Further Thoughts on Our Decline

First I have to mention the referee v Brum, Iain Williamson, who played 7 minutes of extra time against all the rules and any semblance of reasonableness. I don’t blame the ref for the goals, they were down to our players. But if he had upheld the rules we would have already been in the play-offs before the Reading game started. How different things would then have been.

However, the play-offs could have proved to be embarrassing on our recent form but would at least have generated some cash to cover the cost of our abortive player loan programme. Now it's time for Rush, McLaren and his team to sort out the new season. I don't suppose he'll make a decision about where he'll be until he knows whether Newcastle are safe from relegation. But if he does decide to leave the club, he will have seriously failed since we are now in a decidedly worse position than when he arrived.

On further reflection, the players as well as the fans need our sympathy. They had a torrid season in 2013/14 with a lot of pressure all the way through and right at the end, the huge disappointment of undeserved defeat in the Play-off Final. In the new season the pressure was still on and then came some key injuries. First Thorne, the great white hope couldn’t even start the season. Then to Eustace and Mascarell, leaving us with no holding midfielder. This seemed to be a very important position for the Derby team set up. Whenever we played without one, our back four became very inhibited and ineffective, both in defence and in attacks down the wing.

And this is where, I think, the management started to fail us. Instead of developing the club’s youth talent (Hansen, Bennett, Thomas, O’Brian etc) they brought in players on loan and totally demoralised our match winners of last season – Bryson, Russell, Ward, Hendrick, plus Christie, Dawkins and Martin as well as the youth players. They brought in Best, Ibe (but didn’t adequately secure his services for the season) and then Bent and Ince and Lingard. But whilst Ince and Bent have scored a lot of goals, I think a good deal of our team spirit evaporated, resulting in the rapid decline of the last few weeks. I cannot see how Lingard was any better than our existing players and he was clearly not as committed.

Our players were either burned out by the pressure or demoralised by this unsympathetic handing. You really have to blame the management for this. Add to that their failure to develop the young talent in the way Nigel did and you begin to see what went wrong (in my opinion). In the end the players simply didn’t have the energy to hold off a buzzing Reading team.

Now the worries start. Have we breached FFP rules? Who amongst our key players will stay? Will Thorne ever be fit? Can Steve or whoever replaces him, build a team with a new fighting spirit around the ones who do stay?

We cannot say GSE have failed us in anyway. McLaren has had copious funds to win promotion and has failed to do so. Worse, he has left us (if he does leave) in a much worse position than the one he inherited. Will GSE now sell and at what price? Mel Morris know what is needed? Will he still be interested?