Something has to change

It has to change, somehow something’s got to change.

We thought that change or rather that progression had finally come against Preston, but the more Saturday went on and the more disgraceful the performance it felt like we’d left everything on the pitch at Deepdale.

Not because it was Wigan Athletic and it was the FA Cup but because our opponents were the Head Coach’s former employers.

Saturday was utterly shameful; there’s nothing else to be said about it. We can debate all day long the reasons behind it and who if anyone is to blame but shameful it was.

We faced a Bolton side that hadn’t won since Boxing Day and theoretically on the ropes after a heavy defeat at Peterborough the week before.

They also had their own transfer turmoil with both of their first-choice keepers leaving the club. One returning to their parent club after being dropped and one returning to America.

The new keeper Bolton brought in had one training session with his new team before facing us and hadn’t played a senior game for 18 months.

Surely a perfect opportunity for us to pepper that Bolton goal to test him out?

Well zero shots on target, tells you how that went for us.

We hadn’t lost to Bolton in 15 years before Ryan Lowe’s arrival, but we’ve managed to lose to them three times in nine months under Lowe, but worse than that we’ve lost to them three times without laying a glove on them and that’s been the case in too many games this season.

So it seems that Preston was the exception to the rule, rather than the new standard we had set ourselves. From September onwards apart from a handful of matches we’ve been second best and haven’t looked like scoring.

Let alone the exciting attacking football we were promised. We persist with this system that doesn’t fit any of our players technical abilities and leaves us exposed at the back whilst looking toothless in attack.

Against Preston we played on the front foot, we attacked and we took that Championship side on. Why then do we revert back to how we played on Saturday?

Maleace Assamoah who had been central to that win at Preston with driving runs full of pace and purpose was missing from the squad on Saturday.

Why?

He must have been injured surely. No apparently, we didn’t have space for him on the substitutes bench. What must that do to the confidence of a young player like that.

I’m afraid this all contributed to me losing all will to live against Bolton, their goal seemed inevitable from the first ten minutes. It wasn’t that we didn’t get going in the second half but we didn’t get going for the whole ninety minutes.

Considering that the club had made such a big fuss ‘about the head coach’ getting it made the performance feel even more pathetic than it was.

This wasn’t a side or head coach who ‘get it’ if they’d have got it we would have had at least an effort on target.

Listen I’m big enough and old enough to remember when we were in the depths of Division Four (reference for the yoof there) we have no divine right to success as a football club and this new football club is a totally different prospect from what we’ve been for over two decades previously.

As it is now we are genuinely facing a relegation six pointer at Doncaster Rovers on Saturday and I’m not convinced we’re the favourites to come out on top.

But with all of that being the case the minimum we should expect is some fight and pride in the badge.

Whether that comes from the management team or the players, it is the bare minimum of what we should expect. On Saturday and far too many times this season we haven’t had that.

It needs to change, and it needs to change quick. But who leads that change?

Sean Livesey

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