I was giddy after watching his youtube highlights. At last, a fearsome ball winner who will take it ever time, hard but fair and roll it off to the skilful midfielders (ditto Traore, who almost earned the nickname Illiman who? on the strengths of his three minutes of edited trickery on what looked like non-league stadia and the Goodwin Sports pitches). I think the footage we didn't see would've probably been better preparation for what to expect.
That said, Sousa looked ok in the early games. A couple of very fierce long range shots and some decent tackles. Seeing him beside Norwood, reminds me of one of those typical old workplace scenarios. New bloke comes in, looks useful and the old firms' stalwart, feeling a bit pushed out, starts performing better. Pitched together, the new guy lollops about with some deference and the old bloke does the noticeable work, seemingly outshining the new boy but with no better results. I'm a hella sentimental type of guy but it took Norwood until the 95th minute to play one of his trademark 'killer passes'. Maybe, give Sousa the central role and bench Norwood, see if he performs better? It's easier to assume he's the problem because we don't know if Sousa is better but we learned last season, Norwood's better days had definitely passed. Just a thought.
As for a couple of other worthy mentions, Anel looked as puddled as he has all season, very strangely a ghost of himself from last season and Bogle's performances seem to vary from impressive to woeful from one week to another. Is Trusty any better than a fit Egan? I'd say probably not. Hamer similarly hasn't found a consistent level, so selling Berge and buying him hasn't been the masterstroke a lot of us expected, it certainly hasn't let us in a better position and, on last seasons showing if anyone had suggested selling Berge and buying Hamer, a lot of people would've been sold on it.
I really don't know what our next move is. Part of me wants the whole managerial team sacked and damn the damage to the princes' finances. I can't honestly suggest a manager who I could confidently say would turn it around if we did sack Heckingbottom. I'm just sick of feeling so bereft and despairing after every match. The first few games it was 'cruelly defeated at the death', even the whacko result against Newcastle felt like one of those freak results where every shot goes in, and even then, two of the first half goals came from very poor refereeing decisions. It's never been easy being a Blade, we've had some real ups and downs in my lifetime. This just feels like the latter part of the Ken Furphy era and we all know the depths we eventually plummeted to after that.
UTB