A side that has only sampled victory once in the past eight weeks could be very proud of themselves for the effort in getting that point. But the harsh reality is that no matter how good we think the result to be, we lost distance on the leading pack on the weekend and now find ourselves with something fast approaching a mountain to claim if we are to take our season where we wanted it to go.
We have long since stated as a club that 80 points is our target for the season and now we have 8 games to achieve the 18 points that will take us to that figure. A minimum of five wins is needed from those eight games but it is now extremely hard to see where those wins are coming from.
We have comments from the stands and terraces that other teams continually want it more than us and calls that we sit too deep, defend too deep and give the ball away too easily. Hence why we are losing more than we are winning. All worrying comments.
Are there five or six wins in this squad between now and May 7? You would hope so but considering we have only one win in the last eight, it would take an extreme optimist to believe we can improve that tally five or six fold over the next eight. It can be done, we know it can be done but at the same time here and now it is nigh on impossible to believe that it will be done.
And of course when we are on these sorts of runs, there is always looking around for someone to blame. Over the course of the last month, I seem to remember the following taking a share of the blame at one stage or another
Drinking Culture
Lee Trundle
Kenny Jackett
Points Target meter on the message board of this site
An article I wrote after we beat Chester City back in January
Roberto Martinez
Panic Buying
Kristian O'Leary
10 game suspension for Garry Monk making him a liability
Forbes being played out of position in position
Kenny Jackett applauding the crowd after the Scunny game
Izzy Iriekpen
Andy Gurney not smiling at the crowd
Naive tactics
I'm sure there have been more on top of this list but those are the ones that I have just reeled off from memory. Taking some of them on and making comment I come up with the following: -
Blaming an individual is pointless. Football I am sure is a team game, so therefore if we have one individual playing badly then it should not have the knock on effect of making a team pants.
Articles or graphics on this site will not adversely affect the team performance to my knowledge. If it does then I apologise but I just cannot see it myself
Players not smiling at the crowd should have little damage on the side, neither similarly should applauding the fans after a hard fought win.
I will open myself up here as well in that I am sick of reading comments of "why is so and so out of position" Players do have preferred positions and we all know it would be suicide to ask Trundle to play centre half and the like but moving players across the back line is not a major issue. It's crazy at times if it doesn't need doing but there is not a major difference between left back and left centre half. If you think it will make that much of a difference then I hate to shatter that illusion. As I mentioned earlier in the paragraph there is a problem if you are swapping two vastly different positions (Willy up front would be another example - fnarr fnarr!)
That leaves tactics and drinking culture from the above list - I would find it hard to pick holes in any argument that said that either of these problems would cause us issues in trying to win games so on those two I will save my breath.
It's simple for me - we lose games because we are negative. I don't mean by that we think "we'll lose this" but because we sit back and let teams come at us. We play virtually a six or seven man defence and the three central midfield options we persist with most often are all naturally defensive players. Playing one of them is the right thing to do, playing two of them is wrong. And it needs to be addressed. We have to have someone in the central midfield area who will link with the attack and fill the gaping hole that usually exists between our attack and midfield. A simple push up to take the loose ball sometimes would be nice instead of seeing all these types of play result in the opposition coming back at us.
Surely it's not rocket science and surely someone with a much better football brain than me can see it? Kenny? Nuge? Anybody?
We have eight games left and we have to be positive. Sit back and let Macclesfield come at us on Friday and we will lose. Defeat there will spell the end of the season as far as third place goes even though many of us have given up on it already. We have to take the bull by the horns, go for the jugular, grab the moment - pick your cliche - and go for it. No holding back - give it everything and if we aren't good enough then so be it but never leave yourself to wonder what may have been?
In football there is a second chance - they call it the play offs - but it just doesn't bear thinking about really.
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