Right, Thats It, I Have To Have A Rant!!

And as its a Sunday morning and consequently quiet on the Wrath, I can get it all off my chest fairly unnoticed.

I love my club but I hate supporting it at the moment. Apparant discontent amongst the players, very obvious discontent and squabbling between the supporters and a Manager who-and I speak from personal and professional experience-looks like he is cracking up under the strain of it all.

But of all that is happening at the moment, MWJ's comments at the shareholders meeting are the most worrying.

I posted yesterday that we didn't seem to have any plan, direction, leadership or discipline at the club. No vision. Nothing.

I like MWJ. He has done well in life and has a good business track record, but he has accepted his role as Delia's Consort with good grace and does a lot for the club. However, for him to admit that he really doesn't know what to do, where to go, who to approach-that really bothers me.

It makes me think of that man who lived on the slope of Mt St Helens. Everyone was running away from the slopes of the volcano as it got closer and closer to eruption, he calmly remained in-situ, said he loved his home and wasn't going to leave his cats, and, in that situation, "...what would you do..?" He stayed put and waited for the inevitable.

Its like MWJ and Delia are waiting for the end themselves, they know its coming, they've done everything they can, tried everything that they can, but its all been beyond them and, now, having plugged an ever increasing gap for longer than they possibly could have done-or would have done, if they had hindsight in knowing what direction football was taking-they've given up, but they'll go down with the club and take the consequences, rather than run away.

Hence the club looking for investment and, finally, making it clear that they are with the appointment of this headhunter-type fellow. Its a forlorn hope but you never know...

The problem is with football though. Its not just us that moan at our underachieving (but have we overachieved in the past?) and demanding change, our peers, clubs of similar stature, history, resources and expectations-Palace, Coventry, Leicester, Southampton-are all in the same boat, all looking for money, all with messageboards that will be similar to this one in tone and all as desperate.

Theres a bigger picture out there and we are part of that, we are all good at looking inward and wanting change within the club and it might be good or bad and it might work or it might not-but, as long as football careers along the tracks to God knows what sort of grisly implosion at the end of it all, its that which will ultimately affect where we are going, not getting rid of the loan players or getting Bothroyd in. We can be as cosmetic as we like, but we are part of something much bigger and thats the real issue here, not Glenn Roeder.

Posted By: Martin Peters, Nov 30, 10:21:05