a holding defensive role.

OK, I thought, that's a 4-3-2-1 except when the game started it wasn't really. It flip-flopped from a 4-1-4-1 to a 4-3-3 and all manner of asymmetric shapes.

And it was the same against Shrewsbury. I mean there obviously is a shape and a pattern that Boro have been working on in pre-season and in training but it is really difficult to pigeon-hole it into one definitive system.

And maybe people within the game can see through the smoke and mirrors but to my mind, it is going to be hard for opposition managers to plan against it.

And it seems to be working. Players are really shining, some who perhaps struggled previously, Harvey White for example. He looks like the playmaker now, with added grit and bite. The Thompsons are reborn this season so far and the new lads are finding their own space.

All of which leads on to...

3. Squad strength

When the team sheet was revealed, it showed seven changes from the win over Shrewsbury and as I went through them, one thing became apparent.

This was not a weakened team like some put out for a League Cup game.

It is testament of the strides being made by Boro, the strides that have already come to pass over the last two years.

The change has been phenomenal, no more one fairly decent XI but you'll be knackered if there's one or two injuries. This squad is interchangeable and it does not affect power or performance.

And the scary thing is, it could still be strengthened.

4. Can I really be justified about moaning about the defending?

Me moaning about defending is about as regular as the spinning of the planet Earth. It happens every game.

It happened here too but even I'll admit, like I said to Steve Watkins as we waited for Revs, I know for a solid fact that I was nit-picking and being incredibly harsh.

Could Charlie Goode had stepped on for Norwich's second goal, just closed the gap slightly towards Jack Stacey? Possibly but he was caught in two minds ever so slightly and it's a pinpoint cross.

* One slight aside, the second came on the counter after Boro went hard on the press. A laudable action but against better teams, that can bite you if you don't get it right. It will work against a lot of League One teams but there is still a lesson there that needs to be learned - when and where to really go all in on the press.

The third and first goals involve a bit of fortune, a miscued shot that found Abu Kamara instead of a Boro foot, and then a superb tackle from Dan Sweeney falls to Borja Sainz.

However, in both of these instances, there was much to praise about the Norwich attack rather than the failings of those in purple.

Only the fourth do my protestations perhaps come with a modicum of justification.

Again it is excellent close control but should you really be letting someone do that and then engineer space for a shot in your own box? I would say no.

But that's nit-picking though like I said.

There was much to be happy with though, Goode in particular was superb and fingers are crossed he can stay fit and get through 90 minutes. He could an amazing signing if so.

5. Set-pieces

And speaking of Goode, who knew he had a decent long throw? 

What it means is that when he is in the team, Boro have another set-piece avenue to utilise and benefit from.

Revell has been quick to say all through pre-season that set-pieces are a major weapon in the Boro arsenal and they would be daft not to take advantage. And he's bang on, especially when you have the likes of Harvey White and Dan Kemp able to send in inch-perfect deliveries.

Four goals scored so far this season, two set-pieces. Knowing about it is one thing too, being able to defend against it is going to be tough for every team in the division this season.