When we went to Rotherham a few weeks ago, I felt quite bitter towards them.
Sadly, as I came home yesterday, I was forced to face up to things at Sincil Bank. It’s easy when ‘he’ is involved to lose sight of the bigger picture, but I’m afraid yesterday, Rotherham’s manager was not even a postscript at the end of the story. Yesterday was all about us, and it isn’t going to make pretty reading.
There’s this misconception that I always look for positives and paint a rosy picture, but I’m going to find it very hard to do that. Just as with last New Year’s Day, I felt we crawled over the line into a new year with little conviction or intent. Last year, we did so knowing a transfer window could pull us out of the hole. Right now, I’m not sure we’re relying on a transfer window at all.
Before Christmas, after beating Reading, it felt like we might have turned a corner, but three defeats on the spin, each slightly more concerning than the last, have set alarm bells ringing around much of the fanbase. I still believe in Michael Skubala and I still believe there are mitigating circumstances in terms of injuries and suspensions that didn’t help yesterday, but for the first time this year, I came away from Sincil Bank with no arguments for people using words like ‘woeful’.
I’m not stupid. I see football as everyone else does, and maybe sometimes I interpret it differently, but I’m pretty sure I’m on the same page as almost everyone else this morning. We were hit yesterday; Ethan Erhahon being out was a massive blow, as he is consistent when he plays. However, what of McKiernan, Montsma, Ring and (in particular) Walker? Those are four players who could have made some difference yesterday, whether from the bench or in the starting XI. I’ve been asked a hundred times why Walker isn’t on the bench, and I’ve now exhausted the ‘he’s been fed back in slowly’ line. When we’re winning, I think the club can be coy, but when we’re on this dreadful run of results, with performances tailing off since Christmas, I believe supporters who pay their money deserve some answers. We will have played what, five times in fifteen days come the weekend. Many fans have travelled away to Shrewsbury and Bolton, splashed out on the home games, and it’s not cheap. When we play so poorly, those fans are entitled to ask questions about certain players and reasonably expect an answer of some description.
It’s not that I think the club are always answerable to supporters, but I can understand the frustration when things aren’t going well, and that is the time for a little more honesty and transparency from the club. I’m not demanding to know why Walker isn’t involved or which players have had a bug, but maybe, after nearly 500 miles on the road over Christmas and a defeat against Evans, it might help appease some supporters.
The team we put out certainly didn’t look weak, just weaker. Plain and simple, we just were not good enough. The first half was a challenging watch and it got tougher from there. One or two players had absolute stinkers yesterday – Ben House was miles off his levels, and the midfield misplaced more passes than I used to at under 13 level. I thought the team looked nervous, as if the pressure of needing a result was getting to us.
I know there are some Rotherham fans reading this, looking for a reason to laugh at us, but their presence in the game was irrelevant. They came, they were decent, and they didn’t need to be anything more. It’s the same with the referee; sure, a couple of decisions went against us, but on the whole, he was okay. Rotherham were alright, the ref was alright but we were crap (I got dared to use that word in my write-up on the way out of the ground and for once, I’m happy to oblige). It was ‘nice’ to hear them signing loud as well, something they didn’t do in the home game.
I did think there were a couple of half-decent performances in the first half – Bailey Cadamarteri put himself about plenty and could hold his head high. Jovon looked like he might be a danger at times and certainly stood out in a red and white shirt, and Paudie was doing things the right way as well. He looked to take a blow to the shoulder early doors, and his arm hung limp at his side for most of the game, but on the whole, he had a decent outing. I thought Roughan was decent as well, with a couple of wayward deliveries, but generally, he was a steady seven.
Outside of that? Nobody impressed me. Wickens was solid, and I thought perhaps Man of the Match, but outfield, it just didn’t work, and even the players I’ve mentioned functioned as individuals rather than a team.
To thoroughly go over the game would be a form of torture, like watching your family getting beaten up over 12 rounds and then being forced to score it like a boxing match. We had a couple of half chances, but we didn’t really create anything – our two shots on target were both in the first half, and both were Jack Moylan. He had all of our shots in the opening period, but the total xG was lower than 0.1, for three shots. Which means that he could have taken 30, and statistically, one might have gone in. Mind you, the frustration of him not really testing the keeper was often matched by the anger at others not having a go. One moment I recall was House, seemingly in the area and with a chance to shoot, played a through ball for Moylan out wide, but Moylan had checked his run and it rolled out of play. It was a challenging watch, and even the optimism of Henry, the Imps fan who enjoyed a magic moments pitchside experience before the game, couldn’t drench the affair in any sort of light.
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