In recent weeks and months I have been somewhat hyper-critical of the team and Phil Brown in particular, but I've missed filling my weekends with mediocre football and Wetherspoons liquid refreshment, so I've got myself a half-seaso and decided to travel yesterday (against my better judgement, as I have been to Adams Park too many times to count, and have never seen us win), but I was both enthused and appalled by some of what I saw yesterday.
I agree with others who have suggested that the officials had a major bearing on the game - the referee was unbelievably inconsistent (a League 2 trait unfortunately), and his assistants guessed most of their efforts. Nowhere was this more evident than when JJoT was booked for nothing more than a slight barge, yet he turned a blind eye to numerous professional fouls from the Wycombe players (btw, I still think we are nowhere near cynical enough to succeed in this harshest of Leagues).
However, we were, yet again, our own worst enemy. We started like the proverbial train, and the goal was a result of some excellent flowing football involving Weston and Payne (my word, this lad is an unbelievable talent), and we could have gone 2 up fairly quickly thereafter, but we looked lethargic and indecisive at the back, and I'm not quite sure what was going on between Prosser and Timlin, but every time WW came forward, the net result was a fairly heated disagreement between the two about positioning - in grimly predictable fashion, Prosser was fully to blame for the first goal (did anybody else notice he seemed to be ducking into his marker every time an aerial ball came toward him?). The second was another unbelievably soft piece of defending, and was appallingly timed from a Southend perspective, but we came out fighting in the second half and were still very much in the game until the sending off, at which point we seemed to lose all discipline across the pitch and I actually think Bentley could have done far better for both goals (ok, the fourth was a decent strike, but he seemed to be poorly positioned like for the preceding free kick).
To me, the almighty collapse shows up PB for what he is - a marquee name (at this level anyway) who isn't really up to the job of picking a first XI and setting them up to do a professional job at fellow promotion contenders - results like this can be very damaging in the course of a season, and with the perennial loss to Burton just round the corner, Christmas could be setting up to be quite depressing at Roots Hall. Doesn't make a difference now, but a manager more in the mould of John Still would probably have been a far better bet, particularly given the budget he worked on at Daggers and the relative riches we have here...
My overriding concern in all of this remains that I personally feel we have a very decent squad (on paper), but we have a manager and a training regime which perhaps isn't working to their strengths.
In spells, we didn't play that badly yesterday, but we don't create enough chances for what is already an ineffective front line, and we aren't defensively disciplined enough to hold on after going a goal up, so where do we go from here?
I love the man, but it pains me to say that I think Corr has had it now - he was slower than an arthritic pensioner yesterday and hardly won a header against a pretty frail looking Wycombe defence.
If we lose Payne in the window, we will be in serious trouble, as Clifford aside we don't really have any driving impetus through the centre of the pitch, and our wingers blow hot and cold.
Strangely, I'm not as disillusioned as I should be following a heavy defeat, and I don't really know why :unsure:
