It’s just nowhere near good enough. I have to say that, despite going 1-0 down so early on, I was actually relatively impressed with the first half. There was more movement off the ball in those 45 minutes than the rest of the season combined, and we created some decent opportunities – cough *Paddy Lane* cough.
However, that second half was nothing short of abysmal. And despite another Jack Marriott goal, the sentiment among the fanbase right now is not a happy one.
Jack Marriott
Let’s start off with Marriott: he’s
just been a really good piece of business. Another goal against Mansfield got him to five in his first five starts for the club.
However, it is unsustainable to keep relying so heavily on a player the way we are with Marriott. He is single-handedly papering over some almighty cracks.
After the game on Saturday it was less outright praise for Marriott from the fans, more acknowledgement that we’re lucky he’s there to bail us out from even worse results…
Noel Hunt
It was yet another performance that laid bare the tactical flaws this team has – and 10 games in, exactly the same issues are still occurring.
It’s far too easy for teams to get at us through transition, and if they decide to string a few passes together in midfield, chances are they’ll bypass our midfield. Going forward it still looks like 11 players have been put on a pitch and told to ‘try and score’.
Hunt claimed this team has a ‘style, an identity’ in his post-match interview, but the fans are struggling to see it…
Conclusion
After Rob Couhig’s Q&A on Thursday night, in which he backed Hunt, it’s safe to say it’ll need to get a lot worse than this for it to even be a genuine consideration that the manager might lose his job, which is a terrifying prospect.
I don’t actively want Hunt to be sacked, I want him to turn it around. But the fact of the matter is we are seeing little evidence that he can, and when there is a slight improvement it’s not long until at least a few substantial steps back.
The most worrying thing for me was that post-match interview. It’s not difficult to come out and say “we weren’t good enough today”, but he seems incapable of doing so or, even worse, he genuinely thinks we were good enough.
