Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 10 December 2010

10 December 2010

After a long and presumably careful look at Dean Sinclair's knee, Town have signed him on a short contract to the end of the season. Manager Woods is happy that Sinclair's dodgy knee stood up to the rigours of a run on the beach and some intensive five-a-side indoors and declared the returnee in contention for a central midfield place. In fact he claims that he has no 'squad' players at all now and that everyone - even the young players are jostling to be picked.

Your Guest Diarist, as ever, looks at that assertion in several different lights. No dead wood, no passengers now that Lewis Gobern has left to hone his, errrm, talent elsewhere (no doubt he can fill his time until some desperate club takes him by whittling sticks with a sharp knife). Or a gaggle of sub-par little-hopers and battling-on crocks? You look at the squad on paper and you get a little surge of optimism. You see them on the pitch and you are engulfed in hopeless despair.

Maybe tomorrow (if the thaw allows it - pitch inspection Friday afternoon, folks) is the time for Woods to get brave and pick his best team. If you digest all the snippets he's mentioned this season, that would have Peacock in midfield and Ademeno and Connell up front. Woods must be desperately disappointed that Gobern's immaturity and behavioural problems let him down - the manager's eyes lit up in pre-season when talking about the lad's pace. But now that he has Sinclair, and Peacock is confident about his physical condition again, maybe he can try something completely different in the middle by playing them together. And a home cup-tie against lower-tier opponents is an ideal time, in my opinion.

The shadow of Gobern's impending official exit did not hang over the pre-match interview - the manager and the lugubrious-as-ever Dale chose not to even mention it. But the shadows were there - principally perhaps because the paid-for preview was filmed in the gloom of the indoor sports centre where Town have been training all week. Woods reported that Eagle(s) has a precautionary-tight-hamstring dropped-out-of-training thing. And that Watt is running for England but it hurts when he kicks a football. Otherwise he has a full squad to choose from. The rest of the five minutes is just a mangled rehash of all the themes endlessly rehearsed in earlier interviews.

By the manager's own logic the large number of catch-up games to be played over the next couple of months should see the team start to assert itself in the division. A big, equally-talented squad where everyone is good enough to play in any game should mean that Town start to grind down their opponents, most of whom lack equal playing resources and facilities. Except, of course, that this is Grimsby Town we are talking about. And there is no logic, no winning mojo in sight. But at least we still sort of foolishly hope don't we? Don't we? See yer.