J'Accuse! This was the title of an open letter penned in 1898 by the famous writer Emile Zola lambasting the French Government for their unjust conduct in the case of Alfred Dreyfus. It has since become a generic expression of outrage and accusation against someone powerful but I make no apologies for redirecting it against Steve Cooper and his team in the context of what was surely one of our most shameful performances in recent memory.
I had a last minute invitation to the game from
@Ladygargar (thank you most sincerely) and attended with her and her daughter Eleanor. I pride myself on the fact that, because I was in their company, not one expletive escaped my lips, nor did I invade the pitch, which I promise you I so badly wanted to do, just to tell the whole fcuking lot of them what I thought of that pig's guts of a non-performance.
To say it was an insult to our loyal fanbase would be the understatement of the year. Shit, never mind year, try decade instead!! We were sitting top of the table, a position I agree with many on here our performances (not results) did not merit, playing the rock bottom of the table. Okay, I accept that nevertheless, I was concerned that it would be a tough game because Stoke have many players in their team who are BETTER than what we have. But that said, their manager and the team were under enormous pressure going into the game with confidence shot - whilst we had the motivation of cementing our place at the top of the table and moving further ahead of some of the chasing pack.
They even gave us a goal start but then that bunch of incompetent wimps masquerading as professional footballers in the shirts of our club, decided to take the afternoon off. It was pathetic. It was shameful. And Cooper didn't have a frigging clue what to do about it. I'm not going to rehash what went wrong because I think everyone (except Cooper) knows what went wrong. We know his formation sucks; that he persistently plays people in positions that the whole world and their dogs (except Cooper) knows doesn't suit them or the team. But even allowing for that, the sheer incompetence and lack of effort from our team beggared belief. Our so-called engine, the midfield, was
non-existent. Joe Allen outperformed the lot of them on his own with an industrious, prompting and intelligent performance that quietly set up Stoke for the win. Grimes, for example, even when he had the ball showed he couldn't hit a cow's ass with a banjo but he seemed to find a Stoke shirt with unerring accuracy! Cooper has to sort this and damned quickly, failing which we will need AT LEAST two midfielders in January. As for creative play, perhaps someone can explain to Cooper and his players exactly what that means.
Poor Borja worked his nuts off and had to feed off scraps. When he did hold the ball up there was sweet sod all coming his way in terms of support. Part of the reason for this is that, since Dan James left, we have absolutely no pace in this team and our transition is so painfully slow, opposing defenders have all the time in the world to organise and target our players. Walking football is great exercise for has-beens (okay, never was) like me, and older men, but utterly useless in the world of professional football. And it would help if some intensive work was put in during training on how to pass and retain the ball because what I'm looking at is telling me that we don't have a fcuking clue how to do this any longer.
Another thing that upset me was nothing to do with the players. At 1-1 on about 80 or so minutes and pushing for the win, we had a series of goal incidents that led to a few corners. Guess what? We needed to take the corner kicks pdq to keep up the pressure but there were NO BALL BOYS BEHIND THE GOAL! The kicker had to go hunting the ball himself before he could take the kick so wasting valuable time. This was so UNPROFESSIONAL. Being professional is paying attention to detail no matter how trivial it seems but we seem to ignore the important details let alone the trivial ones. Okay, I've vented my spleen for long enough now but, believe me, there was so much wrong with today, I could write three times as much and not cover everything. Final thought, Mr Cooper, it's about time YOU PLAYED OUR MOST CREATIVE PLAYER THROUGH THE MIDDLE WHERE HE CAN DO THE MOST DAMAGE and not stuck out wide where his effectiveness is nullified. We have enough wingers on our books, so fcukingwell USE them - preferably the ones with pace and who know how to cross a ball!
PS: If anyone thinks I've been harsh, I can tell you that I slipped out for a smoke after the game and heard comment after comment such as 'fucking disgrace', 'bunch of wankers', 'fucking garbage' and much, much more from fans who were bitterly angry about that debacle of performance. All this directed at a doorman who was hardly responsible for any of it, poor sod.