my theory re Davey / Mel Machin, quite possibly B*ll*cks.....

From what I have seen of Davey's tactics and the way the team approached last night's match, he reminds me very much of Mel Machin.

Machin inherited a squad of players who were leaking goals, which in the large part he managed to put a stop to (though we did take a couple of hammerings early in his reign). He then began to build the side steadily, and once he had shored up the defence and relegation had been avoided, he actually started to play some very good football. People seem to forget that in his first full season when we just missed out on the play-offs, we played some great stuff and scored quite a few goals, whilst remaining very difficult to score against. Also, it is worth remembering that whilst we had a decent squad of players, we couldn't have realistically expected such a good season. Rammell and Saville up front, with Brendan O' Headless playing just behind them.

I was pretty pissed off when Ritchie was sacked, even more so when Davey was given the job after I'd flown home for the Fowls debacle. However, he seems to be turning things around slowly, and I reckon that if we avoid the drop this season, we will see Davey playing a far less cautious game next season. I dare say that it won't be as pretty to watch as the Ritchie team was earlier this season, but unfotunately that's often what has to be done when attempting to get the team to perform better than the sum of the individual parts. Machin knew that, and I reckon that Davey knows that too.