Cod Almighty | Diary

Same old rat race, life in the same old cage

4 April 2024

There is only one word worth writing to describe your Guest Diarists inner psyche this damp mild morning. Apprehension. Make that two words - gnawing apprehension. A home game upcoming against a mid-table team which loses regularly and are far enough off the playoff and relegation zones to be able to stop caring for the rest of the season. A game that suddenly looks like a must win for our club. And none of us, if we are honest, can be confidently expecting us to beat them. What will be the worst for me is if we score first. That is always a harbinger of doom. The stats make us a laughing stock - people are creating league tables to show us as half time playoff contenders whilst the real table show us circling the drain, not lazily, but swirling ever closer to the plug hole. This is not a drill, we need someone to haul us out quick. We are in the quicksand above our knees.

Nothing the club has tried, on the pitch, has worked. The windfall from the once in three generations cup run was invested where the data pointed. The data itself costs quite a lot too. It didn't improve the team and our loyal manager was sacked - the Chairman said the underlying data showed as not too bad but he had to try something 'to change our luck'. Does the data algorithm have a luck quotient?

So we leapt off the Hurstian horse on to the Artell pony in mid-season and we have got pretty wet in the process. The new broom, fresh from a long deep-thinking sabbatical, tried his new moves which had been so incisive and successful in his minds eye. We failed to entertain and conceded bucket loads. Back to the drawing board, having gone down a very big snake to a new start point half a dozen points from safety. What next?

Well we signed a new full back having discarded Efete. And promptly switched to 5-3-2 which would have really suited Michee (he don't care he is tearing up a storm in Scotland). We signed a centre half called Doug (a good honest defendery name) with a really good long throw. But we had discarded Luke Waterfall who was really good at winning the first ball from a long throw and made and scored vital set piece goals. He was given the boot because he was nervous playing out from the back. Oh, we stopped playing out from the back you say? He was an inspirational leader too? Who does all that now? Well Tharme and Waterfall partnered together could have saved us. Strong in the air, good organisers, 100% committed and troublesome at attacking set pieces. We won countless free kicks and throw-ins in the attacking third last Saturday and never looked like scoring once did we?

And that segues in to set pieces. Town have not been on Sky this season, the revolution was not televised - thank goodness. The analysis would have been mortifying. Throughout both Artell mark one and Artell mark two we have had to endure a myriad of innovative free kick and corner routines. None of which ever work - the players look deeply unhappy trying them, the pundits and commentators cringe and the fans are frustrated.

Finally, the 3 body problem. Much more important than dystopian sci-fi is Town trying to create an effective cohesive midfield. The club signed Hunt on a long deal but he never got a five match run in the side. They sold Conteh, but, to be fair, he was never part of the future. The combination differs every week, nothing has settled, or even been given much of a chance to. Players look good one minute, terrible the next. Gaps open up in the centre of the park with alarming regularity. Players are knackered after an hour. Midfield is a bloody chaotic mess, frankly.

The data says we should be winning but the players and the fans know otherwise. We need a new, tested algorithm quick. It may be too late already this season unless the team dig in deep and just refuse to lose. If we solve these other problems the attack will sort itself. We have goal scoring players but we need to make better goal scoring opportunities for them. 

Mr Artell is walking Spanish down the hall. Town are not in danger of becoming a yo-yo club but a bungee club. Every drop is followed by a weaker bounce back. The only thing we fans can do for the rest of the season is to try to roar the team to safety and buy us some breathing space to reassess. Togetherness is the only weapon we possess - let's try to pass it on to the players. See yer.