Coulda. Shoulda. Woulda. Can’ta. Scora. Goala.
Afternoon all. Here I am, back on the bridge, after the Easter Weekend. A big thanks to Al for stepping in and doing the match report.
I didn’t get to see or hear a great deal of the Newcastle game as myself and Mrs X were off to Liverpool to have another go at her xxth birthday meal, which was aborted last month for one reason and another. I know that they have the radio and TV in Liverpool, but there are some sacrificies you have to make when your wife passes a milestone birthday. By all accounts we could and should have won it but our lack of a real goalscorer made that harder than it should have been before a wonder goal put paid to any chance of a point. As it was, we remain sixteenth as the Dingles couldn’t beat a Liverpool team on their uppers with a third choice keeper in net and down to ten men. So at least we can all point and laugh at them. Wigan are playing Stretford tonight and Wolves have The Arse, so even if QPR beat Swansea, we should still remain above the relegation zone, but funnier things have happened this season. Funny peculiar, not funny ha ha.
Naturally, the club have come out in force since the game, saying that all we need is goals and everything will fall into place. Goals, you will find, are a pretty intrinsic part of the game so I would have thought it was bleeding obvious that was missing on Saturday. We can do it, as we have scored three or more on five occassions this season.
However, you worry when you hear the manager say this:
‘I would be more worried if we were not creating chances, because then you wouldn`t have any opportunity to score. We are creating good chances, gilt-edged ones, so I have no worry on that score that it will eventually go for us.’
Or the captain say this:
‘We created a few fantastic chances, and if we`d taken one of them it would have given us that boost.’
Or Grétar say this:
‘We put about twenty crosses into the box and we need to finish them to be able to win games.’
This is all very well, but our leading scorer is on the bench and gives the general impression that he could give less than a toss when he comes on and our second leading scorers are a player who has difficulty getting into the box for the crosses and one of the players doing the crossing. You don’t win games on the amount of chances you create. You win them on the goals that you score. There is no guarantee that if we create chances against Swansea next weekend, the goals will flow. The forward line, as far as I can see, are not necessarily up to it.
This does not mean I want the manager to leave and I did notice that the Coyle Out brigade came out in force on Monday. Whilst you can understand the frustration some will feel that we had Newcastle over a barrel before capitulating, Tim Krul pulled off a couple of good saves and we were desperately unlucky a couple more times. Having witnessed first hand the snoozeathon against Fulham on Saturday, at least the players appeared to have gone back to giving a damn on Monday. This may not be enough to save us, as you could have eleven Paul Robinsons and still get relegated, but there was some passion back. I still disagree with playing SKD up front, especially alone, but at this point of the season I’d take anyone up front as long as they can score a goal and he has scored more than most. However, if we are relying on a thirty five year old who cannot last a full game then we really are up the creek.
I do disagree, as I have always done, with the Coyle out brigade. He may not be the best manager around but his place at the club is assured into next season, wherever we are in the football pyramid. Constructive criticism is one thing but there seems to be little factual basis for the arguments of the nay sayers and jumping on his back again isn’t going to do anyone any good. It is easy to say that we have been unlucky this season (the fixture list, the injuries, the heart problems) but this can be mirrored against the poor decision making. However, it could be argued that the poor decision making his been forced upon him due to the luck we have been handed. Don’t get me wrong, the continual selection of Zat Knight and Darren Pratley (regardless of how better he is playing) will leave me scratching my head long into the summer whether we stay up or not. But at times he has been forced to play square pegs in round holes. I’m not the only one who feels that, if we survive, with the remergence of Holden and LCY (you can hear the ‘like two new signings’ press conference already) and some removal of the dead wood, we shouldn’t have a problem next season.
Having said that, we said that at the beginning of this season.
Speaking of dead wood, we would like to wish Paul Robinson all the best at Leeds United, as his loan deal has been extended to the end of the season. So it will be Championship fans who will be treated to some quality snarling and finger pointing and blaming everyone else but himself. Say what you like about Robbo, and please be my guest, but you could never question is honesty and commitment, even if it was regularly misplaced. He is out of contract at the end of the season, so we will have seen the last of him at T’Reebok. Not even OC would make the mistake of doing another Robbie Blake and offering Robbo a contract. Surely?
Right, the lunch hour endeth. I’ll be off to do what I do and you go back to what you were doing. There will be a fantasy update tomorrow. And a thanks to Tom Hooper for coming up with the Gerald Cid headline. Proving I cannot do it all by myself.
Follow your writer, Mr X, on Twitter @QuentinX. There’s a free doughnut in it for you. (*)
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