And we will all be grateful for it.
It’s a shame we’ve got one more game to endure this campaign, as I genuinely forgot about Grimsby tomorrow week.
Sadly, we’re contractually obliged to go up there, although a 12h30 kickoff will mean the anguish is over quicker.
The trope of a nice weekend away being ruined by the football is an old one, but by fuck it’s apt.
Even if it is in Cleethorpes, a place where hopes and dreams go to die.
As for yesterday – at least we drew.
Yeah, I know we scored first and let the lead slip. In other news, the Pope does the Angelus at 6pm each day.
What’s it now? 40 points dropped from winning positions? It’s such a shit stat that it manages to be genuinely impressive.
I’ll leave others to decide whether our current manager was telling the truth in his post-game interview.
Initial reactions suggest he wasn’t. Mind you, the injury curse has struck us yet again. It explains why Pell didn’t feature, and Biler pulled up.
The post-mortem on the season has already started, even though the campaign isn’t over yet, but we’ve got to get that sorted – however we do it.
Is it training methods? The training facilities? The training ground itself? Or is it the way we approach fitness?
Or have we really invoked the curse of the souls of a thousand slain greyhounds in a buried freezer where the dog track was?
On second thoughts, wouldn’t they be happy we’re there instead?
We’ll need to look at a lot of things to ensure we cut it down next season, even if it means employing a voodoo priest.
It’s cost us Josh Davison, who by all accounts looked a bit out of shape when he started yesterday.
The injury issues and the strength in depth have been two of the major killers this campaign. The third one will decide JJ’s fate next season.
If nothing else, I hope he’s realised there’s a mental block about seeing out games (which has been the case since January 2022).
Apparently he didn’t see it as much of an issue when he arrived here, but we’ve discovered the hard way it doesn’t go away so easily.
I don’t know how you figure a way around that, but then I’m not a football coach. But sort it he must, because he’s in last chance saloon.
Jackson may be wanted gone by the majority of fans, but he’s ironically in a position of power right now.
If the club aren’t putting the blame on him for our slump, he would have carte blanche to do a lot of surgery.
Which is why I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few unexpected names leaving the club in the summer.
And I mean contracted players as well.
There’s a few out of contract anyway, none of whom will be missed, but it would be worth the extra money to ship a few more out.
I’m sure we all have our own selections, and I bet a popular choice will be the proverbial one of our own…
There’s limits, of course, though we’ve somehow got to break the mentality of going for the cheapest possible option.
We specialise in false economy at AFCW, namely trying to save money but end up paying more out anyway.
Next season would be nice to finally understand why the cheapest option isn’t usually the best. Though perhaps I shouldn’t hold my breath.
Finally, one of the joys of this time of year is discovering who we’ll get for pre-season friendlies.
Last time out, Jackson had to quickly arrange some ones with people he knew, which is why we faced Ince and Kunt “Karl” Robinson
Especially as it shouldn’t be forgotten that Mark Robinson believed teams only needed three friendlies maximum.
I expect it will underwhelm again, but perhaps we might get some semi-interesting ones this time round?
One rumour doing the rounds is that there’s going to be a tour, perhaps in Europe.
While we should wait and see on that, I have to admit going to Offenbach in 2019 was immense fun.
Your editor will be going to Helsinki, Tallinn and Oslo in June, so no doubt we’ll be heading to one of those places in July.
And if it’s the latter, remember to keep both your kidneys healthy. You’ll need to sell one in order to pay your bar bill…