It’s a big month
I have a feeling that December is going to be a really big month for us and perhaps the defining period of our season.
We have a lot of games in a short space of time, including our game in hand which came about due to the unfortunate death of Ray Jones earlier this season.
It’s important for the confidence of the team that they start turning these good performances into wins. More because seeing us in the relegation zone for sustained periods is surely not going to help morale. We’ve got to try and get out of there as quickly as possible and try to get some breathing space.
The reason we need to do well between now and January is because we can’t be sure what team we will have in place by then. The squad feels a little bit on the thin side at the moment and I hope we can make it through this month without any further injuries or suspensions, because we can’t afford to lose players.
By January, Rowan Vine, Scott Sinclair, Ben Sahar, Bob Malcolm, Jason Jarrett and even Akos Buszaky’s loan deals will all have come to and end. Buszaky should be made permanent of course, but there is no guarantee that we will see the others extended and we may not want to renew some of those deals anyway.
If you throw Danny Cullip into the mix as he’s already left and believe in the rumours that some of the playing squad will be let go, then we really will be stretched in terms of numbers.
We also have some players away on loan, including Marcus Bignot, Dominic Shimmin and Shabazz Baidoo. It’s hard to gauge whether they’re getting match practice in their time away for this month, or whether they are actually being shown the door.
It’s fine to reshape the team, but doing so in the middle of the season when we’re struggling at the foot of the table comes with a serious amount of risk attached to it. We may bring in higher quality players to replace the ones that are leaving in January but they will still need time to adapt and gel. There is also the worry that there is no Plan B. What if all these guys left and then we couldn’t bring in the quality we wanted to?
I’m also worried by the reports that several players have been told they can go. It’s okay to do that and at least those guys know where they stand and can sort their lives out, but if we do run into problems this month with injuries, suspensions or fatigue, then can we really rely on them to be 100% committed to the cause?
