Cod Almighty | Diary

When Saturday comes

1 September 2017

Middle-Aged Diary has to confess to being more worried about the direction Grimsby Town is taking than I have been since the days when Neil Woods was thumbing through the racks at Oxfam hoping to find cast-offs suitable for a relegation fight. That is no disrespect to Woods; he remains one of my favourite-ever Town players and I'm delighted he is back at Blundell Park, but in 2009 he was at best the right manager at the wrong time.

Nor is it a slight on Martyn Woolford who last night became the twelfth player to join the Mariners this transfer window. The 31-year-old winger was released by Fleetwood at the end of last season, having appeared for them 13 times. Career highlights, a quick google suggests, include scoring the winning goal for Scunthorpe in the 2009 play-off final, and, as a Castleford-born Manchester United supporter, scoring for Millwall against Leeds. Perhaps the addition of a fourth player in his thirties to the squad will bring some cohesion to our forward play.

With the transfer window now closed, Grimsby have a squad of 29 players. That compares with the 34-man squad Marcus Bignot was criticised for assembling by the end of January. It is a very large squad for a fourth-flight club, albeit one rather short on defenders. Perhaps John Fenty's continued enthusiasm for the current Trophy format is because he thinks we'll be invited to play a B team in it next year. The fear is that, unsure what best to do, we are getting in players 'just in case', favouring quantity over quality. This must be the first time I've spent deadline day hoping not that we'd bring players in but that we'd ship some out.

Squad churn is apparently inevitable when you appoint three different managers in less than a year. Coaching the players you have got is hopelessly out of fashion when Sky trumpets transfer deadline day as the most exciting day of the season. Each manager, we are told, can only be judged when they have brought their own players in.

Strange then that one of our best performances last season came in Bignot's first game, when he could only pick from the squad he inherited rather than the one he built himself. And certainly there is no sign so far this season of the cohesion and purpose Russell Slade brought to Bignot's team last spring. In all our transfer dealing since, it is the lack of a sense of cohesion and purpose that has me worried. It is not clear what the long-term direction of the club is, nor how Slade wants his team to play.

By tomorrow evening, I hope it will all look very different. Jamille Matt might have given us the focal point that allows Siriki Dembele to flourish, and Woolford will have helped turn a collection of reasonably talented individuals into an effective midfield.

While I am airing my fears though, let me make one further point. None of the player- or manager-churn of the last year has been driven by fans. Though his relationship with fans had been frigid for some months, no one was clamouring for Paul Hurst to go. The best guess is he left because he did not feel he was getting the backing he wanted from the boardroom; I suspect a fitness coach would have come in a lot cheaper than all the players we have seen arrive at (and in some cases leave) Blundell Park since.

Then John Fenty explicitly said that the timing of Bignot's sacking was dictated by Slade's availability. Slade was also in line for a return when Woods was appointed instead in 2009, of course. While Fenty believes in the boardroom's collective accountability, he has made it very clear he personally voted for Slade, not Woods, then. Slade's appointment last season by his wedding guest felt like a very personal decision.

Even if Slade succeeds, Fenty and the boardroom can't take much credit. His appointment, five months after Bignot's, represents not just a change of personnel but a handbrake turn in club policy and philosophy, with all the needless expense and dangers we have been exposed to as a result. If the season goes on as it has begun, John Fenty and the boardroom must shoulder the blame.

Tomorrow our opponents are Crewe. We have lost our six last matches against them. In both September and February last season, Alex efficiently and ruthlessly punctured our delusions. They are unbeaten so far this season with two wins and two draws. Sometimes in football the doomiest of portents can lead to the most joyous of outcomes. My money's on our ex-Port Vale contingent grabbing three goals between them in a 4-0 win and Town keeping 11 players on the pitch.

Enjoy the game.