by The Quiet Man »
21 Apr 2009 10:55
I thing the disillusionment is because regular watchers of the side realise that we haven't been a "team" this season (or probably the last 3 months of last season), instead of the collective effort we are an assembly of individuals with each individual out for themselves, particularly Doyle and Shunt. At the start of this season Coppell said at a fans forum that 7 or 8 first team players wanted out and I don't really think that that has changed as the season has gone on. Alongside that our recent transfer policy (which I hold Hammond as responsible as Coppell for) has seen us accumulate a lot of 50% players, Rosenior, Mateovsky, Bikey, Kebe whcih has had a disastrous effect on our consistency as they are all capable of a good game now and again but rarely all together and rarely at the same time. As a result we are playing a lot of what I would call lowest common denominator football where everyone puts in the minimum and there are occasional individual and team performances that stand out but the collective consistency has, with the exeception of a six week pre transfer window period, rarely been present. We now bear a close resemblance to the side that Paul Jewell had at Derby at the start of the season, on paper a reasonalbly good one but never with the collective integration or belief to get the consistency to win more that the odd game.
As a result I would expect that next season we will see a cull of the individuals and coaching staff and manager and an attempt to rebuild a team. Given RFC''s history and finances (parachute ending etc) it would be reasonable to expect that it will take a couple of managers, several years, and a major flirtation with/or relegation before a new team emerges that matches previous.
Blame is easy in such circumstances but I would prefer to view as what happens naturally to successful RFC sides under SJM, they take 4 or 5 years to bring to fruit, last a couple of years, decline dramatically and the process starts over again. The worry for us would be the expectation hangover will mean that this timescale will affect attendances and that financially with the removal of the parachute payments it could cripple the club with debt permanently.