I was unable to attend the match yesterday, so I cannot comment on the performance but, it appears yet again that we played well enough to win the game. The problem is this was Crewe at home, a game we SHOULD win.
Many felt that the Sheff Utd victory and performance would be the kick start of this season and the spring board for mounting a serious challenge for the play offs in 2006 / 07, instead we have collected 1 point from our subsequent 3 matches. I will be the first to admit that the level of performance is a marked improvement but we still have the same problem that we cannot WIN enough football matches, we have won once since the last international break and that is clearly not good enough.
The team is showing it has potential in it's performances but as yet the manager has been unable to find the ingredient that knits it together with results. After over a year in charge we should by now be seeing results on the pitch, maybe a different manager could have this squad challenging for the play offs or in the top half or maybe have us relegated, but it is plainly obvious we are incapable of building unbeaten runs.
Steve Cotterill and Billy Davies have produced results at teams with a lot lesser resources and in fairly similar timescales and have now assembled squads that are currently challenging for play off places. Preston are on a 13 game unbeaten run we are nowhere near capable of mounting such a run.
Craig did a decent job in restructuring the playing squad, but he still had the benefit of a top 5 budget and yet we lie in the bottom six of the table, now this is his team and it has had enough time to gel and should by now be starting to show signs of improvement in results and progression up the table and regardless of circumstance we are massively underachieveing, we should be at least halfway if we are to show genuine improvement and progression as promised, the fans have been paitent and many wrote off the play off's and promotion this season but at the same time we didnt envisage a genuine relegation battle, at the moment I remain unconvinced this manager is capable of moulding this squad of players into side capable of challenging for the play offs next season.