Feel free to put a funny or pointed quip here. I’ve lost the energy to do one.
Yes, it’s a “proper” SW19 report again. Yes, it finished Posh 5 Chavs 0. And yes, it really did happen.
Like your editor this morning, you may have woken up thinking it didn’t take place, that it was some macabre dream, and we’re actually playing the game today.
Sadly, that’s not the case. Sadly, we do have to deal with the fact that WE GOT FUCKING GUBBED BY THE FUCKING TEAM DOWN THE FUCKING BOTTOM OF THE FUCKING LEAGUE FUCKING ONE FUCKING TABLE.
And breathe.
I could go into a ten minute written rant on how we’re not even capable of being useless cunts, that our lot couldn’t even use the toilet without adult supervision, and that people were so embarrassed they almost contemplated wearing Franchise shirts afterwards as it was less humiliating.
I won’t though, because having slept on it I still don’t think this is worse than what Bolton was.
Yesterday was more weird than shit, although there was plenty of the latter too. I know we’re now in a mini-slump, and we must make sure it doesn’t become a proper one.
We’ve only lost two League games in a row, although Gateshead was bad enough.
But I think it was walking to the ground with that sense that we were sixth, they were bottom, and we were favourites. That’s always fatal.
Not quite as fatal as our defending yesterday, mind you. Their first goal was a poor one, we just seemed flat footed, although we did start a bit laboured.
I’m sure there was a hint of offside to it though.
It properly went to shit when they got their penalty, which really was a soft one. No, I’m not going to trawl through the “highlights” of it to reconfirm, I’m just glad I haven’t inadvertently caught them on SSN yet.
And so it was 0-2, not fifteen minutes on the clock, and something just happened. What that “something” is I don’t know, but I haven’t seen it that often since the first JJ season.
If I was to say that Peterborough could have been 6-0 up at half time, I wouldn’t be far wrong.
Thankfully (?) it was only 0-3. Their third goal summed the whole day up though – Ogundere went to clear it, decided he would do an air shot instead which directed the ball exactly where the Posh player wanted it.
It could have been four, and probably should have been, when we effectively let their player take a shot from close range. He managed to hit the post, but seeing how the game turned out, maybe it should have gone in after all.
Our players got booed off at half time, deservedly so, although the vibe at the break was more one of bewilderment than anything.
Football has many unwritten rules, and that has to be one of them. Nobody was outwardly angry, just a shrug of the shoulders as if to ask, what can you do?
What we did do was put up a little bit of a fight. had we scored early on it might have been a completely different story after all.
It wasn’t, though. Clearly the players had money on it being over 3.5 goals to Peterborough, at least that’s how I’ll interpret why we continued to defend like we’d all drunk fifteen pints before the game.
The fifth goal sucked, and I made my excuses and left (not in the NOTW sense of the word, sadly). But I’d seen enough by then – hell, I’m amazed I lasted until injury time…
We can’t deny we’re in a bad patch right now, although given the start we’ve had this had to occur at some point.
JJ himself made the post-match comment that the reason none of our players were made to walk home by our fans was because they’ve built up credit in the bank.
He’s not wrong, I think we have been in a bit of a false position squad-depth wise and most of our fans recognise that.
While JJ seemed understandably pissed off, he seemed a little bit measured in his comments. Although I don’t doubt he ripped into them at some point.
Oh, and Alistair Smith said he’s gutted we had to witness that today. Which is good to know, I’d hate to find out that actually, the players were quite content at seeing us paying £28 to witness a great steaming turd on the field.
I didn’t hang around, but which players went straight down the tunnel afterwards?
And that will be that for describing the game. It’s like describing somebody in your house falling down the stairs.
Though as this is a “proper” SW19 report, there’s still plenty more to come…
Plus points: The final whistle.
Minus points: Everything between 3pm and 5pm.
The referee’s a…: Should he have sent their player off when we were 0-2? I did wonder if it was a spot kick initially, though if it was we would have missed it.
You could tell what sort of day it was when we got penalised for things that the opposition didn’t. Not that it would have made too much difference.
Them: I seriously doubt they’ll get an easier game this season.
Just as everything we touched turned to shit, everything they did seemed to go in (as many goals as shots on target, while we had the same but zero goals).
I’d like to think that they’re in an even more false position than we are, that their new manager has got them going again and they’ll zoom up the table.
Because it’s going to piss me off even more than ever if they then revert to type and lose most weeks again.
I know they beat Cardiff in the FAC last weekend, and I think they’ve been an all-right squad who just needed a different manager, but this still sucks of shit.
I’m never sure what to make of Peterborough, both the club and the place. The former manages to reach the Championship in a good season, but never stays there for long.
It should be a bit higher up than it usually is, a bit like Plymouth too.
The latter? I’ve been to Peterborough a few times and while it gets featured on those Crap Towns lists (sometimes at #1) it never seems that bad.
Bland, probably (though have you seen Wimbledon Broadway recently?). But worse than Blackpool or Stoke or Crewe..?
It did give us a chance to air “You have to live here, we get to go home”, which is one of my favourite chants. Primarily because oppo fans struggle to respond to it…
Point to ponder: Is Orsi going to become our scapegoat?
He played yesterday, did as much as anyone up front (ie nothing) yet he seems to be the one getting singled out.
I guess he was signed because we needed another striker and he was available for £1.50.
Even so, while I think we should have persevered with Josh Kelly (and I’d welcome him back tomorrow if he returns), I can’t see why he’s getting it in the neck but Bugiel is equally ineffective.
Ditto Browne, come to think of it.
Nobody played well yesterday, but Reeves is as bad as anyone else right now. And Sasu is somebody who looks increasingly like a National League South player every time he appears.
Maybe Orsi doesn’t have the “credit in the bank” that the others have? All the others I’ve mentioned won promotion with us last season, so have got a bit of slack.
Orsi is a striker who isn’t scoring goals and doesn’t look like he’s going to, and that’s probably his problem.
We need goals as a team, but he needs to find the net as much as anyone.
It’s not just him. There are a few squad-related questions right now that don’t seem to get answered. For starters – where’s Hippo?
Come to think of it, where’s McCoy-Splatt? And is Foyo still on the banned list, or is he allowed to play now?
None of those may have prevented us getting sodomised yesterday, but right now we need all the help we can get…
Truth is stranger than fiction: 1) Did that really happen? 2) The “Blue Section” to the left of the away fans. Average age about 14. Also, 1000 freebies given in that stand apparently. 3) Not getting searched when I went in. 4) Players love to give the big one to fans when they score but not so much when there’s no stewards or barriers. Funny that.
Anything else? I’m glad next week at home to Stockport is off**, because we badly need a reset.
** – we’ve somehow got three squad members worthy of international callups. Are some countries that desperate for players?
Yesterday was beyond dire, ditto Gateshead and Burton, but this has been on the cards for a month.
Wasn’t it Port Vale where people were saying how bad we were in the first half? We drew that fixture, but it had a “yeah, but…” qualifier next to it.
I don’t think we’ve been “found out”, because it seems to be more individual fuckups more than anything else.
We did change our shape in the second half yesterday and were more effective, relatively speaking, so it’s not like we’re stuck in a rigid formation.
But we do need to take ourselves out of the firing line, properly analyse what’s gone wrong and start again.
It might mean a proper change of shape, dropping underperforming players (OK, that might mean a whole new first XI), and putting in the likes of Hutchinson again.
Whatever we need to do, we have a good opportunity to do it.
In a way, and assuming it doesn’t prove to be the start of a proper freefall, losing 5-0 yesterday might end up doing us a favour.
Why? Because you can’t avoid having to deal with such a thumping.
If you lose 1-0 or 2-0 you can point to how narrow the scoreline is, or how we were unlucky – anything to avoid dealing with how shit you were during the game.
When it’s 5-0, it focuses your mind again. The players will know how much it sucked, JJ and the rest of the staff certainly do.
We all know players have massive egos at the best of times, and they hate being on the wrong end of such scorelines.
Today, the squad will be hurting as much as any of us. Or at least, they should be.
We’re capable of turning it around, under JJ we’ve had worse runs with worse squads and we’ve always been able to stop things before it becomes unmanageable.
We haven’t become a bad squad overnight, although too many players are out of form right now.
Our next proper game is at home to Wigan on the 22nd November, and that will need to be our focus for the next fortnight.
A credible draw or even Satan forbid a win would do wonders for us that day. But another thumping…
So, was it worth it? Fuck off.
In a nutshell: Fuck off. Again.