And suddenly, some are starting to wet their panties…
I was going to do a traditional SW19 report on yesterday at Dartford, but to be honest I can’t be bothered.
All you need to know are the following : it was disjointed. George Porter scored a great goal. Azeez missed early in the second half.
Both Porter and Azeez play for our hosts yesterday, in case you’re wondering.
Our forward line laboured in the second half. Our delivery was on a par with Hermes on a bad day. We were passing backwards and sideways a lot.
The Darts were a bit physical. We weren’t so much. It was nice to go to “proper” away fixtures again. The traffic by Dartford on the M25 was shit.
And you hope that we start learning to find the net by the time we head to Woking on Tuesday.
I think that sums it all up, really. This was one of those PSFs that – on its own – shouldn’t sound any warning bells.
But with a painful lack of goals in the amount we’ve played thus far, you can’t really blame people for being a little bit edgy.
Or are they (and me) being unfair? We did have one very good chance blocked off the line early on, and I think we hit the woodwork when I was queuing for a cup of tea.
Your editor went to Met Police on Tuesday, and we could have been a couple of goals up early on too.
I think it might simply be a case of early season confidence, or lack of it. Start putting one or two chances away, even in this phoney war stage, and it will start clicking more with luck.
It’s what happened when MR took over, and one wonders if there’s still an issue between the ears of the squad.
That’s what pre-season is for though. We lost yesterday, but nobody really remembers these sort of games for long.
It’s only if it’s a 7-0 vs Reading clusterfuck that you do. And we’re nowhere near that level of shiteness.
Helpfully, the club put up thoughts from Rob Tuvey as I was typing this, and he didn’t seem massively worried.
Granted, he started off saying it was an indifferent performance, and there’s still obviously signs things aren’t coming off.
A few mentions of “building relationships” – his words – and I got the impression we might be seeing more “proper” performances against Woking and Scunthorpe.
With those two games being our last in pre-season, they’ll need to be.
I wonder if yesterday might have firmed up a few thoughts for our Head Coach though?
He talked last week about more signings, and one wonders if he might have made his mind up on going for another striker if he was wavering before.
Patience is a virtue here, as the comments from both Paul Warne and Nigel Adkins suggest.
And a link you should send to anyone panicking about further transfers right now. It’s not just us.
The rumour mill will still be functioning for a good while yet, but one thing we do know is that we’ve lost another young keeper.
Or in other words – Brentford have grabbed hold of our Cox.
How many young shotstoppers is that now? Bursik, Mannion, and now a player we never even got to see in first team action.
It’s a good move for him, because he was going to go on loan in non-league, and instead he’s been snapped up by a Premier League club.
Mind you, the writing on the wall seemed to be there when he was training with the England u19s, and once that happens – his head will inevitably turn.
The most important thing from our point of view is that we’ve negotiated the transfer to our advantage, money wise.
That’s something we’ve never been able to replicate from the WFC era, although things are much different now from back then.
Something too many of our fans don’t seem to appreciate.
The OS says we’ve got a sell-on clause and appearance related bonuses, which is good to read.
It’s also “undisclosed fee”, which is standard practice in professional football, even if it annoys many supporters.
With Tzanev looking every inch a first teamer, Cox wasn’t going to get much game time, so this might be the best move for everyone.
Though how pissed off will you be when he’s sent on loan to Gillingham and he ends up denying us a win when we play them…?
Anyway, we have two more friendlies to learn where the net is, the main one next week against Scunthorpe at Plough Lane.
Neil Cox is their manager, which 99.99% explains why we’re playing them in this second (and maybe most important) test event.
The big news last night was that we have sold out all general admission tickets for this game.
Kudos to everyone indeed, especially as there was a bit of a worry that we could fall embarrassingly short for this fixture.
A game that, let’s face it, wouldn’t normally warm the pre-season cockles. Or indeed during the regular season too.
“General admission” doesn’t necessarily mean 4000 though, and one wonders if there’s been some put aside for DLAG and other worthy groups.
It would be a big “thank you” if we are, and would help us get over that required capacity issue.
As far as I can tell, we’re not selling tickets to Scunny fans, though if we were – that would take some serious dedication to attend that fixture.
At least concession stands will be open on Saturday, so will at least be the most “normal” game we’ve had since our return home yet.
For the Brentford fixture, it was a bit of a missed opportunity, considering the heat. Even if Lidl did well on soft drinks trade beforehand
Like that game and Liverpool, there will be many people being inside PL for the first time since 1991, possibly ever.
Let’s hope our forward line manages to work out where that net thing is by then. Otherwise we might be putting a lot of potential punters off for life…