And after the ups of last week, come the downs again.
Farewell post-Gillingham glow, it was nice to experience you. It’s back to the gloom again, after getting a Hull gubbing.
That it was expected doesn’t make it much easier to deal with. Nor did them taking the lead via an iffy penalty, which set the tone for the rest of Saturday.
If they hadn’t gone ahead like that, who knows what would have happened?
Oh, I know – we would have performed yet another defensive clusterfuck. Which we duly did for their second goal.
After that, I more or less gave up watching it, as there’s only so much crap I can take.
As usual though, our fate this season won’t be decided against teams chasing promotion. It will rely more on what we do at the New Meadow tomorrow.
Then, places like Bloomfield Road on Saturday. A venue I don’t think we’ve ever even got a point at, in both AFCW and WFC times.
That’s probably why games coming thick and ever faster are a good thing, because you can’t dwell on a poor performance and result.
But make no mistake though – the mood has sunk again.
Part of that is a growing realisation that our attack may as well not exist. Pigott in particular was storming ahead in the goalscoring charts, and there was real fear we’d lose him in January.
Now? The various oppositions have learned how to snuff him and Longman out, and we’re looking as impotent as last season/season before that again.
The lesser spotted Mr O Palmer is making his return to playing in an under-23s game tomorrow, by the way.
As much as we take the piss out of his homage to Kjetil Waehler, we could definitely do with him on the bench on Saturday.
Even if it’s only to give us something in attack for about ten minutes.
It was only Jack Rudoni’s late cameo against Gillingham that gave us our second win in four games.
So if we’re to start 21/22 in League One, somebody – somebody – has to start finding the net again.
The trouble is, watching that game on Saturday reminds your editor of Wycombe against Norwich yesterday.
I was at Adams Park doing the day job, and unlike us the home side will be guaranteed a place in League One next season.
They tried hard, they had the spirit, but they just didn’t have the quality to do anything.
And I feel the same when watching us now, in truth.
While I definitely think Mark Robinson and co are on the right lines giving the coaching side an overhaul, we’re still a turd of a team.
If we do stay up, it will be because the players were just about able to snatch enough results. It won’t be for anything other than that.
Then the rebuild starts again. Though this summer, it will actually have to mean something.
That’s for just over nine weeks time. The good news is that we’re now in the crunch month, that will probably decide where we’re starting next season.
We’ve mentioned Shrewsbury and Blackpool already, but to save you looking it up, we’re facing Burton, Brizzle Rovers, Wigan, Rochdale and Northampton.
Four out of those five at Plough Lane.
Simply put – shit the bed against all of them and we deserve to go down.
I think the players will know (or if they don’t, Robbo will make them well aware) that those games aren’t free hits like Hull or Peterborough were.
We probably won’t win all of them, but we have to win at least some. And we definitely can’t lose (m)any either.
But I don’t think we should focus entirely on those six-pointers either. We must also look at getting something in Salopshire tomorrow, then grimy Lancashire.
Oh, and we’re also playing Charlton at home this month too.
The question is, how will the players respond to Hull? I’m in no doubt our Mindset Manager will have had a little talk with them already.
Robbo himself wasn’t a happy bunny, and he’s obviously not one to spin the positives when we lose 3-0.
I don’t doubt the players try hard for our new Head Coach, and I guess a fair few will be already thinking of their own careers.
But will the Gillingham win prove to be a false dawn? We shall see.
Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that it’s all still very much in our own hands. Though I’m not totally sure that’s a good thing…