First day of the New Year. I was despondent to read Johnnie Jackson online pre-match suggesting we might be cautious in the January transfer window. I am tired of going on about it but we are in glaringly desperate need of another striker who can cut it at League One/Championship level. As if to reiterate the point, we arrived for a pre-match pint to discover that our only current striker, Jayden Stockley, would be missing again, this time due to an injury sustained in training this week. They kept that quiet. To rub salt into the wounds, Josh Davison was back in the starting line-up. I told my mate, who was down from Aberdeen for the game, that we would be lucky to score without Stockley leading the line.
The first-half was entirely predictable. Wycombe came to frustrate and we could only huff and puff, with no cutting edge. Davison and Washington failed to win a ball throughout. Several crosses from Jaiyesimi floated harmlessly across the face of goal and and everything played up to the front two was easily snuffed out. Davison was forced to drop into midfield to try and get the ball but whenever he did, all he could do was steer the ball straight back to Pearce or Dobson or whoever had given it to him. Our sole effort was a curling shot from Elliott Lee which Stockdale did well to save.
Sadly, that came after Wycombe had taken the lead after thirty-odd minutes after the old stager Sam Vokes had managed to get on the end of a goal-line cut-back and fire high into our net from close range.
Once Wycombe had the lead we saw a virtuoso display of shirt-pulling, time-wasting and general 'gamesmanship.' Unfortunately, when you can't lay a glove on your opponent and they get their heads in front, you have to be prepared to suffer this.
Mercifully, Davison was pulled at half-time and Jonathon Leko was brought on to fire a Covered End fightback. To be fair to Leko, he managed that and for twenty-five minutes we put the Chairboys under some sustained pressure which lifted the crowd. Lee and Gilbey were suddenly pressing the midfield and we were playing some decent stuff without actually managing to find a forward in space to pull the trigger. Wycombe doubled-down on the shirt-pulling and time-wasting and eventually they broke our momentum.
As the game ebbed away, Johnnie Jackson made a substitution that proved beyond doubt that he must see what his biggest challenge is - he brought Ryan Inniss on, not to replace the booked Sean Clare but to go upfront and try to win a header. It was a desperate last chance and it nearly paid off with the last action of the game as Inniss steered a header from a free-kick goalward but Wycombe had been battling too hard to throw it all way at the death and they managed to get it clear.
So, another poor start to another year but at least the need for that additional goal-scorer has been made abundantly clear. We really need two more strikers so we can cope with injuries and suspensions but beggars can't be choosers. If we fail to bring someone in pronto, this season will fizzle out by next month and if that happens we will face another pre-season of wholesale change and another big gamble for next year.
We have shown that we have the nucleus of a side that can compete in this division but we have to build on it now and leave ourselves with fine-tuning in the close season and not more re-building.
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