In the words of Chantelle ‘Oh my God’. The plastic airhead could have given the post match conference for all we learned about the perilous state of our beloved club.
There is a very important statistic to be taken from Saturday’s draw with the Albion. For ninety five minutes (including the awful injury suffered by the corner flag) we played against the fourth worst team in the Premier League, in a game that the fans dubbed the most important so far even if the managers convinced themselves it wasn’t, and in all that time we managed one shot on target. Just yer one.
That was a penalty as well.
A free go from twelve yards.
The best team we could put out could only muster one effort on target. It’s not embarrassing to draw with Albion, they seemed a decent side, it’s not embarrassing to be in the bottom three, it’s not ideal but we’ve been there before, what is embarrassing is that we are so bereft of attacking ideas.
And when your defence plays ‘shambolic’ you don’t really leave yourself with many places to go, apart from down.
Do we blame Heskey and Forssell? Should we point the finger at the midfielders whose job it is to support the front two and contribute? Maybe the defenders who head the ball normally so well in defence but fail when in front of goal are responsible? Perhaps the fault lies with the manager and his assistant.
You can argue amongst yourselves but the reality is that the answer is e) all of the above. It’s not a time for shirking responsibility and going all slopey shouldered and looking at the next guy. It’s not a time for blaming the pitch or the training facilities or the injuries or the referees or the defence or the attack. It’s a time to say ‘stop with the nonsense, play to your abilities and get this club out of the brown stuff and do it now’.
Those poor players must have heard the crowd booing another inept performance and cried all the way to their flash cars and big bank statements.
The insensitive crowd only had an hour’s traffic jam and a ruined weekend to look forward to. It comes to something when the weekend is ruined by two o’clock!
This isn’t me giving up on survival by the way. Far from it. I have seen each and every damn one of those players perform to a higher standard than they are now. I know that if they play as well as they can then we will walk away from relegation and live to fight for another season.
Bruce has to get that certain something from his squad that separates average managers from good managers. Tactically they have to improve. Albion were one down and Robson, who has been pilloried by his own fans for naivety, made a few substitutions and the game changed again. We badly needed to win the game so what did we do at one each? Take a striker off and bring on a guy restricted to cameo ten minute appearances and hope he can become a hero. We needed more than that. Dunn was blowing out of his backside and couldn’t raise a run and for all Butt and DJ’s endeavour they are unlikely to unlock a defence or score a winning goal.
Up until that point as well we had not crafted an opportunity on target from open play. Are we seriously hoping DJC can pick the ball up on the halfway line and surpass Maradona in the wonder goal stakes? He might have managed a poor impression against Breen et al in the FA Cup but this is a whole new game.
Come on guys turn it round. Come May you can get in your Mercedes and BMWs and ply your trade elsewhere if need be but we will all still be here regardless of what division we are in. You have all earned yourselves a decent wage and gained valuable experience. It’s time to pay something back with your workrate, effort and application. Please
Roll on Spurs. Please let me write a glowing report of how you outplayed, outfought, outthought and outscored the Tottenham.
Keep right on because there is still time. The fat lady hasn’t started singing yet but the buffet is open.