The moves on this video are just like how I imagine we defended yesterday…
Well, we’re safe. And one should never want Crawley to win as much as we did yesterday, unless they’re playing the obvious lot.
But all we can do now is hope the bookies release the 2023/24 relegation odds soon. Plenty will be lumping on us going down.
When you lose 5-1, regardless of whether it’s a dead rubber, it’s very hard to ignore.
The arse has fallen out of this team for a long while, but now it’s broken down in the middle of the A3 and its next destination is the scrap heap.
It does prove how bad it is when you’re playing a team with themselves nowt to play for, yet we put in a worse scoreline than even the ones fighting for something.
The final two games are going to be horrific to watch, and I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if we get similarly gubbed in both of them.
Maybe we’ll do what we did at Barrow and Walsall (?) and put the youngsters in throughout the first team? They couldn’t do worse.
But as SW19 said a couple of times recently, the best thing that could have happened was us needing a point at Grimsby to stay up (and getting it).
That won’t happen now, but getting sodomised the final three games might have a similar effect.
This squad – hell, this club – needs urgent renewal. And collapsing like that is the only way it registers.
After the final whistle at Grimsby, I hope there’s a list of players released and wished well for the future.
They might be talented individually, but they’ve got nothing to offer as a squad now. They’re too feeble mentally to push on.
I’d keep the Iraqi Scouser, Pell, Davison, Pearce (on a reduced deal), Biler and Currie. The rest can fuck off.
Of course, many will add one more individual to that “how shall you fuck off?” list, and some were vocally dismissing him yesterday.
I guess I’m now definitely in the minority still wanting to keep Johnnie Jackson in charge next season. I still don’t think he’s quite the biggest problem at AFCW.
If I had a choice between dumping him and the squad in the summer, I’ll choose the latter every time.
Should he stay though, he’s going to be under tremendous pressure to deliver from the off, and he might well not last the proverbial ten games in 23/24.
The club are committed to keeping him on, it seems, regardless of supporter reaction. JJ himself was clearly hinting at something in his post game interview though:
“At the turn of the year we were a proper team and we were serving up proper Wimbledon performances. For various different reasons we were robbed of that. We haven’t had the depth of squad to cope with the injuries we sustained.
Rumours that he was shafted by the club over transfer funds in January haven’t been quashed, and one wonders if that’s a dig at the decision makers.
And if it is – what’s the relationship between him and them really like?
I presume that one big reason they want him next season is because they pulled the rug from under his feet, and feel they need to back him this time around.
Jackson’s demeanour hasn’t been the same since February, he can’t be happy right now and he definitely looks like he’d take another job within seconds of being offered one.
After all, if you’ve been made to look like a chump by those in charge – why wouldn’t you look elsewhere?
JJ won’t walk, no manager would, but perhaps him staying isn’t quite so cut and dried after all?
I don’t expect anything to happen between now and the 9th May at the very earliest, but we’re in for another interesting summer.
Admittedly, it’s impossible to figure what goes through the collective minds of the powers-that-be at any given time.
One thing we do know is that they have form for doing 180-degree turns in a matter of days. Five of them in fact, when one considers Exhibit A, your honour. And Exhibit B.
But Jackson has ended up in the same spot as every other manager since we returned to the EFL.
It’s a bit different now, with Craig Cope and Andy Thorn on board, and JJ departing won’t massively deviate from that.
Things are undeniably toxic, I know some didn’t like the booing/”Jackson out” chants at the game yesterday.
But fans must always have a right to voice their displeasure, and besides – if we weren’t so shite they wouldn’t do it…
Finally, the club made a hurried reaction at 23h30 last night, to the news that London Irish are looking into coming into Plough Lane.
Leaving aside the vomit-enducing “our wonderful stadium” prose, which reads even worse after another bad defeat, it’s not been a well-kept secret.
PLC minutes have openly stated there’s been contact, although as the Mail states Irish haven’t even been taken over yet.
Indeed, a cursory glance at their forum just now is hinting there might be issues with their new owners.
Their tenure at Brentford is up for discussion in three years time, and it’s all “exploratory talks” at the moment.
Really, I think we just need to wait and see if there’s anything formally on the table before commenting further.
The idea of groundsharing with a rugby union side may put horror into a few of our fans, but if done right could make a lot of sense.
The London Broncos arrangement (and they’d surely be gone if it happens?) is in theory a good idea, the flaw there is that it’s a minority interest in London.
Plough Lane itself has always been ripe for somebody else to play on different weekends to us, and it’s a case of when, not if somebody that isn’t Broncos move in.
And who knows – if they arrive, maybe they’ll add Murphys and Beamish in the bars…