Yesterday I drove back from a couple of nights stay with a dozen friends in Aviemore. It was a long drive home punctuated with the carnage on the opposite carriageway of the M6 where a horse box had over-turned. There amidst the emergency vehicles and debris was the horse - it was still alive and actually on all fours which I hope was a positive sign. Sad analogy, I know, but I was immediately reminded of our own current predicament. This season needs a bullet in the head but we are going to have to troop out twice more and don't look capable of scraping a win.
It really is a concern because the new season will be here in a flash and we need a radical change to lift this squad of players or we will nosedive next season. The repeated failure to get this team to play is alarming. Obviously I wasn't at Loftus Road on Saturday and don't think I would have gone anyway but the match reports look like another capitulation. Alan Pardew now needs to act and demonstrate in the last two games that there will now be changes. Frankly, it doesn't matter who comes in or who goes out, just as long he makes at least three or four.
Matt Holland predictably won the Player of the Year award on what I'll wager was the lowest turnout ever. It really says something when the teams most obvious "tryer" gets the vote.
The announcement on season ticket pricing will be the last surprise of the season and may dictate the mood over the Summer, but before that we have to finish at home and the Coventry match will surely see the lowest home attendence in real terms for several seasons. It really has been a miserable season and Alan Pardew will need to be decisive with any funds he is given during the Summer. A plea from me is that he moves quickly for what business he does and that we get a few extra weeks for the new players to get to know each other before the kick-off. There should be more leavers than joiners but that might be no bad thing. We have lacked responsibility across the side this season and I believe that was due in part to the size of the squad. The loan signings didn't help us either, but I guess Pardew did at least gamble and they all looked like they might have made the difference before they actually got on the field. Two holding midfielders are a must, but they would likely take the whole transfer budget, so we will need to bring some funds in as well - tricky with the season our squad have had. Maybe Burnley will give us our £2m back for Andy Gray.
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Bearing in mind the generally poor signings Pardew had made in the last season, should we trust him to be able to put things right? I don't think so. By all accounts the feeling inside the club is that promotion is a must next season. I really do not feel confident that this will be achieved under Pardew.
ReplyDeleteI think the consensus is that he should be given more time, even if only up until Christmas. We all know the perils of changing your manager and we simply can't afford to change him out now. He believes these players can deliver for him and that's probably more than any incoming manager would. In the circumstances we need to presevere. Remember, he had similar first seasons at Reading and West ham before taking both of those up.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the rights and wrongs of it might be, I'd be amazed if Pardew were sacked; we should expect him to be given the whole of next season. I agree re the need for steel in central midfield and for me a key issue will be whether anybody will pay good money for Thomas and Ambrose; they both need to be released and the fees received could be important. We also need to hope that a number of young players come good. Unless they do it is likely to be a long hard season.
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