Guest Post by Paul Hickin
It’s the start of the season. There is acceptance, albeit begrudging, and adjustment to the new stadium. There is hope, with Slav at the helm, and the cynics who don’t think he’s up to it tactically, are either hoping to be proved wrong, or biding their time to be proved right, depending on how cynical they are.
And then there’s the post-mortem on the summer signings. Oh those summer signings. Did we learn nothing from last season, bringing in freebies passed their sell-by date, mercenary loan signings that will be either be off if they do well or will be cutting our losses if they don’t. Oh there’s an option to buy. Phew. But wait a minute. One of the freebies worked out, eventually, when played in the correct position, the promising young talent looks a real find, and some of the proven premier league talent just needed time to find their feet in a new environment, what with the jinx of injuries and all.
There’s also talk that AC will finally have a great injury-free season that has been laughed about. But then we can only laugh as nobody was going to buy him, and when he does play he is a beast. Still great from the subs bench but Andy will never settle for that. Noble is another one that divides opinion. We love a local hero, just a shame he’s more a local journeyman. Decent and his record in the side rather than out of it speaks for itself, but if we are going to head to the next level, then surely he must make the transition from team captain to club captain, with Reid becoming the club skipper.
Many still think even if we keep players fit and lady luck shines on us, then we can certainly have a promising top 10 finish and maybe win a cup. But then there’s plenty of calls for the youngsters to be bloodied in the cup games even though they aren’t yet pulling up trees in the lower leagues. Can’t have it both ways, alas.
Cast your mind to the start of the season. It really will be different this time around.
But which season do you have in mind?