Cod Almighty | Diary

Énekelj, amikor horgászunk

21 October 2020

Basque Diary writes: Last night Barcelona humbled Hungarian giants Ferencvarosi 5-1 in the Corporate Investors Cup. What does this have to do with Grimsby Town you ask? Elemér Berkessy, of course. Berkessy played for both Barça and his hometown club Ferencvarosi before going on to be the first coach from outside the British Isles to work in the Football League. Why the club didn't make more of this glorious marketing opportunity to sell some shirts to some Hungarian and Spanish hipsters looking for an English lower league team to support is beyond me. Next time then.

Ernesto Valverde, who was recently dismissed from his managerial role at the Camp Nou, was in charge of Athletic Club before his move to Catalunya. Whilst at San Mamés he rotated his goalkeepers Kepa Arrizabalaga and Gorka Iraizoz every game for a season.

With multiple changes brought into last night's starting XI at Blundell Park again, it was a hot topic of conversation between John Tondeur and Gary Croft on commentary. It reminded me of an article in the most recent edition of When Saturday Comes (If you don't buy this magazine, you really should). Spoiler alert now: it basically told the story of Eintract Braunschweig in the German third tier. In order to combat squad fatigue when German football returned to finish the 2019-20 season, after a pause for the pandemic, they rotated two squads: one playing weekend fixtures, the other midweek. The result being they earned promotion.

In the last four matches, Town have operated a similar system. Against Bolton and Leyton Orient the same XI started the game. Last night, 10 of the 11 players who featured against Cheltenham started. Within that cluster, six players that started against Bolton did so at Cheltenham as did six from Orient to Harrogate.

Last night's commentary team speculated that having an unsettled side was contributing to our downfall. I would argue that a week between each game shouldn't be too hard for professionals to manage and that it will interesting to see if we maintain this policy going forward and whether it rewards us with success.

If anything, the early signs are the club have devised a coping mechanism for our hectic schedule, and seven points out of twelve isn't a bad return following an enforced two weeks off.

Prior to recording last night's DN35 podcast, the message from fellow supporters was to focus on the positives from our recent jaunts across the country. On that note, I'll leave today's the diary there. Keep the faith, eh?