If Sky Sports decided to re-write Aesop’s Fables, I suspect one of the moral lessons would involve a football team that travels away from home, scores an early goal and then spends 85 minutes with the bus well and truly parked only to come unstuck right at the end. So you’ll have to forgive me if I feel less than sorry for Charlton
.
It felt like it was going to be one of those days until the late, late show but it proves we have the players to win a game. The only issue is that we as fans and indeed Herr Rösler himself may still feel some way off knowing what our best starting eleven is.
The odious transfer window slammed shut with the boss relying wholly on the loan market to do his business and I can’t say I ‘m a fan of it though I understand the reasons. Although we’ve clearly benefitted over the years I just feel it doesn’t exactly foster loyalty and team spirit when you’re constantly borrowing someone else’s unwanted Premier League protégé who will talk of getting games under their belt whilst secretly feeling resentful to be slumming it in the Championship.
It will however enable Uwe to take stock in the summer and use his first pre-season to really build a squad for the next campaign. Of course, in addition to loanees sent back, many of our current squad are in their last year and there is great discussion over whether we can afford to sign them up to a new contract. So we could have a totally different team this time next year.
I do buy into the notion of promotion possibly being a year too soon and with a fair wind we can have a proper crack at it next year (and more importantly we still be in receipt of parachute payments) However, there is also the Grant Holt sized elephant in the room which is what happens if we keep on winning and somehow sneak our way back into the Premier League in May?
The rebuilding exercise would be very different then and it may be that we have to resort to short term fix mode. Whereas I would never advocate us not winning every single game we play in, I get the concept of wanting to have a proper look at the squad and using this year to try a few different things. Yet the future for individuals and indeed the whole squad is a very uncertain one and it may need that full preseason before the squad is a settled one.
First published in the Wigan Evening Post’s 12th Man column Wednesday 5th February 2014
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