Sky Blue Sam was fit and comfortably leading the mascot race at half time when brought down fron behind. Reacted like the honouable elephant he is though.
On a more serious note I take issue with some on here who claim a lack of comittment by our players. I think this is a very difficult call and I do not see it.
What I do see is a lack of quality in our woefully small squad. In my opinion they all try their best, sometimes that isnt enough.
Whose fault that is is endlessly argued on here, £100M from somewhere would be good.
Hmm a lot of people here as usual twisting facts and telling half or three quarters of the story here most of them to support Thorn surprise surprise!
This question is always subjective, should the squad be strong enough to survive in this division - imo yes they should and a more experienced manager would have ensured we picked up more points particularly in early part of season. Of course there is no way in reality of proving this one way or the other.
The senior players of whom some are on very good salaries by the way - we are not the lowest wage payers in the league by the way but cannot post my proof have not delivered consistently enough.
In reality the league will tell you we are looking likely to not have done enough to stay in division but I am still hoping we can get nine points from 12 which just may do it! Burnley away and two home games I am hoping we can win!
A lot of player lists on here seem to omit players who are injured.....wrong they are still in squad and picking up wages and also interesting how ultra pro-Thorn lack of experience bleaters fail to mention that Andy Thorn has chosen to loan out three "experienced" players in McPake, O'Donovan and Eastwood! Fat Freddy I think has banged in two in three now for Southend? I do not care if he could not run round as much as headless chickens ROD and Juke he should have been in the team all day when we were short at start of season. This was a serious failing on Thorns part.....if we were playing the diamond a front three of McSheff, Eastwood and Juke would have been a good combo. We also did not put a recall clause on McPake....again short sightedness from Thorn.
Also is experience all it is cracked up to be? Would you rather have an inexperienced player with real quality like Norwood or an experienced player like for instance Bell. Imo if you are good enough you are experienced enough.
I still hold out hope we can survive, if we do Thorn should keep his job given the circumstances, if not in my opinon we should boot him out or rather move him back to Scout if willing to move back and recruit a more experienced hardened manage to kick a few senior players asses and harden us up for what undoubtedly will be a long hard tough season in League 1.
Fact is we have a thread bare squad wh performed well below expectations for the first half of the season. that's probably due to a combination of managerial mistakes and lack of quality, due to lack of investment.
Since January they've performed well above expectations, without investment, which can only be put down to good management (Norwood in particular being an inspired signing).
Our season has come down to the last 4 games. I know I would have taken this at xmas.
Our squad so far has taken the toll, they need to really perform now.
I feel if they acheive 8 points from 4 games then they've performed fully to their abilities, whether thats enough is yet to be seen.