For the last couple of weeks there's been a lot of bed-wetting about possible relegation and at the same time people shouting for us to play the kids. Which do you want? Because if your issue has been our lack of experience all season, then chucking the kids in when we're still not mathematically safe doesn't add up i'm afraid.
In my opinion, at no point this season have we ever been in danger of relegation, despite the hysteria on here. Sometimes we're great, sometimes we're awful, sometimes we're average. Probably each as much as the next over the course of the season and that by definition is a mid-table inconsistent team.
As far as I am concerned, the next 4 games mean very little and frankly the results don't really matter (although the players/staff shouldn't be thinking that way). The measure of how purposeful this last quarter of the season has been will be how we start next season. I want to see tangible improvement in the recruitment and more importantly the solidity of the team within the first 10 games next year. Lowe has talked about learning a lot this year, and that's fine, this was never going to be an easy season, particularly in the circumstances, but we need evidence that we are actually learning and that evidence has been lacking throughout this season, so it needs to be rectified this summer and produced next season.
I'm still confident Lowe is taking is in the right direction and that a bit of patience is required, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't frustrated at the groundhog day nature of some of the performances this year. I find it hard to point the finger at the manager for individual errors, because he can't kick the ball for them, but too many goals have been conceded by the fundamental inability to defend crosses and leaving too much space in behind the wing backs. That has to be worked on, and it may be as easy as it being a communication issue, or someone taking leadership like Sonny Bradley did, or it may be a case of tactical changes. Our tactical flexibility next year will also be a sign of what Lowe has learnt from this year.
We certainly have some good players at this level within our squad; Cooper, Aimson, Edwards, Mayor, Camara, Grant, Jephcott, Hardie, Ennis and George Cooper have all proven themselves to be good enough, most as starting players, some as rotational players. It's time to supplement that fairly young core with more quality and more steel through the spine. Beyond the names listed above, and excluding a few of the youth players who I haven't named, the rest can be cleared out. The likes of Reeves, Moore, MacLeod... if they're not going to push for a starting spot, which they aren't close at the moment, they need to go. Hopefully our new data-driven approach can turn up more gems like Camara and Ennis, and less Nouble's.
Anyway, I've not really enjoyed much of this season, barring about a dozen games. Watching on iFollow is hollow and just a bit crap despite the club's best efforts to improve the service, so I gave up on it months ago except the Shrewsbury debacle :doh:. It seems to me that there has been a really polarised response to every game this season, some driven by tedious agendas, but I think a lot largely driven by frustration of how we've all had to consume our football this year, and consume is the appropriate word. It hasn't been entertainment and it's barely felt like fandom at times. More just another game of football on the TV, if there wasn't an excessive amount already. So let's hope come August we can all get back into Home Park and enjoy the football as it's supposed to be enjoyed :scarf:
