Cod Almighty | Diary

We might not have wanted to start from here, but we might still get where we want to be

10 October 2017

How strange that after a quarter of the season has been completed, after so many competing claims and complaints, Town should be so mid-table. The league table is finally worth studying and we are 13th, much closer to the play-off places than the relegation zone and, thanks to the poor starts by Chesterfield, Forest Green and Port Vale, closer also to the promotion places.

Maybe in football it is the half-full or half-empty vessel which makes most noise. Half full? The statistics are a rising curve: six points from our first six games, then 11 from our next six. But football isn't played on a spreadsheet, so you will also want to point to our winning goal last Saturday.

First, there is the patience in possession. No hasty return of a half-clearance back into the penalty area, but the confidence to build a new chance rather than try to recreate the old one. Then there is the movement. Not just Siriki Dembele gliding towards the penalty spot but someone - Ben Davies I guess - motoring down the wing, drawing the eye. I expected the ball to go his way, and no doubt one or two Vale defenders did as well. When it came to the pass Luke Summerfield had choices, and he chose and executed well.

Finally, there is Dembele. If you are of Middle-Aged Diary's vintage, you may remember Nipper Lawrence, a scruffy, short, spindly-legged orphan from the comic Scorcher. The resemblance to Dembele applies only to his ability; both can wriggle through the smallest of gaps and come away with the ball still at their feet. And when he finds the ball at his feet a yard from an open goal and on the point of scoring his first goal, it is a memory neither he or we will forget.

It may have been Peter Taylor who said that if you have one player with peculiar talent then you can organise the rest of the team and still have a chance. We have our weaknesses - the half-empty side could also find evidence from last Saturday. But we have Dembele and a bit more again. Early days still, but we have a chance.