Hmm. And hmm again…
I’m not sure what description this particular local derby will end up with. El Suburbio? The Thameslink Derby? The 413 Busroute Rivalry?
But there’s no way to describe Haydons Road 0 West Sutton 1 as anything other than dire.
Very dire.
I’ll be brief about the game, simply because there wasn’t much good to say about it. Their goal was down to Currie (?) being shoved into Tzanev.
The players were incensed by the goal, but responsed by doing… not a lot afterwards.
If anything, it was Sutton who were more likely to score, and in a way I wish they had. And not just because it would have given me a chance to piss off home earlier.
I haven’t got to the stage where I’m ignoring JJ’s post-match comments, but the whole they-look-good-in-training angle is a warning sign.
And no, I’m not sure if a lot of these players give a shit.
My one over-riding thought right now is that we’ve hit a low point. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be the last one.
And we must already face up to the fact that we can realistically get relegated.
I know it’s still only October, but a fair number of people today have used the word “rot” in relation to AFCW.
On the field, it’s not much different to the freefalling we saw under Mark Robinson. This with more experienced players too.
What I saw today scared me. Not the going behind due to a dodgy goal, but the lack of reaction to it.
We should have come out in the second half and given Sutton a new arsehole to shit out of this evening.
If we did that, and the ball still didn’t go in the net, them’s the breaks.
But we had one shot on target. At home. In a game the club itself was building up as a local derby.
Where was the fight? Where was the pushing for an equaliser – any sort of lucky break – that we might not have necessarily deserved?
There was so much poor quality on show from us, that makes it bad enough as it is.
But if you’re crap, at the very least try and force a leveller off a defender’s arse. We couldn’t even do that.
If anyone remembers the FA Cup game at KM against the Sluts (and I can barely motivate myself to give them a childish nickname), today had more than a whiff of that.
That particular fixture was the second real sign that the Ardley era was in terminal decline, although it took Curzon in the previous round to see things were already going wrong.
Right now, I have that immense sense of deja vu all over again. And I really don’t like it…
Plus points: The full time whistle so I could go home.
Minus points: 3pm to 5pm.
The referee’s a…: The cheer when he gave us a free kick after their goal says it all.
I know one shouldn’t blame officials upon a defeat, and I expect we would have come a cropper today anyway.
But it really doesn’t help when you can’t even get a free kick when a blatant infringement happens right in front of you.
It’s often said that professional footballers know when to try it on, and when there’s a genuine foul. Our reaction wasn’t the former…
Them: They came, they saw, and you know the rest.
It’s funny to think that twenty years ago, playing Sutton in a league fixture would have been the ultimate pinnacle of this fledgling club called AFC Wimbledon.
Well, we’ve played them in the EFL. And it ends up sucking after all.
To their credit, they got the bit of luck, and had the nous to hold onto it we simply don’t have.
Think about that : Sutton United. The club who we passed on the way up from the CCL to the Conference and beyond.
The quintessential local non-league club who got into the EFL through their own hard graft. Walking the walk while AFCW continues to talk the talk too much.
That’s no disrespect to them at all, by the way, although it is still a bit of a headfuck to see them in the Football League.
At the rate we’re going though, they might well be the EFL club in the Merton/Sutton/Wandsworth area.
1200 of them turned up, including a sad little element they’ve picked up along the way, Stone Island badges et al.
Presumably they can’t get into either Fulham or Chelsea,and I noticed the “Sutton/Chelsea” sticker on the Plough Lane plinth after the game…
Point to ponder: Whither Johnnie Jackson?
The rumour mill on social media – since denied – was that he was getting the tin tack. A similar situation to the last few weeks of the Ardley era, and not unexpected either.
He’s going to be on the EFL telly show this evening at time of writing, but he might be well advised to swerve it instead.
Today, in and around block 128 before the full time whistle, I heard a “We want Jackson out” chant.
It wasn’t that many people singing it, but tellingly nobody was calling back at them to pipe down.
And that’s not a good sign for the manager.
While I don’t think sacking him is going to help matters much, if he finds himself arbeitslos by Xmas he can’t entirely complain.
He didn’t seem to be able to put a rocket up us today, ditto last week at Walsall and at too many games before then.
Bradford and Colchester were only a mere couple of weeks ago, but they might as well be last season.
We saw the passing around at the back again, as though we’ve reverted to type and learned absolutely nothing.
Are the players playing for him? You have to wonder that with such “displays” where something is clearly awry.
The reason why I’m not on the Johnnie Sackson bandwagon** is that he’s not been helped by the likes of Gunter and others vibing they don’t want to be here.
** – I’m copyrighting “Sackson”.
Plus, getting shot of yet another manager will show our recruitment to be even worse than first thought, and there’s no guarantee we’ll do any better with the next one.
But the tide turned against him today. Many are calling for his head this evening, and that’s fully understandable.
Even those who aren’t wanting to axe him are saying that he’s too inexperienced for the task ahead of us, although Terry Skiverton should have that missing knowledge gap filled.
We shouldn’t be at this stage even before your editor’s birthday with regards the guy currently in charge.
But if Mark Robinson can get his P45, so can Johnnie Jackson…
Truth is stranger than fiction: 1) When was the last time Sutton played at Plough Lane (either version)? 2) Mohawks “The Champ” on the PA before kickoff. An original PL special that I hope gets played before each game now. Along with Sydney Youngblood’s “If Only I Could”. 3) Speaking of PA music – “Rip It Up” by Orange Juice during half time. Either somebody with a sense of humour or a very poignant message.
Anything else? This week is going to be a very uncomfortable one for the club, with the very likely bloodletting aimed towards it.
Not just the manager and squad, but the decision makers too.
Being abused isn’t nice, but you have to be a Liz Truss level of pig-shit thickness not to expect it after today.
It’s as though the curtain on the club finally got lifted, and we all can see how rotten it is on the field and off it.
And really, it’s a bloodletting that we should have had when we went down. But as usual with the club, we pumped ourselves up without tacking what went wrong to begin with.
It’s too late now, the line got crossed today for many people and it’s almost impossible to get that back without actual proper change.
I could be incorrect in hearing this, but apparently Man of the Match was a bit toxic, with anti-JJ comments being openly expressed.
The only way to turn that around is by winning games again, but you just can’t see us doing that for more than the odd occasion.
That in turn will build up more and more resentment towards the manager/players/club, from a support base that has clearly had enough.
And more importantly, a support base that isn’t going to sit back and take the shit it’s force-fed any more.
Those in charge need answers, and they need them quickly, because it’s not going to get any better until they do.
What the upshot of a club that is at each others’ throats will be isn’t clear, and perhaps the very real threat of going out of the EFL may focus minds.
Although my sympathy for them is around zero. It’s not like plenty have been warning them over recent years…
So, was it worth it? No.
In a nutshell: The shit of suburban SW London.