Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Friday 2 September 2011
2 September 2011
"I will always fight the corner for our players if I feel they have given their all. This was the case and I felt it unfair to have abuse and foul language targeted at them, Paul and myself." This quote amid much other musing, gnashing and wailing comes from a long rambling, unedited statement written by the shouty half of the Grimsby management partnership. Your Guest Diarist, who believes that the whole world is, quite rapidly actually, turning in to one over-emotional soap opera, had to smirk at that one. This from a manager who is ubiquitous for public sweary dressing downs of everybody from senior players to teenage linesmen. Cursing, complaining and shouting are Shouty's default settings.
Towards the end of his thousand words Shouty says "I know some out there will not like me but all I ask is that you get behind the boys when they put in a shift." Both the statement and the request are correct and to be applauded.
Look, let me level with you, Shouty's not my kind of guy. He blew in to Town full of bluster and arrogance citing win percentages and advocating total shake-up. Under their collective stewardship the management pair claimed a team would emerge: a team of winners whose heads would never go down. They'd got teams promoted twice before, failure to do so again was a laughable concept - Shouty and Shorty had a system that worked. Yeah right, they'd never had to operate under the Fenty curse before though.
A few months in Shouty's reputation for extreme temper tantrums has been publicly justified in the most embarrassing of ways and he appears to me to be a little out of his depth: the risky cock-eyed (lob-sided as the Telegraph had it) formation that failed so spectacularly and the panic signing of Elding, after losing Connell, being good pieces of evidence for the latter. The big thing the pair pushed was their motivational ability with a squad but they chickened out of evidencing that by dumping almost all of the players who'd committed the cardinal sin of staying about four points off the play-offs all season. The nearly men of Woodses tenure were written off without a second thought it would seem.
And this season? Well just before the league games started I noted in this Diary that Shouty had said 'judge us after ten games'. So I'll honour that request. I'm right behind you both chaps, just like Chairman Fenty. We'll see in about three weeks then.
With Garner, Ridley and Silk all out for the medium term the back four almost picks itself tomorrow with a debut for new left back Mr Green allowing Bradley Wood to revert to right back. Then any two from Kempson, Pearson and I'Anson. Forest Green of course have Mr Styche, a striker who is on scoring form this season and also netted in both matches against Town last. FGR have only lost once so far and have had the sort of start our managers wanted, and our fans expected (demanded in some cases). Their squad is 19 strong plus a loan player by the way, and has some quality. So the 'little' tag applies more to where they are based than the club these days thanks to the cash, vibrancy and enthusiasm injected by their 'green and veggie Branson' chairman Dale Vince.
The managers don't like us fans talking about the past - they are sick of hearing about how we used to be a lot better than we are now. With a win ratio of under nineteen per cent so far, oh sorry there's me being negative again, shut up. But I'm not alone - Mardy Diary came up with this one after perusing the league tables in yesterday's diary: "What's even more hilarious about that diary picture showing the two league tables is that in that ten years, Wimbledon (mid-table at that moment in 2001) had their club stolen, built a new one from scratch, started at the bottom of the pyramid and have been promoted past us." But the Wombles have a competent board of directors who have developed and worked to a proper strategy and an equally proper hard-core of loyal fans who turn up every week to support their club through, thick and thin. Just the two basic differences between us and Wimbledon then.
A win tomorrow is a big ask, to be fair a point would be a decent result. All the fans beg for is that the managers don't gamble with the formation and pick a balanced team with equal emphasis on cover for all parts of the pitch: a team with an eye for counter-attack but with due regard for defensive cover. At least Town have started making chances - keep doing that and goals will come. But the defence must be tighter: this habit of making half a dozen good chances but being punished by a couple of defensive howlers has just got to stop. Let's get back to basics and try to start sneaking 1-0 wins eh? See yer.