Cool heads needed, apply within.

The picture isn't my creation, it's just one of a number of fairly cruel ones which are being circulated online right now. There probably isn't a single AFC Wimbledon WhatsApp group that hasn't got at least a few "Sack him now!" contributers, along with plenty of "The players are bottle jobs" merchants. Listen to these fans and the situation looks very bleak but while I get their frustration, things have the potential to improve even quicker than they've gone to shite. And let's be honest here, gone to shite they most definitely have. Ten points from our last ten games is practically relegation form, and we've done it in a period of fixtures which looked favourable on paper.

Unfortunately for us of course, you don't play football on paper you play it on grass. That is to say MOST teams play it on grass, we work it backwards on grass but favour the "out of the clouds" approach when we decide to advance the football down the pitch. Before we get too sniffy about that fact, it's worth remembering that our method has gotten us firmly into a playoff slot. Our style maybe wouldn't make it into a "total football" compilation, but at least until recently it's been fairly effective.

So where has it all gone wrong & what do we do from here?

First things first. Talk of sacking the manager now, with us in the playoffs and with a handful of games to go, is daft. There'll be a decision to be made at the end of the season (there always is in football) but you don't sack managers now, not ones who've successfully given you an opportunity to be promoted anyway. So let's put that one to bed, the manager isn't going anywhere and nor should he.

Nor FWIW is Johnnie "Absolutely clueless". Yes he makes mistakes (Who doesn't?) and yes he is occasionally outwitted (last night appeared to be an example) and yes he probably still has somethings to learn, but a mug he isn't. Nor are the players "Bottle jobs". Football is essentially a simple game, but it isn't THAT simple. If Johnnie was shite and the players were bottlers, we wouldn't be where we are in the league. It's time for supporters to support in my book.

So my take is we have a good young manager and we have an excellent squad of players. It isn't because Johnnie is clueless or that the players are bottlers that we're in relegation form in my opinion, so what is it then silly bollocks? I hear you ask.

Well to my mind there are a couple of factors. In each of Johnnie's three seasons as our manager we have absolutely slumped coming down the home stretch, I don't think it's a coincidence. It has happened every season because we've done the same thing every season. I think the starters are knackered, quite simply because we don't change the team enough. We don't select different players to start anywhere near often enough, and we don't make substitutions anywhere near early enough nor anywhere near often enough.

The result of that is that excellent players such as Jake Reeves and Ali Smith look absolutely finished, gone. We very rarely change it up, the same players play in the same positions every week and they are (pardon the language), fucked. We don't take the opportunity to freshen things up with substitutions early enough nor often enough. The result of that is that when players DO come on, often for their first minutes in a month, they look rusty as fuck (ditto on the language, sorry).

And our playing style. Given we rarely keep the ball (other than when we are passing it around at the back while deciding whose turn it is to smash it forwards) we place a lot of burden on the players energy levels. Young Matty Stevens runs a marathon a game chasing lost causes, ditto Omar Bugiel. If we ARE going to persist with this method, it is EVEN MORE important that we change it up. In short, we look about as leggy as an in prime Shane Warne, something has to change or we will continue to concede late goals, continue to drop points.

And THAT "style". It is hardly surprising given that we broadly play in exactly the same way regardless of who we are playing against, OR what the state of the game is at the time, that teams are beginning to work us out a bit. So much so that the team we played against yesterday put their giant centre forward into central defence. That would normally be madness, but as the ONLY defending he was going to be asked to perform was to stand there and head it, it made perfect sense. I absolutely get that we want to be direct, to play our football in THEIR third, but surely we'd be a better team if we mixed it up? It's not illegal to play it through the thirds. It's not against the law for a defender or a midfielder to carry the football if nobody comes to close them down (teams by and large don't bother against us, they KNOW we are going to launch it). To my mind we've gotten sucked into not taking responsibility when we have the football. We take the easy option again and again. Whether that's passing it backwards or launching it on a diagonal, it reeks to me of a team which is more afraid of making a mistake than it is trying to win a football match.

The good news is though, we are still firmly in control of our own destiny. We WILL still make the playoffs, from there if we play to our potential we WILL get promoted. We WILL BTW beat Harrogate on Saturday. How about doing it with some players who have legs though? What about doing it while playing a modicum of football?

Harrogate are Harrogate, but we are going to have to get results against MUCH better teams. We aren't going to be able to do that by playing hoofball and filling the team with blokes who are knackered. It's time to be brave, to grab the thing by the nads. Not time for sacking managers nor losing faith in the players, it's time to USE that squad we keep talking about,and time to play some of that football that apparently happens on the training pitch every day. Bravery in football is rarely the wrong course of action, it certainly isn't the case here either. COYD

What's the worst bit?

I don't know what was worse about the AFC Wimbledon v Barrow game yesterday. Was it that we continued to smash long diagonals in the direction of where Omar Bugiel normally stands, (he wasn't playing) or was it that we couldn't hold onto a two goal lead with three minutes of normal time left?

I suppose in terms of importance come the end of the season it'll be the latter. You really MUST hold onto two goal leads at home against teams in 18th place, but I must confess that I found the first half in particular yesterday so dull I was almost drifting off. The folks in my section of the West Stand took to pontificating about where one of the flats opposite had gotten their balcony hammock from. When that debate was settled, we amused ourselves watching the pigeons. Our feathered friends had quickly sussed out that they were far less likely to be in harms way if they say on the grass rather than flew around the pitch. They only had to dodge the ball on the odd occasion it bounced near them, trying to navigate crowded air space would have been something else entirely.

At half time I firmly felt we would still win it. We have far better players than Barrow for one thing, our method of "launch it into their final third as often as possible and hope something happens" while not being stimulating to watch was likely at some point to bare fruit. While I was convinced we would prevail, I'm going to hand on heart say here that I wasn't excited by it. Whatever happened to the JOY of football, the "three & you're in" mentality, the "next goal wins" happiness which caused us to watch and play the game in the first place? It feels like football by numbers to me, I cannot accept that given the talent of the squad this is the best we can serve up. I know it's professional football and not the Sunday League with your mates, but Sheesh.

Anyways after Barrow played through us and missed a sitter, eventually a long punt did pay off. Then, we showed what we can do when we got the ball down and scored a very good goal. It ought to have been done there, a classic "play poorly and win" performance that good teams have, but then we tossed it away.

Normally we are excellent at seeing games out so I don't see any point in waffling about a one off failure to do it. The football though lads. Johnnie said afterwards that we were excellent in the second half. I suppose compared to the first half we were, but not in my book by any other measure. We can play better than this, I am convinced of it.