You may feel quite depressed today, so I’ll spare the morbidity any further. Firstly – Ram Shaggers 4 Ram Raiders 0. This is exactly what we DIDN’T need. We actually played very well the first half, it was only that last half an hour that we totally lost it, and the old problems with individual errors again (Sully for the first goal, certainly) letting us down. You can tell from the brevity of this report that it’s a pretty painful subject, so I’ll let Drillo sum it up by saying that the second half showed us up as “relegation material”.
Second rumour, and perhaps more damaging (maybe) is the fact that George Graham has put in a £7m bid for JH, and it looks very certain that it’ll go through. Now, I wanted to hear this news like a hole in the head – the utterly sad thing is, I’m not in the least bit surprised. Bearing in mind we have spend a LOT on transfers this last year or so, we are, quite simply, in a position where we do have to sell. And be honest, which player was the most likely to get dough in? One John Hartson.
The worst thing about this news is the timing, though in defence of WFC it was announced by George Graham. It’s hardly going to win R&G any popularity contests, though it may make some people wonder how long this deal has been done (and it makes others wonder if SH was being somewhat sneaky when he sold up when he did. Hmm…..). Whatever, this is not a good day to be a Womble.
So now what? Firstly, we have to examine our team’s capitulation. I can sum our predicament up in one sentence – “the team that lost 4-0 to Derby is the same team that drew 2-2 with Manchester United”. And this, I think is the root of the problem : Drillo and the Norges will get a lot of the blame for this one, even some of the pro-Drillo brigade are beginning to doubt him. But the problem is blindingly obvious : why do the players feel the need to let themselves down so often?
We know they can do so much better, fucking hell this is more or less the same bunch of players that have beaten Leeds, Sunderland, Newk, drawn at Arsenil and Man U, etc etc etc. We will invariably hear “Drillo/R&G out”, but when you consider that recently, we’ve changed managers, owners, quite a bit of the playing staff etc etc and we’re STILL having absolute mares from time to time, it makes you wonder exactly where the problem is.
Too many of our players only seem interested in picking up their wages at the end of the week, it matters not if we go down, because their agents will get them a nice little move (or invoke a convenient clause in their contracts) so they can still leech of other Premiership clubs. Unfortunately, any moves to change this will be seen as more “tampering” and it’ll never happen.
All this leaves us with one thought – relegation. Now, I still genuinely believe we won’t go down, yet I’m having second thoughts now. Perhaps most worrying of all, I’m not sure if I’m really bothered if we go down. If anything, I’d be more glad if it did happen. Remember, the club’s long term plan is Premiership survival – nothing else – and take that away and many people in WFC will have a panic attack. Then, settling for mid-to-lower mediocrity will not be enough, we will actually need to start making some positive moves for once.
Can you see what I’m getting at?
And before you say “I can’t believe you’re looking at relegation as a good thing”, well, I’m not really. I don’t want to see us go down – the thought of certain people dancing over our Premiership carcass would make me hurl – but you have to admit that the current outlook at WFC will push us down anyway. It’s been the outlook for many a year, and now we’re finding out that the chickens are painfully coming home to roost. Yes, attendances will probably slump – but then, we’d merely be getting shot of away fans and muppets, and come on, you’d want rid of them too. Yeah, I’m pissed off, shoot me….