Ah, the start of the new season. Optimism abounds, a freshness over the whole country as teams start off for the first (and only) time equal with each other.
An exciting voyage into the unknown, a chance to renew old acquaintances, both on and off the field, to finally get a glimpse of new heroes and to…
Oh.
Your editor is old enough to remember some absolute crap that passed off as the first day of the new season, but yesterday in Huddersfield must be up there for bad starts.
I was thankfully in east London, watching what may well be Sheffield Wednesday’s resurrection, because anyone who went to Yorkshire yesterday has my 100% sympathy.
Maybe the new away fans scheme** will put everyone who went to the McAlpine Galpharm John Smith’s Accu yesterday into the ultimate highest tier?
Limos to and from the ground, local area pubs cleared of the locals for our sole usage, having the team not only announced but paraded in front of them in a VIP room beforehand.
Though I’m not sure if that will make them play any better, or indeed make them play worse.
** – those who read SW19 back in the day may remember something like this was something this place often lobbied for.
Wonder what else we’ll put in that was first mooted on here two decades ago..?
I steeled myself to watch the goals for this bit (well, you can’t really call them highlights, can you?) and I had a sense of deja vu about their first strike.
How many times in 25/26 did teams score about thirty seconds after we had it near their goal?
The defence looks like it was still on pre-season, and as for Bishop…
I know that loans aren’t ideal, but despite his heroics last week our current #1 does feel like a downgrade on previous first choice keepers.
That McDonnell ends up being somebody who can take his spot and doesn’t look any worse tells us something.
Come to think of it – wasn’t Bishop taken out of the firing line for a large part of the second half of last season?
Their second wasn’t quite as bad as people were saying, it wasn’t a bad strike, but you could just sense the gloom descending even on a computer screen.
I could only stand to fast-forward to their third – one of those ones where we might have been chasing the game and we get undone – but that told me more than enough.
You can tolerate losing, but to completely shit the bed before the twenty-minute mark left a sour taste in the mouth, like finding somebody added a turd to your birthday cake.
Which is what JJ must have experienced yesterday, him turning 44 yesterday. He probably felt 88.
His interview may have uncovered the most important news from this sack of shit, namely an admission that two of our players may be on their toes.
The Nkeng rumour mill has been pretty much confirmed by him, and as often said by SW19 – anyone who offers money for any of our players, snap their hands off.
True, we might get a tenner for the whole starting XI yesterday, but that would be worth much more than they are this very minute.
The Reeves suggestion is also an intriguing one, as maybe he’s twigged he’ll be a bit-part player this season?
I understand why some suggest he should have started yesterday, although there’s a good way of slowing the game down and a bad way.
Sadly, Reeves doesn’t do the former these days, and a more L1-friendly replacement for him (if we can get one) would be a good signing.
This news is important, because we could really do with their money. I expect we’ve earmarked people, and in a non-AFCW environment we would have added at least a couple more by now.
Reeves I felt didn’t quite want his contract extended automatically, although he can still do a job at L2.
Yesterday proved we still need additions, and quickly. Although it was pleasing to hear that Stockley made a nuisance of himself, in a good way.
I found out yesterday that we’re at Orient in the ex-JPT on Tuesday, so giving him and a couple of the others who need minutes has come at the right time.
Indeed, I think what’s most frustrating is that we can make decent additions – it’s just that because our hands are tied financially we can’t fulfill that potential.
Something I think could describe the club as well.
There’s quite a decent interview with JJ here, even if some of it aged like milk you buy from the Co-Op.
He hinted about investment at 6.25, although one wonders if he now might “suddenly” find a bit more transfer money to use?
And yes, I did check the DT Bond, which had a jump in contributions after a Bob Geldof-esque club podcast last week. Although around £437k at the time of typing still isn’t great.
If one good thing may come out from yesterday’s debacle, it’s knowing more needs to be done.
I’m mostly ignoring the back end of last season, because it was a threadbare squad where everything that could have gone wrong did, but we had games like that with our strongest XI.
We bounced back back then, and I think this current lot know they can play a fair bit better.
It doesn’t excuse the shiteness of yesterday, or indeed the hangover of the play since March (and that is something we need to snap out of, and quick).
But even we can still do something about it for the next couple of weeks. And one senses we know that…