Welcome back 2017/18. Almost…
I’m not going to waste too much time this soggy Sunday morning on Accrington yesterday. I wasn’t there, and even if I was I’d just be telling people about Scunthorpe last week.
The question is – why?
Another very poor start, and only getting into it when we’re practically down and out. Like last Saturday, we clawed it back to a goal, and like eight days ago we still limped out with nothing having shot ourselves in the foot.
The stats don’t lie right now. Our last six league games read : LLLWLL. If you include the Chuckaturd against Swansea, it’s three bad performances in the space of seven days.
Never mind the glorious heroics of Sunderland and Barnsley feeling like eons ago – winning at Gillingham feels like that right now too.
I know the accuracy up front is still an issue, and it was telling that those watching yesterday suggested Jervis made a positive difference.
But something – something – has now gone badly wrong with our back line. Too much tinkering? Perhaps, it was telling that King got dropped for McDonnell, who apparently did OK.
I did read NA’s post game comments, the bold bit mine:
“The first 35 minutes was as bad as we’ve been all season. I have to stop doing team talks before the game because last week we talked about the things we needed to be mindful of and today I said that their line-up was very attacking at home. I knew they were going to come at us early on. I told the lads, ‘let us be ready for that, let’s do our jobs, and win our battles’. Away from home, you need to do that. Then I watched as we did the complete opposite.
Either he was exasperated afterwards, or he let something slip out that perhaps he shouldn’t have done.
He was certainly mentioning a fair bit later about giving players information, which maybe suggests there’s a communication breakdown already. And given it’s less than ten games in, it isn’t a particularly good sign.
This is, after all, a largely overhauled squad this campaign – five outfield players from 2017/18 started yesterday, and a fair amount of dosh spent on the rest.
And yet there’s a pretty strong feeling of deja vu…
The rub is, we’re reaching October where we now face three clubs below us in the table – at home to Oxford and Bradford, then the long trip to Plymouth (who I saw yesterday at Charlton and didn’t play like a team down the bottom).
You don’t need me to tell you how much we’ve got to ship up before then.
Because if the reaction(s) this past seven days has been anything to go by, there’s still a lot of hangover from the last campaign that only got suppressed, and never properly went away.
Patience is starting to wear thin again, and with very good reason. And 18/19 was supposed to be a much nicer experience, wasn’t it…?