I’m sure Barrow should have the nickname of the Nukes or something.
As your editor is away until Friday from later today, I’m not going to dwell too much on yesterday’s game.
There was something very, well, League Two-ish about going to Holker Street and coming away with a point.
The game sounded dire, though not as dire as the pitch and weather was. Although all that was superceded by hearing of the journey back to London for many.
I stayed in Barrow overnight last season and that was bad enough when I was voluntarily doing it.
My initial thoughts are that it’s a good point on the road. Indeed, not losing when you’re on your travels is always a good thing.
It’s hard not to go down the “we would have lost that last season” route, although that’s probably true.
Especially in this month, where we might as well have bought a house or two up north, so it’s not quite so far to get back after games.
Reading around, yesterday could have been a lot worse. We started off slowly, needed Bass to bail us out once or twice, that kind of thing.
But also hearing that Reeves fucked up a one-on-one right at the death, it could have been a lot better…
For some reason, the highlights seem to have gone missing this morning so I can’t see how bad it was.
I guess a 0-0 was inevitable, considering it was a team unbeaten away coming to a team unbeaten at home.
I note JJ’s post-game comments about standing up to set-pieces, so I think we can guess what kind of a contest it was.
The one thing that nags at me this morning are the goals we score right now.
Or rather, the lack of them.
Since winning at Harrogate earlier this month, it seems we’ve gone back to the bad old days of having eunuchs up front.
AAH can’t do it all by himself, Tilley has gone from shit hot to shit since he got injured, and everyone else needs an A-Z or Google Maps update to locate where the goal is.
We’ve now failed to score in the past three games. Granted, two of those were very tricky away days, but it’s still a drought.
Yesterday might have been a good one for Manbun to come on, but he had to return to London for personal reasons, according to JJ.
And while Sasu can make an off-bench impact, one is wondering if a lack of another striker was probably the main mistake made during the summer.
Granted, we had to do a lot bigger rebuild than we first realised, but one hopes Cope and Thorn are already going around various grounds looking for something who will join in January.
And if they can find the net once in a while, so much the better.
This is probably going to be the difference between us challenging for the playoffs and challenging for mid-table mediocrity this season.
We’re a much better side generally, but we’re just lacking that extra strength in depth that we’ve not had for a good few years.
We’re not, say, Sutton who are looking like we were under the final few games of Terry Brown.
Maybe we could persuade Harry Smith to go a bit further up the Thameslink spur/164 bus route after Xmas?
But while drawing at places like Barrow is fine, to legitimately challenge for promotion you need to start winning these games.
The good thing is, any team in relative contention in March always has a chance. The 2015/16 season is a good example of that.
If we can persuade the bean counters just to release a little bit extra money, and strengthen, then the second half of the season might not be its usual disaster after all.
As for the present, we have the opportunity to make amends on Tuesday against t’Stanley.
A club who have just been put up for sale by their owner, by the way. Assuming he wasn’t tired and emotional when he posted that.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if one of the most universally popular chairmen called it a day though. Every ownership has a shelf-life, and the trick is to know when to depart the scene.
Something a few closer to home should heed. But probably won’t.
A win would be excellent on Tuesday for so many reasons, not least it will prove we can find the net again.
Our home form has been lousy, and has been since we played in KT1. That still remains our Achilles heel, and we won’t progress further until we sort it out.
This week wouldn’t be a bad time to right that wrong though. And as I won’t be there, it’s guaranteed we’ll win 5-0 now…