As I already said, the comment about Clarke being replaced was more ‘what if’ and I wasn’t making any predictions. It was meant more as ‘wouldn’t it be good if we repeated that season?’ in reality, I wouldn’t want to repeat the first half of that season, because we looked nailed on for relegation. It’s easy to forget how poor that group of players were, and how much pressure Johnson was under. As ‘bad’ as we currently are, we’ve lost 3 games out of 10 and only a point off the playoffs. Playing poorly yes, but not sure about being in free fall. Must say I’m baffled by Clarkes approach to Huddersfield in the paint pot though. Not because it was a meaningful game, but because he could have taken pressure off himself by at least looking like he wanted to win. Big own goal IMO.
I think we all knew that Hourihane and Winnall, for example, were good players. It was Adam Hammill's return which then transformed the season, after Patrick Cryne rang him up and persuaded him to come back.
I am not seeing anything other than the club in general is in slow decline regarding everything. This has all the makings of relegation or a fight to survive in League One. If there is a sudden uplift or changes in what ever departments they might scrape mid table.
Whenever the camera focused on the dugouts last night I was worried by the lack of concern / urgency / passion / frustration shown by all of the coaching team. This may be unfair as we've no idea what was said in the changing room but the performance on the pitch seemed to be reflected by the body language off it.
In his post match interview he talked about taking-positives, how Hudds had fielded a strong side and players getting minutes etc. Not really acknowledging how poor we were from back to front.