The Welsh connection

I forgot to update the blog before Tuesday night's game at Tranmere. Forgot, or couldn't be bothered, in the sure and certain knowledge that an away game could only mean one thing - another defeat. Let's be charitable and say I forgot, what's not in doubt is that we lost again, 2-1 this time, in a performance best described by one who was there, as follows:

"Start to finish, front to back we were terrible. Tactically wrong, exposed down the wings and clueless all over the pitch. Midtable will soon turn into relegation if we don't improve quickly. I hope the players to a man, and the management, are embarrassed by tonights showing. I know I am."

The words belong to the green room poster known as Blackthorn Stand, who, as most green room aficianados will know, is usually a reliable witness to these things and not prone to hyperbole, sweeping statements or hysteria. If he calls an object a spade then you can be pretty sure it's not a bloody shovel. The fact is that our away form is now causing serious concern to everyone - fans, players and management. To be fair to Skivo he's not trying to hide from it - in his post and pre-match comments he talks of little else - but as yet he's not come up with a cure for it either.

What he has done is signed a couple of players, Welshmen Arron Davies and Owain Tudor-Jones. We all know Arron from old of course. Since we sold him to Nottingham Forest he's done little of note, flattered to deceive somewhat and otherwise failed to live up to expectations, unlike his fellow transferee at the time Chris Cohen, who's now being talked of as a target for Premiership clubs in the summer. Wonder if we've got a sell-on clause? Arron's recently spent a little time on loan at Brighton, but didn't do enough to earn a permanent deal. He's an attacking midfielder, can play on either flank or 'in the hole', and he's signed on a permanent contract until the end of the season. Where his signing leaves the likes of Scott Murray, the fit again Aidan Downes and Andy Welsh in Skivo's thinking, only the gaffer can say. Hopefully I'm being harsh and Davies's signing will prove a master-stroke, but I personally believe we have enough flair players at the club to be going on with. It's a bit of grit, the ability to get stuck in and something in the way of leadership qualities that's really needed. Go on Arron, prove me wrong.

EDIT - Just seen that Davies's contract has been cancelled, as he falls foul of the rule that says you can't play for more than two clubs in one season - and he's already played for Forest and Brighton. What a farce!

Tudor-Jones is here on loan for a month, at least initially. As we now have 6 loan players at the club, one will have to drop out of the matchday squad each week. Received wisdom says that's liable to be Ryan Mason this Saturday at least, to give his poorly leg a chance to heal. Skivo will doubtless be relieved to know that I am pleased with the Tudor-Jones signing, despite the awkwardness of having to juggle loan signings in the matchday squad. Tudor-Jones, formerly of Swansea and now of Norwich City, is as I remember him the same type of box-to-box midfielder as Shaun MacDonald and will be a step-up from the likes of the now departed George O'Callaghan. You can't have too many midfielders who can run around a lot, can pass the ball and are good in the tackle.

The interesting thing will be to see where and how Skivo fits the pair into his team. High-flying Huddersfield visit Huish Park this Saturday and will be a big test of our home form. If it was me I'd play a 4-3-1-2 formation as follows:

Alex McCarthy
Craig Alcock, Steven Caulker, Stefan Stam, Nathan Jones
Owain Tudor-Jones, JP Kalala, Shaun MacDonald
Arron Davies
Sam Williams, Dean Bowditch

And pray.

The bookies make Huddersfield favourites at 5/4, a Glovers win is 9/4 and the draw is also 9/4. My unwritten rule means I have to put my fiver on the home win, but I fear I'm going to be wasting my money this week. Running total: +£2.50p.

Away from the football and it seems that the club has managed to shoot itself in the foot again. We all know the beer tent at Huish Park is inadequate at the best of times. We know it's damp, draughty and more often than not it takes far too long to get served if there's more than a few people in there. We know you can't get anything to eat in there and we know that it's basically a shithole; but what we always thought prior to Saturday's match against Exeter was that we knew all these things about the tent and more, but at least we knew that it's OUR shithole, at least home fans have somewhere to go to chat and try and have a drink before the game.... Wrong.

It seems that due to the club's failure to ensure stewards/security were in place at the time of the tent's opening on Saturday, those fans arriving at the ground early enough were able to access the tent with no hindrance. And the vast majority of those fans arriving early happened to be away fans, which meant that by the time home fans got there and tried to get in the tent was already full and they were denied access. Now I gave up using the tent and the snack bars at Huish Park a long time ago as I realised a long time ago that the club couldn't care less about me as a fan or my whether I enjoyed my matchday experience or not; now it seems that the penny has dropped amongst rather more of the faithful.

What can we do about it? Not a great deal singly. But if everybody who used the tent and snack bars boycotted them in future then perhaps even the current board might be embarrassed into some sort of positive action. We've been promised stadium improvements/a social club/a permanent supporters bar (delete as applicable) for so long now that it's not even funny anymore, but no-one really believes this board has either the will or the nous to deliver even the smallest fraction of what's been promised. Apathy and ennui rules. Boycott the beer tent, the club doesn't deserve your money.

Muffwatch: I don't know what former Glover Jerry Gill has done to deserve this, perhaps he was a mass-murderer in a previous life or something. But the new manager of the less-than-mighty Weymouth is... ba-doom-tish! Former Glover Jerry Gill! The best of luck to Jerry in his new role, with George Rolls as his chairman and the Muff fans all queueing up behind him to stab him in the back as soon as he puts even one foot wrong, Jerry will need a miracle to survive until the end of the season, never mind save the Muff from the drop to the Southern Premier. If he can do both then he ought to have a go at ending poverty in the third world or tackling climate change - either would be simple in comparison to the challenges awaiting him on the south coast. All isn't quite lost yet however - if Gill can instill in his new charges even a small fraction of the professionalism the he showed throughout his career then just maybe the Muff will be in with a fighting chance of avoiding the drop. It will be fascinating to see how it all works out.

Just read: House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds: I've read and enjoyed the author's previous trilogy of novels, Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap; but this stand-alone book eclipses all three. Reynolds has always been a great ideas man, and as an astronomer in real life his speculations have always had a solid scientific grounding behind them. What he wasn't quite so good at was the craft of the novelist, the telling of the story and getting you to care about the character's involved. In House of Suns he's cracked it. The clunky prose has gone and the story just flows, effortlessly and naturally. It's science-fiction of the highest quality and thoroughly recommended.