Fans up and down the country will be puzzled at the tiny London following - "they get 15,000 at home" and "they are challenging for promotion" will be the simplistic refrain. Unfortunately, only the sufferers know the uncomfortable fact that we have flattered to deceive this season. Whilst a home season-ticket has provided poor value-for-money so far - fractionally over one Charlton goal per home game, we have at least found space to play away and that looks like our best hope this evening.
Oddly enough, another win here would see us carry our season forward on three impressive fronts with the Walsall defeat being a game we can make up whereas losing either the two Cup games that sandwich it would clip our wings.
The fact is, we simply don't have the quality throughout the side required to sustain a successful season, even in League One. Our three preferred centre-backs are ageing and look incapable of providing frequent shut-outs. Miguel Llera looks an average League One defender and Yado Mambo is still considered too inexperienced. We look vulnerable at right-back. Simon Francis needs more all-round experience and whilst he's getting plenty of games and making solid contributions at times, his pace is suspect and he has a tendency to panic when under pressure and make mistakes. Matt Fry has proven he can play at the top of this division and probably higher in a better side.
In the middle, Semedo and Racon are simply not a good enough pairing to help orchestrate our attack; Jose's strengths are barrelling about the park breaking up opposition moves and Therry simply isn't a good enough footballer to play the attacking foil. He passes back more than forwards and his first touch is poor for a midfielder.
Wingers tend to blow hot and cold and that's what we seem to get from Reid and Wagstaff. It probably doesn't help that they aren't getting too much close support from their full-backs who don't like coming across the halfway-line too often and Semedo and Racon are usually so deep that any ball back to them looks like a back-pass. Johnnie Jackson deserves a call-out for his contribution, although the automatic tendency to move him back to full-back when we bring on Reid in the second-half is probably unjustified when Matt Fry has been having a perfectly satisfactory game, like on Sunday.
That leaves our forward-line which we have to conclude isn't really good enough to dominate this division. Pawel Abbott has been a flop so far and I can now see why Oldham fans weren't particularly concerned when he left to join us. I hope I am wrong but he's looking like another Andy Gray to me. Paul Benson has at least started scoring and he works hard on limited service but he's not got any obvious strengths to his game. Joe Anyinsah is similar to Benson, although nothing was expected from him, so he looks like a relative success at the moment. That leaves Akpo who looks incapable of playing and performing for 90 minutes. His value is as an impact sub when we need to unsettle the opposition defence but it's hardly a permanent job.
There, I feel better after a good moan. I suspect we will have more to groan about this evening if Brentford manage to raise their game at home under floodlights as they have on a number of notable occasions so far this season.
If we do go out, then it looks like our fatigued players will get another rest as it's hard to imagine any pitch being playable in the north-east this weekend, let alone one in Hartlepool.
I had really high hopes for Abbott, but he has clearly failed to deliver.
ReplyDeleteHowever, unlike Andy Gray, he is not oon serious money, and will not move back up north for a transfer fee close to £1m less than we paid for him.
He may even come good in the end?