Sometimes dear reader(s), it feels as though all I do on these pages is moan. Post after post of errant whinging, as though Smog Blog is little more than an outlet for mine own frustration. Which, to some extent, is exactly what it is.
What irritates me most is that after three straight league defeats, which are linked directly to injuries and suspensions within the ranks, I’m being proved right in my whiny ways. This gives me no pleasure, not like turning the poor run into the odd victory in three would be a genuine mood lifter. I suppose I saw it coming, really. Winning games was great, especially when I thought we were due to pick up nothing but a long trip home (Cardiff, Leeds, Barnsley) and through luck/talent/oppositon imposion (delete as you see fit) strode away with the points sealed up in a big cotton sack marked SWAG. But back then, we had a more or less fully fit squad, or the lost players weren’t those who have turned out to be essential to the cause. Only now, we have a bit of an injury crisis, more suspensions following the Coventry defeat, and no one seems to know what we’re going to do about it. It’s as though Nicky Bailey was a powder keg – there’s always the possibility that he’ll blow up, but until then let’s just enjoy him rather than prepare for life without him…
Not that there’s an awful lot of point in going on to demand more players for the team. In the wake of Lukas Jutkiewicz’s signing, Mogga has gone on record to claim categorically that the spending has pretty much ended for this transfer window, indeed drafting in the Juke was a hangover from the bit of summer business we were unable to complete at the time. You can find your own reasons for the lack of funds – for me, the half-empty Riverside tells me pretty much everything I need to know. Mogga told the Gazette earlier in the week that clubs we deal with have a tendency to see us as the same moneyed bunch that once paid £12m for Alves, which is far from reality. Loan deals are the way to ease our way out of the malaise, apparently.
And that’s fine. I’ve heard comments over the last few days that the suspensions faced by Arca and Thomson after the Coventry defeat at least means Mogga doesn’t have to figure them into his team planning for Sunlun and can try something different. The hernia injury that will keep Zemmama out of the first team reckoning – which many might argue is the best place for him – adds to the headache, but in reality these players haven’t done much for the side in months. Thommo has been a particular disappointment. Long periods injured and brief hints of promise when he’s available, only to return to the treatment table when a gust of wind pushes his knee from its socket… Suddenly, here he is to save our season, and… he’s rubbish! Or misused. You decide, though my feeling is that his recent deployment in matches demands him to provide the basic, meat and drink service you’d expect from any central midfielder and it’s just not happening.
There are times when I find myself forced to revise the year of Strachan – given what Barry Robson, Nicky Bailey and, to a lesser (not to mention less consistent) extent, Scott McDonald, was there some method in his madness? Well, not sure. Robbo and Nicky have been excellent, but the £3.5m we shelled out for McDonald still sounds like at least two mill too much. And then there’s Thommo, who more and more appears to be a busted flush of a signing. Costly in terms of the amount of time he’s been out and, when he does show up for a string of matches, the basic ability to string a pass together looks to be beyond him. He cost us how much? £2m, you say? Sometimes, we’re really like one of those gullible, wealthy women walking, Amex in hand, into Harry Enfield’s Notting Hill antiques shop, aren’t we? I mean, bloody hell…
So an apology of sorts – I wasn’t going to bother after Coventry, in fairness. I knew it would be a bit of a moany rant, whatever my intentions when starting the piece, and it is one. Maybe it’s the case that we’re just not ready to go up this year, that Mogga will have to do some more selling/giving away in the summer in order to free up funds for his own players. Perhaps this is one of those post-Christmas slumps that used to be all the rage in the 80s/90s. It’s possible, probable even, that we’re just not as good as our league position might suggest. Or all the above. I simply see a great first half of the campaign unravelling, which is a shame, though on the other hand there’s a suggestion it’s all we deserve. After all, the improved results haven’t converted into more bums on seats.










