This write up is going to be shorter than most, and that’s not a reflection of my mental state this morning, but of the game. What could I possibly write about the second half? There were two shots (which is a LOT fewer than my debit card sanctioned later in the night), and neither was on target. How can I discuss talking points when there are none? It almost feels like I was drunk for the game and missed 45 minutes of action, and it’s only looking back I realise I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol and it was just, quite simply, an awful game of football.
There was one moment that summed up the game for me, and made me realise the conditions the players were working under. Sean Roughan went to take a free kick on the halfway line, and before he could strike the ball, it blew six inches away. It made me realise just how windy it was and exactly how bad the conditions were. From that point on, every misplaced pass (and there were a few), every mistake, missed header, and a wayward bit of control had me thinking, ‘Yeah, but the conditions’. Before anyone says it, it was the same for both teams, and they dealt with it in the same way we did – they just got through it.
There were some highlights. Reeco looked back towards his best, willing to take players on and get a cross in. Roughan played well, once again, as did Paudie, and our goal was never troubled by anything other than the conditions. Makama worked hard, but he can do no right in some people’s eyes. There was one moment he got down the left, and nobody came with him. There were groans in the crowd before he managed to keep the ball in, evade his defender and play a pass back down the line. ‘Not backwards, Makama, ‘ I heard. He was at the byline, where is he going to play it, towards the bloody common?
There were no chances after that (or before, that I recall), and in the end, coming out of a game like that with a point is decent. I think the worry is not being clinical, but not that we’re bad. Okay, we didn’t create a lot on Saturday, but we were the better side against Wrexham, deserved something from Rotherham and should have put Exeter and Bristol Rovers to bed. It’s painful we haven’t, but we’re doing the right things, then getting the final execution wrong.
Right now, I’m not overly worried. Yes, things need to start dropping in the box, but being brutally frank, we’re beginning to settle into the sort of position I thought we’d occupy at the beginning of the season. Before a ball was kicked, there was an acceptance that the league was better, people were spending bigger, and we’d have to be happy with the lower top half. In the immortal words of James, ‘If I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor‘ and having been top six, having gone toe-to-toe with many of the big spenders and not looked out of place, it is now a belief that where we are is actually underachieving, that hurts more than actually being there.
Up the Imps.