ferrarilover wrote:I wasn't going to say anything more about this game, but Sky Arts has lightened my mood.
We aren't the third worst side in the Football League, not by a damn sight. Wycombe are 9th and we are comfortably as good as they are in every aspect. Our first XI would have won the game today. Poke wouldn't have hesitated and cost us two goals and Downer (or O'Connor) wouldn't have allowed two of the three.
If ever two matches proved my point about there being different ways to lose a football match, it was the last two.
With our number one and a decent loanee defender to come back next weekend, it's only a matter of formality that we will begin climbing the league. We might not go too far, but we'll be well clear of the drop zone 6 weeks from now.
I think we'll see a striker come in on loan to do the Ball job (except he'll actually do it, rather than whatever it was Ball spent his time doing. Not a lot, from where I was standing). Harding and Benyon linked well today, but never managed to exploit a relatively deep and tight Wycombe back line (they must have been deep, Bennerz wasn't flagged all afternoon. A first?)
Matt.
What a ridiculous statement.
Of course we are the third worst side. We are 3rd from bottom, we have lost SIX games, we have 9 points out of 33. We have a dreadful defensive record, one of the worst goal differences. Hints at promising things during a performance mean nothing, if you are brittle in defence, anonymous in midfield and toothless up front. Three defeats on the trot, and four defeats in our last five games. Good teams just do not do this. You are kidding yourself. To suggest
'it's only a matter of formality that we will begin climbing the league' is classic head in the sand stuff. James Beattie is saying the same sorts of things at Accrington, Northampton probably think the same about their team.
One could suggest that last year, Wigan played some wonderful football, and did not deserve to lose so many games, but lose they did and relegated they were. And that was with a decent manager.
We have Knill, who releases the league's top scorer, whose game changing subs see us lose. Throwing the lead away twice in one game is not what good/even half-decent teams do. We are a poor side, with a poor manager. When people finally wake up to this realisation perhaps someone will then actually do something about it because to carry on as we are means just more of this abysmal season.
This reminds of the season we last wore yellow and white stripes, with Saunders in charge. Around this time of the season, some were calling for him to go but others were coming out with the same sort of nonsense as you and it took until the spring for Wes to be finally shown the door and it was almost too late by then. History is there to be learnt from.
We have this habit of bringing in a new manager when it is almost too late. Going back to Neil Warnock, Colin Lee, Ian Atkins and you could argue Alan Knill himself. It almost always goes to the wire because it is left until around March time to do something about it. This does not have to be a fixed template. Knill has had more than his own prerequisite ten games to judge HIS team. It is clearly crap. So much so, that he has sent one of his signings back and now is clutching at straws with the loan signings he is making. No doubt we will continue this, winning the odd game out of 4 and the same scenarios perpetuating over the next few months until we get to around March and some people finally come to the realisation, that maybe we should have done something when there was time left in the season.
I would love to be proved wrong and Alan Knill become the manager some, somehow, think he is. But history suggests otherwise. We've seen this sort of season so many times before and Knill's record as manager suggests the same. To be in a relegation battle already is just depressing.
It is interesting how others see it, without their rose-tinted spectacles on...from the Wycombe forum
"But we got back into it, against what has to be said was a really poor Torquay team. Benyon up front!? Utter gash."
I suppose, that person, the result...well they are all wrong, because with our heads stuck firmly in the sand, everything is fine.