Cod Almighty | Diary

The cabbages are coming now

6 November 2023

Miss Guest Diary writes: Yesterday's match at Slough was one of those games which it would be "unthinkable" for Town to lose. You know, like the defeat to Chasetown in the FA Trophy or going down 5-0 at Braintree back in 2011. Except now many people – myself included – were thinking the unthinkable. It didn't happen, but it so easily could have.

I chose to stay at home and, absolutely hating to watch or listen to a Town game when I'm not there, I would normally have followed the action on Twitter. Foraying onto the #gtfc hashtag after about 15 minutes, the first post I saw said simply "Embarrassing". I beat a hasty retreat and thereafter confined myself to news from the CA WhatsApp group. Several of my fellow CA-ers seemed to be watching via streams on betting websites and I give you a random selection of their comments.

“Not sure it was even a free kick. And someone in the wall didn’t jump.”
“Think Pearson and Davies are sending a clear message that they’re not interested in the top job”
“What is the point of Andrews?”
“Good corner routine early doors, we need more of that.”
“It’s all crap. I’ve seen lethargic snails with a greater sense of urgency.”
“They are simply scared of everything. Even themselves.”
“We get a young coach in with this lot and we’ll get relegated.”
“Who’d have thought a simple ball straight into the box would lead to a goal!?”
“Didn’t think we were terrible. We deserved more from the second half.”
“We created so little against a dire team. Don’t mistake mild competence for playing well.”

As you can tell, the mood at CA Towers is not optimistic. Even my usual chirpy "plenty of time, we're only a third of the way through the season" is starting to sound a little desperate. The final comment from the only CA team member who ventured to the game was "got away with it". That also seemed to be the consensus among Town fans when I finally ventured onto Twitter late last night. It will be interesting to see how many turn up at Blundell Park for the replay next week.

Ben Davies's post-match interview seemed like an honest assessment of the game. He described it as an "awkward tie" and mentioned the difficulty of playing on the artificial surface a couple of times. But he acknowledged that Slough competed better – especially in the first half – that Town did "nowhere near enough" and that "performances have to be better as a whole".

What has been apparent of late is that Town currently have no-one on the pitch to give heart to the team – no McAtee-type figure to inspire and unite. Without that, they just seem like a bunch of blokes with some skills but no cohesion. Maybe Shaun Pearson should forget about managing and dust off his boots – he used to be pretty good at inspiring the players around him.

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