A Magical Seven Days

 

They say a week is a long time in football and you could argue with the recent European Super League announcement, an hour has been a long time with so many developments, but I will discuss that later on in this blog

Going into the Accrington game we were 22nd in the table and a 2nd worst goal difference, slightly better than Wigan who had conceded 66 goals already. We had a mixed record at Accrington and it's a place that you don’t really want to go to needing points and that becomes even more apparent, with an early goal for them from a corner. I have to admit that I sighed and this reaffirmed my feeling that this would be the year we finally were not able to have a great escape. The next 41 minutes was when the team dug in, battled all over the pitch to make things happen. The style Robbo is implementing is based on a fast tempo, pressing game that will need players to be fitter than ever before and to sacrifice their own game for the benefit of the team. Robbo had brought in Ollie Palmer to the starting line up finally - although I think this was more down to fitness than ability - and this gave us that additional threat as Palmer will happily do the ugly side of the game that Pigott doesn’t and isn’t actually that good at. 

Palmer equalised after an error from the Accrington goalkeeper and that was the spark as after that we could have easily had the game out of sight rather than taking a 3-1 lead at half time. Ayoub Assal was again on the score sheet with a lobbed header over the keeper from a Palmer cross and then Assal finished off the scoring after a headed through ball from Dobson with a first time finish for a 5-1 win. 

I have always felt that this team had it in them to thrash a team, but did not expect it to be at Accrington and when we then went on to beat Ipswich Town 3-0 for back to back wins, this was starting to look like a real shift and Robbo was finally starting to see the end result of the extensive training sessions and analysis of games over the last few months. 

Swindon Town then came to Plough Lane for probably the most important game out of the 7 days. When teams are fighting for their League One survival, it can be a dog fight and this was a test to see if this young side had that fight in them. To say that Robbo’s team answered that question is the understatement of the season as we left Swindon players black and blue and took the fight out of them from the first minute until the 45th minute, when Assal converted a blocked shot past a bemused Lee Camp in the Swindon goal. Camp is the 7th goalkeeper to play this season for Swindon and is Birmingham City’s goalkeeper coach, where Connal Trueman has returned to and he also had a month's emergency loan at Swindon. Quite simply, if this was a boxing match, John Sheridan would have been throwing in the white towel, but on this occasion he waited until after the final whistle to do this in an interview with the local press. The first half performance was probably the best I have seen easily in League One and I can only remember us being this dominant back in League Two when we played Bury back to back in 5-0 wins. 

It's easy for us fans to look at how bad the opposition is when we have these sort of performances, however we never gave this team a chance to look good. We pressed, harassed and beat them up mentally when they became scared to receive possession and moved on as if it was a hot potato. During this first half we hit the crossbar twice through Assal and Pigott, with the Assal chance looking a penalty as he was pushed off balance by Camp. To Assal’s credit this miss didn’t affect him and he picked up his goal a few minutes later. 

Wimbledon fans were in dreamland and it was quite difficult to get our heads around the change 7 days had had with us scoring 12 goals, moved 5 points clear of Northampton Town in the final relegation place and changed our goal difference to the best in the bottom six, which is always  worth an additional point. The biggest change I noticed was we didn’t pass for passing sake and our possession stats went from dominating as we did over the Easter period against Plymouth & Fleetwood, to conceding possession and pressing high, winning the ball quickly along with being more direct and getting into the final third quicker. This isn’t the directness that was seen under Harry Bassett back in the 80’s but that team would come alive in the final third and that is what we did in the last 7 days. Earlier in the season I would regularly moan that we would chuck balls into the box with only Pigott in there and having no chance to get on the end of it. Recently we have got 3-4 players in the box on regular occasions and the Rudoni goal against Ipswich proved this with him getting the space, as Pigott and Palmer occupied the other centre backs.  I have always been a big fan of Luke O’Neil due to his pinpoint accuracy crossing and over the last 3 games he has gained the fitness needed and he is a massive player in this team. When you have a player like O’Neill in your team, forwards and midfielders will happily make runs into the box as they have full confidence that O’Neill will consistently hit the certain areas that they can exploit. Although we added an additional forward into the starting line up, we had 6 different goalscorers over the last 7 days which is something Robbo has wanted from his team.

The 9yrspodast team had Andy Parslow as a special guest on SNL this week and it was fascinating to hear the detail that goes into his restart coaching and he would have been pleased to see Will Nightingale get on the end of set pieces from O’Neil against Ipswich and Swindon. Nightingale has been one of our top performers recently and it's no surprise this has coincided with Robbo being Head Coach after the years they spent together in the academy. 

This season has been like nothing else and I have found myself having lots of compassion for players and managers working in an environment that is far from enjoyable. My compassion extended to John Sheridan during and after the Swindon win as his teams fell apart before his eyes and he effectively resigned on local radio. My concern was the words he used like “He needs a rest” and “this is not good for anyone’s health” which clearly means his mental health has struggled along with many other players and managers. Sheridan became the 44th manager casualty this season and I have been of a strong belief that this, of all seasons is the hardest to measure how good a manager is with all the restrictions and games behind closed doors. This was Sheridan’s fourth club this season after other spells with Chesterfield, Waterford and Wigan. Sheridan lasted 156 days at Swindon Town with a win percentage of 24.2%. Who would be a manager nowadays when you have no time at all really to make an impression and if you don’t start well, the fans are on your back. Let's not kid ourselves to think Wimbledon fans are any different as some fans were starting to question Robbo and if this new style was right to implement when you are in a relegation battle. The relegation battle is hotting up and I am still surprised to see Bristol Rovers in trouble and more than likely to drop into League 2 next season. Their president penned an open letter to the Gasheads yesterday and an interesting point was that they would have needed £1k extra per ST holder to achieve the revenue they had in season 19/20, this season. They currently have their third manager of the season in Joey Barton, which was a strange signing for me and he has already lost 15 out of 23 games and surely must be concerned as previous manager Paul Tisdale got 83 days and lost 11 out of 19 games. 

Whilst we have to look after our players during this pandemic, we also need to look after the people in charge as the job is simply 10 times harder than any other season. It's also worrying that we have Steve Cotterill and Darren Moore unwell with the after effects of Covid and if they were in the Premier League, this would be in the press a lot more than it is. I have a lot of respect for both managers and hope they are resting up and get well soon and let's not forget that we still have a lot of people unwell with non-physical illnesses like Mental Health and the abuse Sheridan was receiving from responses to goal updates, from the Swindon twitter account was horrendous. This is not ok and we all have a duty to look out for each other. 

To end a mad week on the pitch we finally had the ‘Big 6’ show their hand and sign a letter of intent to be a founder club for the new Super League. The response from EPL fans and ‘Big 6’ fans made me chuckle as they were disgusted that the clubs they love and follow would do this to them. Why do they need more money and where is the loyalty they said. The quote from an unnamed source of the ‘Big 6’ indicating these fans are Legacy fans was significant. These clubs don’t need the fans through the gate and even if they did, they know there will be others to replace them. Gate receipts make up to around 10% of the yearly income of the ‘Big 6’ clubs and I have no doubt that these midweek games will be taken around the world and their B teams will play in the Premier League. 

The things that made me chuckle were :-

1. The EPL fans didn’t moan when the EPPP was introduced so the Category 1 teams could pick up young talent from EFL clubs for next to nothing. 
2. The EPL fans didn’t moan when the EPL wanted B teams in the EFL Trophy and used the threat of solidarity payments being held back, as a nudge for them to agree. 
3. The EPL fans didn’t moan when EPL clubs took half a year to provide £50m of funds to League One & Two, however initially made up of £20m as grants and £30m as loans. Later it was switched to £30m in grants but the fact all £50m wasn’t in grants shows the support they have for the pyramid. 
4. The EPL fans didn’t moan when the EPL brought forward the May 2021 solidarity payments which means clubs don’t have any additional funds due. 
5. Finally the EPL fans continue to spend ridiculous money on merchandise and match tickets, not to mention the subscriptions for the TV channels. They didn’t moan then either and this has resulted in these owners knowing they will follow like sheep in anything they do. 

My personal feeling is that unless the players of these clubs stand together and speak out against the ESL, that the league will go ahead as planned. I also believe that the fans will watch these games still as it's their club, although it isn’t is it!

If it doesn’t, the EPL fans need to take their head out from the sand and realise that the clubs they support have shit all over the EFL clubs and they have to fight for a football reset that has been campaigned for. I listened to a radio phone in programmes yesterday - and called myself to LBC at midnight to make my point - with fans saying football clubs are for the fans and part of the community, well prove it and look after everyone. Football has been broken for years and years and the only difference now from the continuous dog eat dog,is that it's finally impacted 14 of the EPL teams and they don’t like it anymore than I did, when Wimbledon kept getting shit on from their clubs.