Slowly, slowly catchy monkey

As I write this I`m looking at the league table, we currently sit 7th place only 6 points behind the leaders 7 games in. We have Boston at home on Saturday who are currently 2nd and if we win this could push us up a bit more, then another home game the Tuesday after so the balls in our court for this one.

Boston play Tuesday and we don`t play till weekend so I hope this reflects in the performance. I feel I should say I would be happy with a point but why should we be? We need to win these games if we want to challenge for promotion, and if we did get in the play off`s we would be playing against a team like this so these games are the perfect test.

In all honestly I have mixed emotions about this season up to now, I don`t know if its down to the constant disappointment we have witnessed after the pre season optimism or that a small part of me still feels that we will soon drop down to mid table.

Nevertheless hand on heart we look stronger than I`ve seen us for the previous few seasons now. I have faith in Alan Lord but I think a few of us (sometimes me included) expect him to live up to his name and perform a small miracle to turn us into a Roy of the Rovers type team overnight.

It will take time for us to turn it around and trial and error to find the right players in the correct positions. One thing is for sure and that is his heart is in it – I`ve met him and he`s such a nice chap and County through and through he deserves time and hopefully success will follow.

County fans are very fickle and you don`t have to look far on certain forums to see them calling for his head if we loose and singing his praises if we win, we seem to have a bi-polar approach to the way we support our team which I feel can cause more harm than good.

Looking back on last season it was about 12 months ago give or take a week that Ian Bogie quit on the pitch after a game, we had got 1 point from the first 15 (i.e. played 5 lost 4) and we were something like 2nd from bottom.

Since then I think it`s been a positive time and things on and off the pitch seem a lot better and more settled, it would be brilliant if we could sneak a cheeky play off place but realistically we may need one or two seasons more to steady ourselves and find some stability. But there is no reason why we couldn`t get promotion this season if we keep it up and build on confidence.

Squad wise I think we have weeded out the “wrong un`s” (although I cant help but think about our winger on remand) but I still feel some strength is needed in midfield, Milligan is doing a excellent job as captain and has impressed me immensely so we will miss him during his suspension as well as Moses who is injured for the next month.

Football is a funny old game and if you were at the Stalybridge match the other week it was like watching last seasons County in the first half, and this seasons County in the 2nd, it`s a shame we couldn`t have at least got a point as the lads played brilliantly in the 2nd half and deserved to get something from the game.

One player who has impressed me as well this season is Kristian Dennis, last season he had a rough one but he looks a complete different player this time round and he has upped his full game in general. With himself, Ryan, Spencer and Sharpe all fighting for places we are slowly filling the void left by Jevons.

Going back to the league table I heard someone say “whoever looks at the table before Christmas needs to give there head a wobble”, while I agree this is possibly correct for some of the higher leagues who play less it doesn`t take long to fall behind (look at Hyde) and we need to keep up the top end of the table to stand a chance promotion wise.

If we can get 6 points or 4 maximum with the next two games then maintain our league position till Christmas moral will improve and we might even be singing promotion songs by new year.

Well we can dream cant we?

Steve

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[ Thanks for the article Steve!

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