Tonight we welcome our good friends from Yeovil Town to Meadow Park, may I wish their Directors, Manager, players and supporters a pleasant stay with us and a safe journey home.
Well other than the National League Cup, it’s not been the best of starts to the New Year for us, either with our results or performances. In truth we’ve hit a bit of sticky patch and that coincided with us picking up a few injuries to key players and Jeff King’s loan ending.
As such as we look to steer ourselves into calmer waters, let’s remember the positives, let’s continue to be honest with each other, as we still sit safely in a Play Off place and we’ve worked our socks off over the last two seasons to get ourselves into this position. In truth if we’re going to have a sticky patch, much better it comes now while we can still wheel, deal and tweak the squad.
If we don’t overreact to the current set back, if we’re sensible we can do something long term about it, rather than wait until later in the season when the non league transfer window closes at the end of March and when we’ve already entered the final run in.
Let’s be honest when we went top a little over a month ago, I know myself, the ‘Wood Army’ and our wider community’s expectations went through the roof and while we were top (which wasn’t for long) we loved every minute of it and so we should.
If like me in early January you were literally on cloud nine that’s perfectly understandable, as we were in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup, we were Top 3 in the league and the football we were playing was outstanding and we were all possibly dreaming the impossible dream of the EFL.
Today the situation is slightly different, as two very good sides in Rochdale and York City have got away from the rest of us and the title is now a straight fight between those two ex Football League clubs. However, for us the Play offs and a top 5 league finish is still very realistic.
Thankfully it appears that some of our injured players are now slowly coming back and our squad certainly looks a lot stronger than it has over the last month. When looking back over the last 18 months we actually went through three sticky spells last season but found ways to turn things around because we were focused, motivated and desperate for promotion, trust me nothing has changed this season.
Of course you need certain things like a good budget, club unity, good players, a good structure and real togetherness, but firstly you must deal with any weak mindsets, any self doubt, the poor excuses. Those things are honestly debilitating if they take hold within a dressing room or amongst the wider staff. In truth self weakness like that gets on my nerves, especially when it’s from our weaker known characters who are always looking to find a ready made excuse that suits their me, me, me disposition.
Thankfully most of the people wrapped around me are over achievers and the sooner everyone settles down, focusses on the next 10 weeks and deal with their own jobs, the teams current form, their own self doubt, then the better things will turn out for everyone.
When the singular recognises the collective then the sooner we will arrest this bump in the road and I expect that to happen this evening. In truth I don’t want to keep hearing about Jeff King going back to York City, as for me it’s a complete irrelevance now.
Trust me Jeff was very good but he’s not Rushy, he’s not Bushy, he’s not Brunty and he’s certainly not Abdul. Jeff’s a very good right back but that’s it, so let’s all get over a right back departing and find a way to deal with finishing the season well and winning the Play-offs without him.
For me there are some big questions that need answering tonight regarding some of the players within our squad and whether they are quite good enough both mentally and physically to fill the injured players’ boots in the heat of battle. In all honesty everyone within the squad has had more than enough time in both training and in games, to of put down a marker down and we’ve had more than enough time to assess all of these things.
I say this, because we’re at a very critical stage of the season and so we might in all honesty need to bring in one or two more players to re-balance the squad especially down the right hand side, plus add someone up top…. Luke Garrard and Charlie Hunter must now decide if the players who have recently been given a chance during the injured players’ absence have done enough to keep Erico Souza, Callum Reynolds and Tom White out of the side when they return and can the squad players if needed get us promoted?
Put simply the above might sound harsh but I’m a winner and I want success for my town, so I’m more than happy to spend my children’s and grandchildren’s inheritance to back Luke and Charlie Hunter in the transfer and loan market again, but only if the right players and right characters become available.
That said, tonight is a further opportunity for some of the squad players to send a real message to the gaffer, by showing him their attitude, discipline, desire and performance is of a level to be winners and they are ready for the run in. In terms of our last league outing here against Boston United, we were ok at best, 1 up at half time, we were coasting without ever looking great but by anyone’s reckoning we were in very little danger of ever losing the game.
A silly penalty is then given away early in the second half, a red card is dished out to Femi Ilesanmi and the game changes in an instant – that’s football I’m afraid. A second red card is then given to Regan Booty for foul language and suddenly we’re 2-1 down and instead of sitting third in the league and on the leaders tails, we’re sitting in 5th and those around me instantly talk about pressure.
Trust me the talk of pressure and me listening to peoples reasoning about pressure is complete nonsense. There’s no pressure on me as an owner nor as a club when we’re sitting in a Play-off position. It’s not a pressure situation it’s just an expectation thing and long may your expectations stick around at Meadow Park, as it means we’re all doing something right.
Anyway enough of my diatribe, let’s get back to tonight’s game, where we welcome a rejuvenated Yeovil Town under new ownership. Yeovil are coming here after winning 1-0 up at Altrincham on Saturday and in truth I watched the game on DAZN and they did a smash and grab number on Alty and so we can expect a very difficult game this evening.
Lastly, whoever you support, let’s hope for an open, attacking game and may the best team win.
Take care,
Danny.
Proposed development: South Stand
