The FA Cup has ceased to be a special competition.
Of the past years it’s tried and tested format has been whittled away but by bit at the behest of PL teams involved in Europe.
Firstly no second replays at neutral grounds (we can all remember at least one of those. V Hartlepool at Roker Park for me!) then penalty shootouts. Semi finals at Wembley, the final at stupid O’clock on a Saturday.
The European competitions obviously make more money than the FA Cup, because that’s what it’s about isn’t it? Money!
Although the stats will say that was our sixth defeat out of eight league games I think yesterday could have been the turning point.
I’m not sure if you can really assess the performance the way we have done previous weeks because of the circumstances. Firstly the long term injuries were still missing (although good to see Clarke on the bench) plus a couple of new ones in Eisa and Watson. Looks like we had another 4/5 isolating plus of course the main coaches including the manager.
The game should have been postponed, but it wasn’t. Many of our starting XI would never have played together in a competitive match before. Howard had only arrived 48hrs earlier.
Okay we lost 3-1 which looks like a bad defeat, but as outlined above, individually no one had as bad a performance as we witnessed against Cambridge & Cheltenham. As Lesgeo says, we learned a lot about the squad yesterday. I’m certainly not as depressed as I was last weekend.
I don’t want to sound like UTI99 but I’ll scatter a few more crumbs of comfort. We’ve played six of the top seven teams and taken points off two of them. And believe it or not there is still a team worse than us both in terms of points and GD!
Bartonscorpion, you clearly think Cox should go sooner than later. But what is the option? Another manager coming in to work with players he didn’t sign?
Like life is at the moment, we’re going to have to tough it out until we can find a cure for the malaise.
Great news! I can allow myself a small modicum of optimism until Saturday afternoon.
Rory wants to take the positives from this and learn from Howard. As much as Mussy can coach during the week there’s no substitute for watching how an experienced keeper behaves during a competitive match.
Similar experience at FB or CMF and I’ll be feeling better.
1. A manager who doesn’t know the club and it’s importance to the town.
2. Lazy 30 something wage-thieves who only come here to top up their pension. These are the same players who keep our exciting young talent out of the match day squad.
3. Fans who get on the players’ backs or who berate the manager from the terraces.
Well, guess what? Done of this applies to the current season. So who will the scapegoat be this time?
