The battles ahead

The season proper starts tomorrow. The summer has seen loads of new recruits, most of us will spend the time between now and Christmas getting used to encouraging the right names in the right shirts.  But against Rochdale some of the new faces looked good. Just don’t ask them, apart from Davies, to take a penalty.

We have a new Captain. Posh Will Vaulks. Posh, as I shall now call him, in an ironic not name calling way, looks like the shrewdest acquisition of the summer. If we can avoid injuries then he could prove useful. We haven’t had a long throw specialist since the days of Dave Challinor. His throws into the box were a phenomena at the time, less so now.  Having another option to get the ball into the 18 yard box will be useful.  It means that goals should be available to players like Lee O’Connor who can pack a punch when the ball lands sweetly for him. We’ll see.

As for the new manager his interview on radio Gaga (aka the club podcast) seemed to show a man who is thoughtful. That’s not rare. I always thought Andy Crosby came across as a decent bloke too. Let’s hope Darrell is here in 12 months time. We need some stability at the club given the instability off the pitch.

Looking at various pundit predictions the consensus appears to be we will finish bottom third but are not relegation candidates. Teams like Shrewsbury and Newport are being suggested for the bottom two spots. It will make Saturday’s game interesting as we are coming up against one of the supposed worst teams in the Division, complete with Josh Davison.

For me, I won’t be coming to any conclusions until the clocks go back, even then there are no certainties. It may be that we are hinting at a too half finish at that point, or that we are stuck in the bottom six.  The season isn’t decided until May, and, as always, the last dozen matches will be where things are decided.  Yet, every point matters. I’ve never subscribed to the view that results at this time of the season can be made up for later.  We start with 138 points available. We need as many of them as possible.

As always my hopes are that we all get to see us start again, a division higher, this time next year. I also want us to be united. The mess off the pitch, with takeovers never materialising and fan groups being put at arms length, is not healthy. It’s not who we are a club either. Football matters, on the pitch, and we have a season ahead that will be interesting but might also be challenging for all the wrong reasons.