These are getting harder to write with every game. My aim is always to analyse each performance on its individual merit, whilst keeping a level-head and refraining from any radical statements.
Fact is though, the club is rotten. There - radical statement 1. But as far as I'm concerned, it's a true statement.
Just to clarify, I don't base this on the performance. Just so happens that I've found myself in the know about a few things over the last week, which has left me with a totally different view of many of the players, and the club as whole.
It also just so happens that I'm a bit of a wimp. So while I'd bloody love to divulge some of this information in explicit detail, I'm going to have to tip-toe around it given the slim chance it might cause me grief if I started to shout my mouth.
All I will say is that it now comes as no surprise why we are where we are. And if things do get better any time soon, it'll be a bleeding miracle.
While it's probably not a surprise to anyone reading this, far too many of the players are focused too much on the lifestyle that being a footballer offers, and it'd appear the club are partly to blame for this by encouraging it.
Vague I know, but the culture around the club is very different to that of other clubs in the Championship - I just wonder if those at the very top of the club have any idea.
Right, leaving the cryptic and nonsensical rant aside, the game yesterday was pretty much all we've come to expect from the team over the last few years. Spineless start, leaving us with a mountain to climb, followed by bad luck which in many ways will divert a lot of the attention from where the fundamental issues lie.
Stephen Wright must go. There - radical(ish) statement 2. Actually, from the conversations I've had, I'm sure this is a pretty mainstream sentiment by now.
We're leaking goal after goal, and we have to work out a way of fixing this. Maybe I'm missing something, but removing the slow, small, poor-heading defender from the equation would surely be high up on the list of any manager looking to fix the issue?
I'll say again, I've got nothing against Wright as backup. But all season long he's been there, and all season long our defence has looked shaky. We need to look beyond rotating players to fit into the team around him, when he's at the heart of the flaming problem. No matter how great a "leader" he is, or how much he can shout, when a player is as slow as he is, there is only so much benefit he can bring to the team.
As far as I can see, bringing Cranie back in would immediately give us another player who at the very least, has a hope in hell of recovering when things go wrong or individual mistakes are made.
But with Wright in the team, all that appears to offer us at the moment is an experienced head. But in real-terms, what does that actually mean if that experienced head offers little in the way of footballing quality?
The more Wright plays, the more I see the huge hole Coleman has dug for himself by choosing him as captain. All we're doing is going down the Arjan de Zeeuw route again.
I remember that route vividly. That route was a shambles. That route made me very cross.
The disallowed goal also makes me cross, but I'm not one to bemoan luck. That's a side issue if you ask me. The big issue (as it has been for the last decade) is we're still desperately trying to find our feet and search for some sort of consistency. I just don't see where it's going to come from while we're still struggling along with our defence though.
And with Gunny and Sammy now out, the centre of our midfield looks as flimsy as its ever been too.
Anyone got Carlton Palmer's number, per chance?
