Cod Almighty | Diary

Grimsby, Penn.

12 November 2020

Trentside Diary writes: Welcome to today's diary from Punxsutawney. Nothing much has changed, we are reliving the same week over and over again with little chance of anything better than we've had in the last 16+ years. Yes, we've had ups (well one really) and downs (too many to mention) but there's been little to really to make your pulse race. We're firmly in the bottom half of the table and with no game this weekend we could slip further down but are we seriously worried? Looking at social media most Town fans would be happy to see out this season with a club still standing, and focus on 2021-22. Are we happy to succumb to mediocrity again?

Ian Holloway isn't. Our manager has been telling the Grimsby Telegraph that players need to "change their attitude" to get the season back on track. He says "Ill take the good, I'll weed out the bad, and then we'll go again and that's all that you can do." Holloway is an extremely experienced manager and he admits to losing patience.

I have no idea what the players' attitude is, day-to-day in training, but it isn't yet gelling on the pitch. There are glimmers that suggest there could be good stuff to come, if only we could get some consistency. But Holloway has take as much responsibility as those players for our results. We don't have someone whose role it is to source players like many top flight clubs so presumably Ollie has been involved in every signing we have made since he arrived, whether on loan or permanently. At the moment we have 36 players on the books including a couple of youngsters and 4 out on loan elsewhere; 22 of them have signed contracts since Holloway has been in charge so he has to bear the responsibility, particularly as he was signing people up in a buyers' market. One of the big positives Ollie brought with him was his contacts and pulling power to bring in players. Has it happened? I think the jury is out but the players do seem to be out of their depth in quite a few matches.

Do I want a change of manager? No of course not. This will be a weird season and we just have to limp along to the end of it but that's no excuse for having a team so far out of contention. We need to keep fans engaged and should be pushing as hard as we can so that we have solid foundations for next season.

We'd hoped for something different this season but it looks like we could well be living through Groundhog Day.

UTM! Stay Safe!