So much for Fleetwood being must-not-lose.
No, yesterday didn’t relegate us mathematically, but last night and this morning, many a mental preparation is getting made for life back in League Two again.
Yes, I know there’s still seven games left, that we’re still (somehow) not in the bottom four, and we’ve got Donny on Monday. And maybe with the downpour the game ought not to have been played anyway.
But one senses the penny has finally dropped for a lot of people.
It sounds pretty much like the description from the Shrewsbury game, with the same end result. Though apparently we started off OK, although I don’t think we had much excuse not to do so.
Then they scored thanks to a passage of play by L Trotter and A Puddle, and the rest is unfortunate history.
When teams are in shit, and regimes start reaching their sell-by date, things like that happen. Remember the fateful game against Torquay that saw the end of Terry Brown? That was courtesy of Rene Howe’s arse.
And a lot of that link could easily have been written this morning.
Mind you, that might not be the defining moment of yesterday. That belongs to urgently needing a goal, and putting on a 36-year central defender as your main target man. If that doesn’t sum things up, nothing does.
Look, Robbo has been a great servant to us, but he shouldn’t even be playing in defence, let alone up front. I know in once-off games it happens, and losing Piggot wasn’t ideal.
But we took back a 6ft lad in Jayden Antwi from Farnborough and we didn’t even include him in the squad? Especially when Piggot got his whack in the training the day before, and there was going to be some doubt?
Then again, we signed Lloyd Sam and he hasn’t even made his debut yet. No doubt we’re bringing him on slowly and he’ll finally appear against Bury.
Whichever way you look at it, and no matter how hard you try to put a positive gloss on it – everything is a big mess now. There’s nothing approaching cohesive thinking any more, as though we’re just throwing anything to the wall and hoping it sticks.
We need a completely fresh start in the summer, even if we stay up. Hell, especially if we find ourselves in L1 next season. Fail to do that, and we’ll just repeat what happened in the Torquay link above.
Football has a nasty habit of exposing pretence and denial. And it’s very unforgiving to those who refuse to learn lessons.
I wonder what the players are really thinking? I didn’t hear it, but apparently Appiah’s WDON commentary was quite illuminating – he was talking about us being too slow, not attacking enough and similar stuff that could have come from many a fan.
If that’s the view of the squad members who aren’t always injured too, well……
Yesterday was the turning point for many, and even if we get three points at the Keepmoat, it will just be papering over the cracks now. It’s been like this for too long, with too much tinkering around the edges and not enough fundamental reform where required.
Or to put it another way – how come Northampton and Rochdale were able to get something out of Shrewsbury in the last two weeks and we couldn’t…?