I felt so angry coming away from that today - even though in truth I had absolutely nothing to direct my anger at.
The officials were appalling, but in the bigger picture we profited from their ineptitude more than we lost (didn’t think the 1st half one was a certain pen - but that Henry rugby tackle in the second looked nailed on).
We failed to win one of our most winnable games left - but in truth I can’t argue we deserved much more than a point. Plenty of endeavour but zero end product.
The game was an exceptionally poor watch for a neutral - but full of effort and workrate and desire. Can I really be angry at a lack of quality from a group of players we all know don’t possess enough of it to get us where we want to be in this league?
IBR’s cameo was abysmal - but in all honesty him getting hooked at HT then being completely (and deservedly) buried by Robbo post-match was as entertaining as any of the football I’ve witnessed today. I suspect our reputation as a good club to send your young players to in order to develop just took a hit though...
I suppose I’m angry at just how poor we are, and just how much Eales and Clotet destroyed what Ashton and Appleton put in place for them. That was a horrible reality check at just how low we’ve sunk - in terms of confidence, quality, strength in depth. We are in a bad place and, although I still think (or is that hope now?) we’ll scrape survival - if we go down I honestly couldn’t have a complaint to make. We are not good in enough in so many departments.
Focusing on the positives. Dickie was utterly superb. Not just in a ‘wins tackles, and heads it’ manner that most people credit him for. But he was outstanding in all aspects of CB play. Positionally excellent, covering Kane and Mousinho ably, distributing the ball well, moving forward in possession with purpose, more of a threat in their box than Obika. Whether it’s a good thing that Dickie was clear MOTM in a relegation 6-pointer against one of the few teams below us in the table is up for argument - but he was great today.
I thought the effort put forth by Ledson, Brannagan and Rothwell was exemplerary. They ran their socks off, challenged well, and showed the kind of passion we’ll need if we are to get out of this mess. Not a whole lot of quality from any of them (as usual, Roth moved well with the ball at his feet without ANY end product) - but they showed the guts for the fight which I appreciated.
Robinson’s interview after the game was also, again, excellent. There’s no way he goes home to his Mrs tonight genuinely thinking ‘well at least we have something to build on’. One look at him will tell you he’s as frustrated as us at how bad we are. But he has to guide them to 4-6 more points so gains nothing from slamming them to the press endlessly. Focus on the positives, comment realistically on the game we’ve all witnessed, and find a way to cobble together something better on Tuesday...somehow
Lengthy rant? I come away more fearful of the drop than I was this morning. But also more confident that we have at least some players with the bottle for the challenge, and a manager who may be able to eek enough out of this shambles of a squad to get over the line.