Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:38 pm
Very, very poor again. Crewe were there for the taking, but we never looked likely to score and the last minute equalizer doesn't do much for us except paper over the cracks to a degree. Five men across midfield and yet that area of the pitch was like a black hole, with Crewe first to every ball in the centre of the park. Unforgivable. Half the team don't look interested any more and that's a massive contrast from the middle of the season when everyone was pulling for one another and we were far better than the sum of our parts. That was what gave us the edge over so many of our rivals - and without it we won't be winning many games between now and the end of the season. The relentless talking down of our chances by the management can't have helped with that. If the players know that they've achieved the primary goal for this season (survival) and that the manager makes it obvious that he thinks making the play-offs is out of the question then what incentive do they have to perform?
The only time we looked to have enough desire to win the game was the five minutes between bringing on Deeney and Nicholls and the Crewe goal. Maybe the two of them don't have the quality of the players that they replaced, but at least they give us some enthusiasm and that counts for something. If the senior pros haven't got the appetite for the game anymore and DD doesn't think we'll make the play-offs then surely we ought to play the players we expect to still be at the club next season for the remaining games. That means out with the likes of Wrack, Mooney, Roper and the loanees and in with Deeney, Nicholls, Smith, Taundry and any other kids who might have a part to play next year.
Also, we played late on Saturday and yet made no changes despite a poor result and less than 48 hours recovery time. Surely Bradley should have played on Saturday (and if he wasn't fit enough he shouldn't be going on international duty) and other changes should've been made for today.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the financial side of things, the manager and his coaching staff can have absolutely no excuses for sending out such a woefully demotivated side for the last five games. We've barely won a 50-50 in the middle of the park since we played Swindon and that's absolutely nothing to do with the quality of players brought in or not - the players who are here have shown that they can compete in many games this season and a lot of them have let themselves down badly in the last three weeks - and DD has let them get away with it game in, game out. He's not as good a manager as he thinks he is for letting them get away with coasting when we were in the play-off hunt.