How apt that “vale” in Latin means “goodbye”…
I was searching for a witty/poignant/disparaging way of using that phrase just now, wondering how to start looking at this later clusterfuck.
Accidentally, on Google, I came across our opponent’s Twatter link which said – and I quote – “(P)ort Vale”.
(P) as in promoted. And yes, that stings a little bit.
Not because they went up, they deserve to and they were undeniably better than us. I’m genuinely pleased for Darren Moore in particular, a class act.
But because it reminds me of just how we’re blowing this.
Your editor was getting paid to watch yesterday in SW17, so no “proper” report again, but I think I’m not going to say much different.
I think we’re managing to get worse with each passing game.
With the exception of Hutchinson’s shot, which was a good strike and save by their keeper, we offered fuck all.
At least we had an attempt yesterday, which was one more than we mustered up at Gillingham on Monday. Not to mention Chesterfield on Good Friday, as well.
The stats aren’t really lying right now – seven points from the last eight games, six goals scored as well.
That’s not even mid-table form.
It gets worse when you realise Matty Stevens hasn’t scored since that fateful night against Barrow five weeks ago.
Our other strikers can’t really be called that under the Trade Description’s Act, and nobody was going to add to their tally yesterday.
We could argue the toss that we’ve missed Reeves the last three games. But before then, wasn’t he part of the problem?
Our defence got us into the playoffs to begin with, but now it’s leaking goals (although to be fair, yesterday was our heaviest defeat since the beginning of the season).
The one thing that grabbed me yesterday, watching us not only shit the bed but smear it over the walls too, was quite startling.
Something has died within this unit.
It looks like, well, a typical end-of-season squad where mid-table is secured and you know that half of them will be gone when the season ends.
We have one more regular season game, and you can already predict it’s going to be 0-0 at best.
And for the first time since he’s arrived here – I have serious doubts about Johnnie Jackson now.
Your editor was one of the (very) few who backed him in that first season, when so many wanted him gone.
His system is as predictable as the sun rising in the morning, but all the while it was getting results, it didn’t matter.
Now it isn’t. Now it’s going backwards at a very fast rate of knots. And I’m not sure he knows how to react to it.
And I wonder if the players feel the same way about it too.
They can’t be happy seeing possible automatic promotion go to not even being guaranteed a playoff spot now.
They’re professional footballers, with the competitive nature and ego associated with that, and they don’t want to be known as the other team who blew it in L2 this season.
At least Walsall make me feel a bit better. Only a bit, mind you.
If they’re playing a rigid, defence-at-all-costs style of play that doesn’t keep the goals out, they’re not going to be totally behind it.
It might be interesting on the training ground this week. Although perhaps not as interesting as the half-time natter your editor had in the press room yesterday…
We still have it in our own hands, and if we win at Grimsby (stop laughing) the playoffs become a blank slate again.
Indeed, a draw will do it, although one wonders if we’ve factored in the Mariners needing to beat us to stand any chance of going up themselves.
Already, you can imagine Grimsby scoring after four minutes next Saturday. If they have a go at us from the off, we’ll fold.
Salford and Chesterfield are capable of scoring goals, and there is a possibility by 5pm on the 3rd May, we’ll finish ninth.
Considering where we’ve been for most of the campaign, that would be an utter failure.
As somebody elsewhere this morning put it, it would be ironic if we dip out on the playoffs because of goals scored.
Chesterfield have a goal difference of 18, ours is 20, so you can do the maths yourself, but that’s very get-able (?) from the Spirites point of view.
And you know what? There’s a part of me that hopes it happens.
Since the full time whistle yesterday, I’ve had this very real feeling we deserve to fall out of the playoffs.
We’re nowhere near good enough to be in them right now, we’ve been pretty poor since Colchester away in February.
We’ve shown no sign of being good enough up front since then, and the way we’ve approached this last month in particular has been shocking.
I shudder to think what will happen if we do go up, and we don’t have a massive overhaul in the summer. And you just know the beancounters will cut the budget even if we get promoted.
Until yesterday, I thought we would do all right in the extended part of the season, but now I’m not nearly so sure.
As said earlier – something has died within this unit, and it might be kindest of all to let the season end by this time next week after all.
Considering we could be playing Cardiff in the league next season, it manages to feel like we’re fighting relegation.
The feel-good factor has gone, and it’s very hard to get that back as quickly as we need it.
It sort-of brought it home to me yesterday leaving Plough Lane, seeing the Port Vale team bus parked up because they were getting beers from Lidl, and thinking that could have been us as well.
It still might be, at Wombley II. But what makes me think it won’t…?