I drove past SISU Stadium this morning and fondly remembered Billy scoring the winner after the dozen or so in the Cov crowd had been playing silly buggers. How I enjoyed that goal.
Given changes in the side recently, Billy has not had the same service. It is inevitable therefore that he won't score, nor is likely to as much, the chances are not there. Wilder has to pick the strikers most likely to score. The supporting evidence is that he has scored 8 goals this season, hardly past it.
Your post opens up several lines of thought that have emerged during our recent slump. The primary one is to do with the instant response that comes from a poor performance or losing points. You expect comments to be in the moment, but what they also reveal is the opening of old wounds, or at least the perception of wounds or 'wrongs' that have left an indelible mark.
Like many sports or passions, emotions often run high, and as a consequence comments are made that have no filter, they are just pure and filled with lopsided discontent.
After the derby game, the degree of armchair managers who were forthcoming and who knew all the answers to our predicament was predictable. As these things tend to be, there was a simplistic theme throughout, no grey areas that needed to be considered, just follow game-plan A, B, or C and everything would be perfect. Simple this management lark, a surprise that it's taken so long to find a manager as good as Wilder. But there's the rub, I attempted to add a degree of balance and I was accused of being bipolar, someone who couldn't tolerate criticism of Wilder etc, etc, which, if anyone has read my posts, would know that I'm far from what you'd call a 'follower', that has all the ramifications of belonging to a cult. As I attempt on all matters, adopting a thoughtful and considered appreciation of most things seems to be the most helpful and beneficial approach I can think of. Yet one poster in particular, well known on these pages, considered the use of a medical condition to use as a slight to attack my comments. I can only assume that said poster had no idea that I consider Wilder human, and thus sometimes capable of mistakes. Fortunately Wilder's ratio of mistakes to successes is weighed towards the positive end of the spectrum. I also think that the club and Wilder are a good fit for one another, not something you can say about recent incumbents in the managerial post. Knee-jerk criticism is the easiest pursuit in the world, it rolls off the keyboard easily, it doesn't afford a careful approach, all it does is to lance a critical boil without knowing whether the solution offered might become septic as it unravels. Wilder will come through this slump, be under no illusion about that. The fact that we dropped points against our rivals is regrettable but not the end of the world.
I've veered away from the Billy debate, so apologies. I think Sharp has a role to play, and that if his opportunity comes then Bill will have to show the qualities that inform Wilder he should stay in the team. These types of questions are predictable and constant, so nothing new, just the same necessary questions that managers are always having to consider.
