I've no doubt it's going to get pretty ugly on here. We'll have the tedious 'clappers/slashers' insults traded and - after it's all died down - nothing will disguise the obvious truth. We're a truly awful team, with no guts or passion, grit, skill or the physical power to even be considered a promotion challenging team.
Make no mistake, last night was
not 'a bad day at the office' - that's just a convenient phrase to hide a deep malaise that has been allowed to settle over the club for a number of years. It's not as if we weren't forewarned. Reports from Chesterfield last Saturday said that Colchester are poor in defence but good in attack and hit the woodwork twice. That's exactly how last night panned out - including hitting the woodwork twice. But United are poor in defence
and attack (with a totally anonymous midfield). For large patches of last nights game, the bottom club threatened to truly humiliate us. Oh sure, as against Bury, we briefly threatened to fight back but, once again, blew a number of simple chances. But this is way below what a so-called promotion-challenging team playing the bottom team at home should be doing
over ninety minutes. It wasn't a 'fightback' worthy of the name. More a 'twitching of the corpse' or a 'dead cat bounce'. When the Colchester second went in, United's body language was a collective 'FFS!' and I feared the worst. It was a truly chilling result and performance.
If you were in the directors' box preparing reports or looking for talent (Rob Jones was there looking for signs for the upcoming game v. Donnie and must be rubbing his hands) ask yourself, who, of the United team, would you be chasing? Absolutely not a single one of them. One or two briefly showed signs of rising above the surrounding dross, but quickly sank back to mediocrity.
So the calls for Adkins head will inevitably arise and we'll have the usual cries of 'supporter impatience' etc. Me? I'm no longer bothered. That doesn't mean I given up on the Blades. Like most people who sit around me - including several octogenarians on crutches - it's in my blood. Get rid of NA and another poor manager will replace him. How do I know this? It's because the vast majority of managers
are poor. That's why 64 managers in the top four divisions got the chop last season - it's a profession where most of them steal a wage and are rewarded for failure with a big pay-off, only to resurface at another club. And repeat. Like all of us, I truly want NA to succeed - as we all did with Clough - because, naturally if they
do succeed, United succeed. So I'll try and find reasons for the situation we find ourselves in:
- It's five years since NA managed in the third tier. In that time, the levels of fitness and quality have risen sharply. It's packed with hard, young professionals determined to make their way in the game. There are no 'pub teams' (although United last night was the nearest I've seen to one in a long time). Ditto the managers. Flitcroft (Bury) has got it right. Maybe 'old school' managers like NA have lost that fire and hunger? After all, they're all millionaires through very good salaries and pay-offs.
- Looking at the dross that NA has inherited, it'll take time to clear them out. But who will want him?
- And it's highly possible that we're at the limit of FFP rules and find it hard, if not impossible, to bring anyone in before shifting the aforementioned dross. I'll believe Dan Burn when I see it - it's dragging on a la COG - and will have alerted bigger, better clubs.
So that's my thoughts. I've not named players' names as they're all equally culpable. The board, obviously, must shoulder blame for consistently selling anybody with any spark of talent (and not providing funds for
adequate replacements) and I've tried to address Nigel Adkins with equanimity. Anybody else to blame? Oh
yes!
Once again, the only people who should be left out of any criticism are the quite magnificent fans. That's 38,000 (
thirty eight fucking thousand!) who've attended in four days. Last nights 17k+ was incredible including, as it did, around 120 Colchester fans. Say it again. Over seventeen thousand fans, on a Tuesday night, for a game against the bottom clubs, where there were far more
stewards that away fans. Unbelievable.
The crowd did
not 'boo every misplaced pass/slight mistake'. Sure, there was a certain nervousness after the first ten minutes when it became obvious who were more likely to score, there
were boos at half-time (never understood this) but that wasn't some Machiavellian plot to undermine the team. Just pent-up frustration at yet another 'flatter to deceive' start to the season. Fans are entitled to voice their displeasure when the people they've paid to watch obviously aren't up to the job or simply don't give a toss - it would happen at any concert. (and Flitcroft wouldn't have been playing 'mind games' would he? Surely not!)
So leave the fans out of this. They're all we've got.
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