Farewell unbeaten run of 2026.
A run that was brief yet so lovely. It may have lasted less than three days but we will forever cherish its memory.
Like the sound of a swallow from on high, it may have lasted a second but may give a lifetime of memories.
And as everyone trudges back to work/school/the dole office with their faces glum and eyes staring at the ground, we must look back on Wanderers 2 Drifters 0.
The victory at Leyton Orient might now seem a long while ago, but in the SW19 report for that, your editor may have had a premonition.
I quote:
I’d be in two minds about (playing the Wycombe game). Obviously, following up a win with another one would be beyond our wildest of wild dreams.
At the same time though, we’re bound to play like absolute whale wank there, and 2026 will quickly fall to shit…
Sadly, I wasn’t wrong.
Looking back on it this morning, it was a game that got settled in two periods. The first was the one where they went ahead, where we clearly were still celebrating the victory at Brisbane Road.
Nice to give their player so much space he was glad he didn’t suffer from agoraphobia. We wish he did, but he managed to find the net too easily.
Don’t forget they hit the bar quite early on too, and they were on top far too often for my liking.
It was poor all round, and I think we should count ourselves lucky it was 1-0 at half time.
The moment of the match, as far as we’re all concerned, was when Browne crossed for Stevens, who then found himself unable to control the ball.
I can only guess he’s not fully match sharp, because the last player you expect to do that is him.
Mind you, Browne’s cross was a little bit heavy. Although until Nkeng came on, he was the only one trying to create something.
Then we make about four subs, and as soon as night follows day it goes 0-2. From then on, going back to a warm car seemed the far better option.
Speaking of our new hero Nkeng, the Wycombe defenders had difficulty with him, and if we use him off the bench for a while he could be a (positive) gamechanger.
There is one passage of play anyone who witnessed will still have nightmares about how it ultimately finished, but I’ll leave that for later.
For now, it’s back to the turd sandwich of the last ten games, and it throws up more questions.
Did we put too much into Leyton Orient? Was there a bit of fatigue from the Xmas/NY grind, where we’re badly off form?
Just as a winning run becomes easier each game you play, a losing run feels like you’re playing 180 minutes each game rather than 90.
Is this is as good as it gets for us now? I hope not, I really like being in L1. The game on NYD shows what we can do.
JJ himself seems to think yesterday was a case of the big moments, and he’s probably right.
What I don’t get is, we were trying something different at Brisbane Road and it worked. Yet at Wycombe, it was still too much like the Exeter (h) fixture.
The good thing is, we’ve got next weekend off, before what’s going to be a helluva huge game at home to Donny.
Is that game must-win? Quite possibly…
Plus points: Nkeng’s cameo.
Minus points: We lost. Shit goals to concede. Stevens’ miss. Too much lethargy. Good vibe from Orient extinguished. Fucking freezing.
The referee’s a…: It doesn’t help when you don’t even get some of the rub of the green from the official.
He’s not the reason why we lost, although it might be a change for the referee to be exactly why we have 0 points from a game.
Them: What annoys me is that apart from their finishing is that I don’t think they were significantly better than us.
Had Stevens managed to do his job when through, I think they might have crumpled. They were certainly scrambling when we finally decided to start playing at 0-2.
Although I don’t think they’re as bad for it now as they were under GA, there were still some moments of, ahem, convenient injuries.
Though everyone (except us, it seems) does it now, and it’s getting more and more obvious, so I expect that will be the next major rule change this summer.
Wycombe have to be a club whose fanbase make us look like we’ve all worked down a mine all our lives.
I assume they’ve got some decent backing, and IIRC they spent a fair bit last summer.
But the “your ground’s too big for you” chant seemed to have some extra poignancy as it’s quite a compact venue.
They had the inevitable drum, and the usual comment about said instrument’s owner and their relationship with their mother applies.
Indeed, I think they tried to turn it into making you think you were at one of those US college football stadia, with the pre-match slogan “This is our house, these are our rules”.
Yes, because being at a freezing compact venue in Buckinghamshire really made me feel I was at Ohio State v Michigan. In tiddlywinks.
Oh, and apparently the beer in the pre-game beer tent was undrinkable…
Point to ponder: Do we suffer from a lack of quality in the precise areas we need some?
Anyone who witnessed the game yesterday will know exactly what I was referring to above, in the “passage of play” comment.
For those who don’t know, or who have managed to put it out of their mind – Nkeng was running at their defenders and made just about all of them look like mugs.
Sensibly, he squared to another one of our players in space (Reeves I think), and had about two other of our players to pass to.
Inbetween them was a Wycombe defender. So I’ll leave you to guess who ended up receiving the ball…
It’s a poor mistake, it’s a basic error, and one a professional footballer shouldn’t be doing.
That’s the most noteworthy example from yesterday, certainly the most notorious, but there was far too much of that elsewhere.
The question is, why? Do we not train properly? I’m not sure that’s the case, because JJ himself has enough experience at Charlton not to be MR.
Are some of our players not good enough now? That might possibly be an answer.
I fully accept certain players are L2 standard, and if we can stay in this division for next season we’re going to have to offload some stalwarts.
The follow-up to that is, what do we do in the meantime?
Maybe try and play like we did on NYD will be a start, and perhaps try and be more positive from the off.
That will at least build some confidence and maybe focus the minds enough so we don’t get quite so many shit passes.
Because I don’t believe L1 is all that – but like our last tenure in the third tier, we’re starting to make it look like the Premier League and La Liga combined.
We just need to work out something that keeps us in this division for next season. And is something I expect JJ may be working on already…
Truth is stranger than fiction: 1) Needing to remove my knit cap before entering the ground. As if anyone was going to smuggle anything in at those temperatures. 2) Seeing at least four club dignitaries at Beaconsfield services. They were drinking McDonalds hot drinks, and probably wished they had stayed there. Oh, and Dickie Guy is starting to move like a 1970s footballer these days.
Anything else? Somebody elsewhere this morning suggested that we might need to move Orsi on this window.
While he’s undeniably down the pecking order again, and he was clearly purchased because he was cheap, I don’t expect him to depart almost as soon as he arrived.
If nothing else – who do you get in to replace him?
January is a notoriously bad month to get new strikers in. You either have to pay over the odds for somebody remotely decent, or you end up having a cast-off that is likely no better than who you have already.
And Orsi is at least a body on the ground, as Terry Brown used to say. He came on yesterday** and didn’t set the place alight, but neither did anyone else.
** – Orsi, not TB. Though the latter might have been worth a shout after all.
I think we have issues elsewhere, and if nothing else the new Josh Davison has found the net on occasions.
Don’t get me wrong – he’s not great, we’ll be lucky to get five goals maximum out of him this season, and Stevens/Browne/Bugiel are well ahead of him in the starting XI.
But did he really deserve somebody booing him when he took the field yesterday..?
So, was it worth it? £28 in the freezing cold to watch that pile of bollocks. That’s a “no”, by the way.
In a nutshell: 2026 is not so great after all.