Different Piper, Same Old Tune

No pride, no passion, no belief, no creativity, no inventiveness. No midfield, no defence. Nothing has changed has it except the personnel. Okay I know its early doors and we shouldn’t get too carried away but the future looks far from rosy. With Bolton and Chelsea next up we could be staring four straight defeats in the face. Horrendous defending, a non-existent midfield and no chances created. Bent and the lazy JFH are feeding off scraps. I’ve forgotten exactly how long it is since Parker left but we have done very little to replace him. Faye looks okay and will probably benefit form a midfield partner other than Matt Holland who, although committed and hardworking, is no longer Premiership material. At least he once was, which is more than you can say for Bryan Hughes, or ‘The Shadow’, as we affectionately call him. He is a serious waste of space and how he is able to make a living out of professional football I’ll never know. He brings nothing to the side. He just doesn’t get involved. Send him back to Wrexham, they love him there. Obviously easily pleased.

As for centre-halves, we need a new one and quick. HH and Fortune look the best bet for Bolton but Fortune hardly inspires and is prone to lapses, errors of judgement and falling over. El-Kharkouri is a disaster waiting to happen but unfortunately the disasters seem to be becoming more frequent. If we can sign a decent centre-half to play alongside HH then things should improve. Young and Traore are more than capable full-backs. Elsewhere, Carson seems to be settling in okay and performed well against Utd especially when you consider what he had to contend with playing just in front of him. Ambrose has had a steady start to the season and if we can get Reid fit soon and Balanos a work permit then things should improve on the flanks. Rommedahl showed in a ten minute cameo exactly what he is capable of and deserves a start on Saturday. We need to get our wide players into the game to provide chances for the front two as they are not going to get any service from the central midfield area at the moment.

With transfer deadline just a week away the squad still needs, ideally, three additions. A centre-half, a central midfielder and another striker. To do this we will probably need to off-load some players and the leading contenders would appear to be Andersen, Euell, Bent (M) (lazy, good-for-nothing waster) and Lisbie followed by hopefully Hughes. With further investment by the Board and funds from these sales we may be able to get at least two of these positions sorted out. All three would be a bonus.

Whether even this will be enough will remain to be seen but at least we will have given ourselves a fighting chance and there is no doubt about it, a fight it will be.