Cod Almighty | Diary

But he cupped his ear!

20 December 2019

Grimsby haven’t beaten Scunthorpe at home in a league game since 17 April 1990. But then, the two sides have only been in the same league once since then, so past records give us nothing to go on. Broadly speaking, though, Town have had the upper hand over the years.

Talking of hands, after an appalling start to this season when Scunthorpe looked like genuine relegation contenders, Paul Hurst’s has been rising gradually towards cupping his ear as the Iron have found some excellent form. Had they not let a two-goal lead slip at home to Colchester last week, they would have been coming into this game on the back of six straight wins in all competitions.

You could argue that the turning point for them was when they came to Blundell Park in that horrible B-sides tournament and won 2-1. Since then, they’ve lost just three of 15 matches in the league.

It just seems to be Town’s luck at the moment that they’re coming up against a mid-table side in promotion form. It’s fair to say that Anthony Limbrick hasn’t had it easy since taking caretaker charge but, you know, when you slip to 20th in the league and can’t score for toffee, every future fixture begins to look more difficult than it should be.

What worries me most about tomorrow’s fixture, apart from the total lack of goals, is our total lack of genuine width because, as Limbrick pointed out in his pre-match press conference, “the two wide players, Abo Eisa and Alex Gilliead, are obviously decent for them”.

Max Wright apart, we don’t have any genuine width in our squad of 20 players you’d consider good enough for the first team. Your West Yorkshire Diary doesn’t deny that his finger has slipped from the football pulse in recent years but I just don’t understand how the front three are meant to work in this 4-3-3 system.

I mean, are we playing three strikers, or one? Players like Green, Wright, Rose, Vernam and Ogbu might be happy to play that far forward but I’m sure that if you asked them what their preferred position would be, Green would say central, Wright would say right wing, Rose would say central (on the shoulder of the last defender), Ogbu ‘in the hole’ behind the striker(s) and Vernam… I’m just not sure.

I don’t think any of us question the quality of our squad this season — it’s certainly not one that should be 20th — but, honestly, it’s an absolute mess. It seems we're locked into this 4-3-3 nightmare and we’re wasting players’ talents asking them to ‘do a job’ in roles they’re just not suited to.

We are eight games without a win in the league, and we’ve only scored one goal in that time. We’ve lost our manager, our top scorer is out injured, and we’re up against the division’s form side.

And fans complained that it was negative under Hurst.

Since he left for Shrewsbury we’ve had a fruit loop in charge, and a football dinosaur take us to the brink of non-League. Even a coach qualified up to the eyeballs couldn’t turn this tide of nonsense around. Truly, and honestly, what Hurst did while at Blundell Park — given the Fenty factor, the negative nellies and keyboard warriors — is more impressive than a large proportion of our fan base are prepared to give him credit for.

Because what we’ve been served since has been, let’s be honest, atrocious. We’ve scored 147 goals in 143 games since Shorty left, and when you add the cup competitions into the equation it’s 168 goals in 165 games. We’ve barely been scraping a goal a game for more than three years.

Given the lack of goals, the lack of entertainment, the lack of consistency in players or managers and the complete lack of any vision from the board, we are exactly where we deserve to be. As I mentioned in last Friday’s diary, I’m not putting a penny more into this club unless there’s a significant and positive change in the way it’s run.

You’re free to make your own choices and many of you will be making efforts to attend the match tomorrow. If you’re going, I hope you’re entertained, and that you see plenty of goals, and that Town win the match. That would be nice.

But in the grand scheme of things, it won’t change anything.