Is the season now over and I’ve only just found out?
This is SW19’s first actual update since we beat Rochdale, and I don’t think anyone has missed anything since then.
As you could tell, nobody could be arsed to send a report from the Potteries, and I think many already put Brizzle Rovers out of their mind and decided to enjoy the weather instead. Not that I blame them.
One suspects the players have taken exactly the same approach too.
TBH, when we went a goal down after eleven (ELEVEN) seconds, I had that gut feeling that we weren’t going to get anything. We’ve effectively stopped playing, or at the very least gone back to the beginning of the season.
We had difficulty scoring, let alone winning, back then. And since Franchise a month ago now we’ve only found the net in one game (Rochdale). Hell, we even played Darius Charles up front, apparently.
NA’s train-them-hard approach failed in just a few more seconds than it will take you to read this sentence. One wonders what pre-game preparations will be like this week, especially as IIRC we don’t have much of a good record over Easter.
One can guess our boss must have been in a foul mood, if Neil Cox did the post-game interview afterwards. And this week may not be a good time for a player to ask about a pay rise…
I could go on further about why we’re falling away quicker than Jordan Spieth’s challenge in the Masters, but the trouble is that it doesn’t really matter any more.
A cursory glance at the league table suggests why. OK, there’s the whole finishing above Franchise thing, and while that would be nice you would have to be dangerously obsessed for it to ruin your summer.
And yes, I know a few of our fans are definitely that 😉
The playoffs are now gone, not that we were realistically in them to begin with. Looking behind us, we’re literally a game away from mathematical safety. And judging by comments over the weekend by Port Vale fans, we may not even need to worry about that.
So as you can predict, these final four games are practically dead rubbers. Watching them is going to be a social occasion and not much else besides, although in a way I’m quite enjoying the thought of losing and it not actually matter.
Though it would be nice to round off the season with a couple of wins. Just to send us into the close season with a bit of a smug glow…
I guess we can treat ourselves to looking at who we’ll be playing next season. Sheffield United are up, and to be honest they were by far and away the best team in L1 this season. We don’t escape going to south Yorkshire next season though, as Rotherham are down and Doncaster are up.
At least the Keepmoat will be a new ground for the vast majority of us. And it doesn’t look too far to the station for everyone to get to and, more importantly, get away from quickly.
Chances are we’ll be seeing Plymouth and Pompey again, unless they do the most spectacular of chokes (and you still wouldn’t put it past either one of them). As for who gets our L2 playoff trophy, maybe even Luton or St. Evenage, though many will be wanting Blackpool to have a purple patch…
Championship? We’ve mentioned the Millers, and Wigan will be an interesting one, but like Sheffield United and Bolton this season – we’ll be going full circle if Blackburn go down. Christ, remember when they bought won the Premier League..?