Just listened to Wally Downes's post match interview on ClubCall : The same themes re-occur after every away game :
"Tentative when ahead"
"Waiting for the halftime whistle"
"Seemingly afraid to win"
"No luck"
"Never in any danger till the other side scores"
"Lost our shape and pattern of play"
" Hard to play against ten men"
This seems to be death by a thousand cuts - despite a ridiculous 6 consecutive away defeats we are still in a healthy challenging position but despite Downes's exhortation to allow us time to "get this bad spell out of our system" and "regroup for another push" deep down most of us feel that we have blown a marvellous opportunity big time.
I have spoken to Russell and Edmund who were both at the match and both were upset at the performance and apparent lack of guile and even fight.
So where do we go from here ? PLayers are in a comfort zone as they know that there is no challenge for their place a situation exacerbated today by losing Williams with a hamstring injury soon after he was asked to change the game when we were already lsoing rather than help us win it from the start.
Assuming he is out for at least a month and with Gibbs and Rowlands still a few weeks away the team will pick itself even more.
I believe that the time has come to shake things up as we are drifting rudderless and we should now make something happen rather than wait for it to do so.
I think that the only solution is to sell either Evans or Mahon and hope that a small proportion of the small fees that they would generate given their upcoming Bosmans could be used to bring in some new blood.
Scot Houghton has just been released by Orient and as a tricky goalscoring winger in sarch of a job he could surely do us a job in Williams's absence even on a non-contract basis.
We are playing Wigan fresh from their excellent performance at Bristol City and thrashing of Brighton - a real challenge for us.
We now have the choice of drifting on, hoping for luck to change and the situation to right itself or take the bull by the horns and make something happen.
The current personnel have shown over the last 2.5 months that for whatever reason they cannot kick on as required for a promotion challenge and as we are unable to bring in fresh legs to augment the squad I feel that the time has come to change it, and if that means sacrificing an Evans, a Mahon, or even a Powell then I am OK with it if some of the proceeds can be used to liven things up, provide new faces and new options.
It is all very well to say we are in an enormously better position than we all expected at the start of the season and I would agree with that, however now that we have found ourselves in this position we HAVE to do something to maintain it.
We all know the likely consequences of non-promotion at the end of the season so lets hope that Coppell is now allowed to do something to ensure that we are still in the running.
To read further thoughts, click here