07-02-2026, 21:41
All teams have to put up with injuries, Matt. We can`t expect to be any different.
I genuinely believe that right now and for most of this season our whole has not matched the sum of our parts. The individual quality of the players that we have should, when put together, be producing a more effective team than we have been and are. I think the argument that we should be doing better with players and resources at our disposal is a completely fair one. The fact that we haven`t been is, I`m afraid, entirely down to management and tactics. Simple as. I don`t agree by any means that Paul Cook should be sacked here and now, but I think it`s fair to say the clock is ticking for him. We are going to have to go on a hell of a run from now until the end of the season if we`re going to get anywhere near the points total you reckon (quite rightly, to my thinking ) we are going to need for automatic promotion. We don`t seem to be capable of producing anything like the level of consistency that would be necessary to do that. More likely we`ll scrape into the play-offs again and for the reasons I`ve already stated I think we should be doing better than that.
I suspect that the owners might have a tough decision to make at the end of the season if that turns out to be the case.
For me, part of the problem is PC`s fixation on this 4-2-3-1 system. Other teams cotton on to it, find a way to counteract it, and there seems to be no flexibility. No plan B. It also seems to produce a style of play that involves seemingly endlessly passing the ball backwards - sideways - sideways - backwards across the middle of the pitch that, to put it frankly, bores the arse off me. (We`re not alone in that, to be fair.. I see a lot of that these days.)
A good result today, it has to be said. We just need to be doing it with a bit of consistency now.
I genuinely believe that right now and for most of this season our whole has not matched the sum of our parts. The individual quality of the players that we have should, when put together, be producing a more effective team than we have been and are. I think the argument that we should be doing better with players and resources at our disposal is a completely fair one. The fact that we haven`t been is, I`m afraid, entirely down to management and tactics. Simple as. I don`t agree by any means that Paul Cook should be sacked here and now, but I think it`s fair to say the clock is ticking for him. We are going to have to go on a hell of a run from now until the end of the season if we`re going to get anywhere near the points total you reckon (quite rightly, to my thinking ) we are going to need for automatic promotion. We don`t seem to be capable of producing anything like the level of consistency that would be necessary to do that. More likely we`ll scrape into the play-offs again and for the reasons I`ve already stated I think we should be doing better than that.
I suspect that the owners might have a tough decision to make at the end of the season if that turns out to be the case.
For me, part of the problem is PC`s fixation on this 4-2-3-1 system. Other teams cotton on to it, find a way to counteract it, and there seems to be no flexibility. No plan B. It also seems to produce a style of play that involves seemingly endlessly passing the ball backwards - sideways - sideways - backwards across the middle of the pitch that, to put it frankly, bores the arse off me. (We`re not alone in that, to be fair.. I see a lot of that these days.)
A good result today, it has to be said. We just need to be doing it with a bit of consistency now.