Cobblers FanStand: It’s all down to the players
James Averill: When the Cobblers took the lead against Barnet on Saturday, did anyone else get the ‘here we go again’ feeling?
We have taken the lead in all but one of Aidy Boothroyd’s games as manager, that’s eight games, yet find ourselves with just the one solitary win. It’s a staggering statistic that is every bit as frustrating as it sounds.
It’s a problem that hasn’t just dogged us under AB, it’s been here for a good couple of years now.
For large parts of last season we struggled to cope mentally with the fact that we were leading and had to kill a game off. The strange thing is that two completely different squads of players have both succumbed to the same problem. That’s the power of Gary Johnson I suppose.
After we had won at Morecambe I genuinely believed we would go on a run of picking up some decent results. I managed to forget the huge great elephant in the room: we have still only won one game at home.
And that was a barely deserved win against the team right above us, Dagenham.
It’s clearly impacting on the players’ confidence, and while our away form is actually fairly reasonable, it is our home record that is keeping us where we are, and until we rectify that there isn’t any chance of us staying up.
I firmly believe we will only go on a decent run once we get that second home win and we have two excellent chances coming up to get them. Macclesfield and AFC Wimbledon are winnable games, even if the latter have had a resurgence of late. The problem is they will be thinking we are easy pickings as well.
It really is difficult to pinpoint exactly why we can’t kill games off at home. Sure we’ve had some rotten luck, we hit the woodwork against Burton when it would have given us a two-goal lead, we hit the woodwork again against Southend which would have seen us in front.
We’ve also had dodgy penalties given against us when we’ve had stonewall ones turned down in the same game. But it happens too often for it to be just pure bad luck.
The players need to stop wilting and realise that we are all rooting them on. The home fans have been nothing short of superb this year.
I’ve seen us slate Colin Calderwood when we won at home to go second in the league, but there has been hardly any negative atmosphere at Sixfields this year, very commendable give some of the stuff we’ve been forced to sit through.
It really is up to the players now. I don’t expect to get anything from Torquay away, but Macclesfield is a great opportunity that we have to look at taking.
Damien Harvey
Losing to Barnet was devastating, and it now begs the question: Can we survive?
Can we stay up this season?
Or are we going to be using our tickets to be watching Cambridge United or even Kettering Town if they manage to keep on surviving.
I guess on a positive note, we wouldn’t have to travel far to Nene Park as it is just across the county, but I’d like to think we won’t be playing them.
I looked at some stats earlier, and saw we’ve lost the same amount of games so far this season as we did the whole of last season. Who already knew that?
With news of Paul Turnbull going back to Stockport on Monday, I can only hope that ends in a permanent move. Some could argue he’s not really been given the chance, but I’ll leave that to Aidy to decide, he’s the boss.
It’s quite understandable everyone being frustrated at the moment, and some could ask: How bad will it get before it gets better?
I can only think that it will get better soon, and I really do hope it’s soon too because I will start taking my optimism out of myself and start being a pessimistic. But I’ll leave that until March.
I’m not going to expect a huge turnout at Torquay, but I do want to say, if you are going, I congratulate, and thank you for supporting the team through the spell we’re currently in.
I will be there.
It’s quite hard to sum up the game on Saturday, so I won’t really bother, but did anyone notice how shiny the ref’s bald head was?
I swear he kept a can of Mr Sheen in his back pocket. It’s why we lost, it dazzled the team!
I still want to keep believing, because you have to in a way. Some may say, if we go down, they’re not going to the games. Are you really going to stop supporting your team after X amount of years because they went down? Yeah. Didn’t think so.
David Cardoza has said it’ll be a big blow, but won’t be fatal should we drop.
I also want thank Cardoza for everything he’s done for the club.
So let’s give it a bit longer, there is still a little way to go yet. Panic mode should set in at the end of Feb/March time.
But we can do it!
Up The Cobblers.
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