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.
