We have taken their Freedman, lets hope we’ve taken their spirit.
Good afternoon everyone. I was away this weekend, and I didn`t attend the Middlesborough game. I didn`t keep track of the match, and all I`ve seen of it was the twenty seconds that the BBC broadcast late on Saturday night. So whilst I am unable to tell you more than that Lee scored for us, and Scott McDonald scored twice for Boro, I can discuss the implications of the result and the position it leaves the club in as we begin the Dougie Freedman era.
Scouring through Twitterland for the little pockets of Wanderers, it appears that the jubilation felt after last week`s home win has been replaced by a feeling of same old, same old. Just seven days after the buzz of beating Bristol City after being two down, we have been brought back down to Earth, through the ground and dragged towards Hell. We are two games without a win.
Who knows if the announcement of Freedman had an effect of the stewardship of Jimmy, Sammy and Julian throughout the last two games. I would think it to be quite demoralising to be told that the job you had finally got the chance to take was in fact not going to be yours, and then to be told you had to keep doing it for another week. Could this have had a destabilising effect on the coaching staff; or were the players just back to be being plain old rubbish?
Dougie Freedman takes over the reins with the club sitting 18th in the Championship. We are over twice as close to the relegation zone as we are to the playoff places, our only realistic aim for the season. We can finish in the top six, and I`m confident of that, but have absolutely no chance of getting an automatic promotion spot. I say this because I`m afraid that there is a small number of deluded people around us who think that this could still happen. Just a small number, but these are the ones who start the booing at the ground the moment anything slightly bad happens, and drag the atmosphere at the Reebok down with them. We need to forget these fools and truly get behind our new manager.
He may not have the statistics, the experience, reputation or any previous link with the club that many (not me) thought was relevant in picking a new coach. He wasn`t my first choice, or even my fifth. But he has the passion and the hunger, and what looks like the grit, to survive and flourish in football management. People have compared him already to Coyle, but Freedman appears to be able to turn on a dark side that a ping pong table never really had.
This is more of a battle cry then an article. I want us to all get behind the man. I want us to chant his name loudly on Saturday as we rip through Cardiff and mark our return to the second tier. It starts now. This is still our promotion season. DOUGIE FREEDMAN`S SUPER WHITE ARMY!!!!!!!!!!