This for me.
Many people on this forum have been saying for months that we are being overrun in midfield. Yet Foster and now Dewsnip/Nance are completely wedded to it. How can they not see what is so obvious?
I got pelters on here after Saints away for suggesting that our performance and the way we set up was “cowardly”. A poor choice of word I appreciate, but it was negative and smacked of an inferiority complex. We’ve then just taken that exact same approach away from home against two teams in the bottom 8 when all we really needed was a couple of points to keep us safe. Personally, I think the approach at Stoke and Milwall was pretty embarrassing. All the talk of being positive and getting our swagger back in press conferences has not been reflected at all in performances. Azaz may be missing but we could have tried getting guys like Wright and Devine into a more forward thinking midfield. Instead we’ve persisted with a setup that has not been working for the majority of the last 3 months.
I fully expect that we will be relegated next Saturday. Birmingham aren’t a good football team, but their home form is decent and they have difference makers in attacking areas. They are a team with quality that is woefully underperforming. We on the other hand have terrible home form, against one the best away teams in the league and other than our two star forward players who have played for the last two months like the Monstars from Space Jam have stolen their talent, we have a remarkable lack of quality in key areas.
We were always up against it in this league. There was enough ability in the squad to keep us up IF it was well coached and confident. Unfortunately both of those things have been lacking in spades since January.
I have been an advocate for data based recruitment and it certainly has its benefits, but our team is totally lack in athleticism, something we have clearly overlooked in that process. We need engines in midfield, we need pace in wide areas, we need disruptive, physical presences up front. We have none of that. Not good enough! Yesterday we had Galloway at LWB, who looked confused every time he got into the final third. Yet we had Sorinola on the bench and Sousa not even in the squad! What was the point of signing Sousa if we aren’t going to use him when we need someone in his position. He’s looked alright to me when he’s played, so why not use him? We built a squad based on the manager’s contacts book and threw our usual recruitment model out the window to do it. Who allowed this? Why was it allowed? Why wasn’t it challenged by experienced heads?
This will be a totally avoidable relegation if it is confirmed next week. Being stripped for parts in December/January will be a big reason for that, but big questions need to be asked about the recruitment (on and off the pitch) that followed. For a supposedly well run club, it has not been good enough and we need to see accountability and improvement whichever league we find ourselves.
