SW19's ARMY

Blimey, it’s been quite busy in the transfer department over the past 48 hours, hasn’t it? And we’ve still got four days until the window shuts….

The big news – in fact, astonishing news – is that Terry Brown has finally signed a defender. The world really did stop when it was announced, although one suspects he was kidnapped after the Gillingham game and forced at gunpoint to sign somebody who wasn’t a forward.

So anyway, step forward Gavin Hoyte of Arsenal. Yes, that one. I’m not too sure what’s more eyeopening, somebody we’ve sort-of heard of or TB getting in a full back…

OK, enough snarkiness. It was perhaps the one position which was neglected and now isn’t. How many new faces have been drafted in this month now? Seven? Any corrections welcomed by the way, I’ve honestly lost count.

And yes, it’s another loanee, but TB has said on the OS that Hoyte is here “initially” for a month. Bit like Euell then, and if their recent comments are anything to go by, both Knott and Moncur may be here beyond February.

So, what do we know about Hoyte? Perhaps more to the point, is he likely to be the same try-before-you-buy player we get in, a la C-Mac and Gwillim? Well, he’s a right back, can also play in the centre, and is apparently way, way down the pecking order at the Emirates.

He also spent a great deal of time last season at Lincoln. Now, remember that they were in L2 last season, and apparently the Imps were doing quite well before he got injured (aha, THAT’S what’s convinced TB to sign him…).

So it’s obvious that Arsenal don’t have too many more plans for him, if they would rather loan him out to our level for two seasons in a row. Indeed, providing all goes well with us, they’ll probably be happy to do a deal with us come May…

What this will do to Sam Hatton and Fraser Franks is anyone’s guess. Hatton does at least have competition now, and he really needs to step up his game big time. I get the feeling FF will be history come the summer, as he seems to have disappeared without trace again.

The other big signing this week, as we all know by now, is Jason Prior from Bognor. Presumably for a fee more than the £10k we suppposedly paid for Danny Kedwell.

Now, as you know I don’t really like signing players from anything lower than the Conference, as the Listed Five showed there is a big gap between being a BSP player and being a League Two one.

Prior had been scoring in Ryman One South, but so did Rob Ursell. What may help Prior is that Newcastle trialled him, and other Football League clubs are after him. Although if Brighton (who were also reportedly after him) had got him, he would have spent the rest of this season in their second string.

Remember that Sammy Moore made a one-division jump to join us, and Jolley made the leap of two leagues. And he took a good year to get to the level he is with us now (and even now, I still think he blows hot and cold too much).

I guess that Prior is seen as somebody to be bedded in for next year. We’re only five wins away from likely safety, chances are we may reach it sooner. Bedding in with a more confident and L2-level collection of players is the best – in fact, the only – way that somebody like Prior is going to develop.

Of course, he’ll score a hat-trick tomorrow and all will be well. And we know what happens to strikers who score on their AFCW debuts…

A couple more are in, and inevitably a few have gone out. Brendan Kiernan is at Braintree, which is probably the biggest no-brainer of the lot. I took a rare look at the Conference table, and didn’t realise that a) Braintree were actually in the Conference and b) they’re mid-table.

Perhaps the most noteworthy is Brett Johnson on loan to Cambridge. He never really recovered from the Bristol Rovers game, did he? If one was to look at predictions made at the beginning of the season, he was the one who was almost a dead cert to make the step up.

Thanks to Kyle for pointing this out – here’s what our manager said earlier this week on the OS about him:

“We have almost a fully fit squad at the moment and I think this loan deal will be beneficial to both us and Brett as we want him staying fit and playing games”

And here’s what he said about Ed Harris going on loan to Dover on the 29th March, 2011:

“Dover have an injury crisis and needed a centre back. We wanted Ed to get some match time so this suits everyone. He has gone for the minimum period of 28 days and we will review the position with him and Dover at the end of that period. If we need him back we can recall him after the 28 days has elapsed.”

Hmm.

Are we seeing the first signs of the big rebuilding job needed in the summer already? The rumour mill is suggesting that Ryan Jackson could be joining BJ at Cambridge, and James Mulley is weighing up his options.

When you consider that we may have already signed next season’s new right back, together with two forwards in Byron and Prior, there’s thankfully no obvious sign of being as woefully underprepared as we were last close season.

What is also clear is that some money has been pumped in from somewhere. If Byron came for an AFCW record fee (as in, more than £20k-25k paid for Jon Main) and figure of £12k were being bandied about for Prior, that’s a fair wedge being put in.

We’re certainly not going to be amongst the bottom four in terms of player budget any more – obviously, we’re not going to match certain teams in terms of money out, but this should nail the excuse (or lie) that we’re paupers. If we were, we shouldn’t be.

Being run well isn’t the same as being run so tightly your arse squeaks when you move. Putting too little money in is as damaging to a club as putting in too much unsubstainable money…

Chances are that TB won’t be taking in any more players now, unless a target suddenly becomes available at the right price before the window shuts. Or he decides he needs to add just one more time to the 27 forwards we already have. It would be surprising if we’ve heard the last of those going out the door though.

Actually, TB has had form with this sort of thing. Remember the Ryman Prem season where he signed as many players on-loan to get us up? Looking back, that was one helluva gamble, probably a bigger one looking back at it in cool hindsight than it was at the time.

And of course, we’ve loaned in Nathan Elder and Drewe Broughton in the past…

This time, he’s actually loaned in well. What will happen if we’ve miscalculated the loan arrangements is anyone’s guess, although it’s going to be hard to see those released coming back for anything more than a cameo. And logic does tell you that it’s better for Knott, Moncur and Hoyte to be playing regularly for us.

Put it this way, if we’ve signed the loanees only for a month without any option to keep them on, TB will suddenly find life very uncomfortable again. Deservedly, too.

Still, we’re all happy again. Or at least relatively content. People are genuinely looking forward to tomorrow against Aldershot, a team that haven’t scored in ages, who looked all right against Plymouth when your editor covered them but no more than that, and who even managed to struggle to score against our sack of shite at the Rec earlier in the season.

And if you need me to supply the inevitable conclusion….

A couple of thoughts from last night:

- Nine points out of nine, eh? Be honest, who would have predicted that after the Swindon game? After that debacle, we would have been lucky to get nine points from the rest of the season.

All of a sudden, and with almost no hint of irony, people are pointing out that we’re now seven points away from the playoffs. More importantly, at the moment, we’re 14 points away from the drop zone and pushing towards that 50 point safety barrier. Although with those around the drop zone still needing to play each other, safety may be nearer than we think…

- We all know what’s changed, and we can only hope that we really have made arrangements to keep Knott and co until the end of the season. Speaking of our new hero from Sunderland (OK, Canvey…), he may just be the best player to ever put on a blue-with-yellow-trim shirt in the AFCW era. There’s no way he’ll stay past May, in fact I think we might have trouble keeping him past February.

Which would be a massive shame, as his reaction at the end last night was as passionate and celebratory as anyone who has spent his whole career with us. He seems to be matey with both GG and Sammy Moore, which obviously helps. And our loanees seem quite well grounded full stop – one sensed that with the “old” squad success went to their head…

Oh, decent goal by Knott too.

- On reflection, that might have been the goal to have finally pushed us away from the relegation zone this season. Knott struck at exactly the right time – we were a goal down (yet again), we just picked ourselves off the floor, we replied quickly enough to stop the grumbles becoming louder and from then on there was only going to be one winner.

Even if we did have to wait until the end again.

Now, you look at Saturday and you’re pumped for it, aren’t you? As a few times this season have proven, you can have a couple of decent results and think you’re on the right track, then you play the third game and you leave a massive turd in the middle of the room. We haven’t done that this time, and one senses we’re in for perhaps the most confident period of our season.

Aldershot is winnable. Bradford and Northampton are winnable. Hell, even though they’re third in the table people may put a couple of shillings on the game at Whaddon Road. This month has proven many things, one of them showing just how narrow the gap is between freefalling and doing well. I expect we’ll go through a sticky patch in a couple of games time, but for once it’s nice to look at the League table…

- This all said, we’ve come from behind more times in the past 11 days than the average porn star. There’s only so many times we can get away with that, even with our new found confidence, and it seems that TB wasn’t happy last night.

As I was writing this, the forward appears to be Bognor striker Jason Prior. Now, you know what SW19 thinks of signing players from that level, but he has gone on trial at Newcastle. One presumes he was found not guilty. I reserve judgement on him, much in the same way as I’m reserving judgement on Byron Harrison right now…

I think we have to accept that TB is always going to want to sign a forward, regardless of any other position that may need sorting out. Over the last four years it’s the position he’s gone on most about. Christ, if Seb got injured, he’d probably try and do without a shotstopper if he could sign somebody up front – mind you, we’d win every game 14-13.

But the possibility of a defender? Blimey, things must be bad then. Seems like Sam Hatton is becoming much-maligned again, and somebody made an unguarded comments about him last night – “he’s the last link to the Ryman Premier”.

OK, perhaps our manager would count under that too, but he seems to have become a target again and you wonder if this will be the closing chapter for him at AFCW. Last season he was a revelation, but now he seems to be getting singled out in probably the worst back line in the division. He did seem to pass to the opposition more than most, and there’s a difference between knowing what you’re trying to do and actually doing it.

And yes, he is the best right back at the club, which is a bit like saying you’re the best saxophonist in Luxembourg.

At least we’re seeing him play. Some other players seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth – have you heard anything about Ricky Wellard or Brett Johnson recently? Admittedly I don’t read the programme so I’ve no idea whether both are featured in Mike Raynor’s comments, but it does feel odd not even hearing their names on the bench.

The transfer window shuts in about a week’s time, and it could end up being a very interesting one (though of course the loan window is open until March). Could we see the likes of Wellard and BJ plying their trade elsewhere, even if only temporarily? It’s noteworthy that Ryan Jackson, James Mulley and Max Porter are still “here” (translated: nobody wants them), although you have to say that the vibe in the first team has improved somewhat since they got listed. QED?

I can’t see any of our players (the ones we would want to get rid of, anyway) joining another Football League club, bar Dagenham or Northampton, so one tends to look into non-league to see where they could end up. You can see Mulley ending up at somewhere like Luton or Cambridge, Jackson back at Fleetwood and perhaps Max Porter at Newport (and back under Justin Edinburgh).

Would you send Wellard back to Cambridge to repeat what happened last year there? Perhaps BJ to Kenilworth Road? Chris Bush to Ebbsfleet? The thing is, all these idle bits of speculation are plausible, and all of them would do a job at that level.

Mind you, players have to play where they can these days, and Reece Jones at Ryman Premier doesn’t sound good for him for next season…

- Speaking of next season, and assuming we can secure safety ASAP, it’s times like this when it’s worth thinking about what we do come May/June/July. And when you think about it, we’ve got one helluva rebuilding job to do.

I can’t see most if not all the players just mentioned having squad numbers with us for 2012/13, and you assume that JS will be on his way too. Take out all the loanees too, and that’s practically a new side we have to rebuild this close season. And at a level that has to be League Two standard this time.

Could we be heading for the biggest close season shakeup in the AFCW era? I still can’t see how long we can get away with SC/SB being effectively part time, and is it true that Paul Priddy (GK coach) only comes in once a week? I’m not going to say that we will automatically have everything in place come the first kick of the ball next season, in fact I can see it taking a couple of seasons of (at times painful) rebuilding.

But last night proves what can happen if we do it properly. Talk of getting into League One in the next couple of seasons isn’t so far fetched, although it would be nearer 3/4 years – just imagine finding/developing our own Knott – and the club’s long term aim is the Championship.

I don’t think we need to be League-One-this-season-or-bust. We’re not Crawley. We badly need to catch up with ourselves though, on and off the pitch, and at least we now know what we need to do. Being a mid table side for the next couple of years won’t hurt us, and if we can finally get a couple of cup runs together that would keep us occupied.

How we’ll do it remains to be seen, but it could be quite fun finding out.

- Finally, isn’t it funny how Jason Euell has almost been forgotten already? And to think he was going to be the catalyst for our comeback…

A few further random thoughts on yesterday, that I forgot to mention as I was close to crashing out.

I promise to try and not mention our defence, as even TB has admitted he has to do something about it now, and I’ll attempt to keep the churlishness down to a minimum for once. I’ll leave that until after we lose 3-1 to Macclesfield on Tuesday…

- We won yesterday because we didn’t give up. It was certainly a great last 20 minutes, the best for some time, and with luck we’ve finally gotten over a big psycholgical hurdle.

Question is, why? Well, it really did prove that fresh blood was needed, and for once our loan signings in January have already paid off. Imagine our mood right now had they been Elder/Broughton-esque. But when the likes of Knott come in and you feel they’ve been here for a long while, we might have finally struck lucky.

The “old” squad could never have done what we did yesterday, and it’s interesting that some believe the remaining members of those who came up with us have since upped their game. Luke Moore scoring twice in two games isn’t exactly a coincidence, and many were praising Toks for contributing to the game changing.

When  the goonage from the players (and TB) on the field afterwards matched that in the stand, it clearly meant more than just a comeback…

- Perhaps this might be a turning point in our all-round mentality? When it was 3-1, you felt “here we go again”, and it really did have that vibe that Port Vale last week was a blip. That probably explains why the first 70 minutes have been all but forgotten – same old, same old, and all that.

Which does beg the question – why can’t we play in the first 70 minutes like we did in the last 20? Fear? Poor pre-match preparation? We were apparently more relaxed yesterday than we were at Port Vale, yet we still have to come from behind. Then again, that has been a feature for the last 4 years…

- The proof in the well-egged pudding will come Tuesday. We badly, badly need to get some wins at Theme Park KM (the place where all visitors go home happy), and Macc will be a good time to do it. I’d almost go so far as to say how we have no excuse not to win that game – Jason Euell will be back, ditto Jolley, we’ve won two on the spin, our opponents have lost their last three League games…

Macclesfield are 19/10 with Skybet right now, in case you’re asking.

- Could this have been the most important 20 minutes of our season? I have to admit, I would have happily accepted the draw yesterday. Four points from six on the road isn’t a bad tally, after all. That it’s P2 W2 is better than many (OK, most) of us expected a couple of weeks ago.

Somebody came up with a sobering stat after the Port Vale game. Had we lost up in the Potteries, we would have been 20th. This morning, we’re 15th – a position most of us will give our reproduction tools to finish this season – with an eleven point gap between us and the drop zone. And better goal difference, somehow.

This month was always going to be important, and it’s one that could have seen us in real relegation shit at the beginning but ironically could see us almost safe at the end of it. Tuesday is important, though not as vital as it could have been – even so, win that and we’re suddenly five wins away from the magical 50 point mark. With nineteen games to get them.

One thing that TB has proven in the past is that he is capable of getting the needed results when they really are needed. Think of how we got promoted – not only to the Football League but from the Ryman and Conference South too. While I think TB is starting to hit a glass ceiling in terms of his management ability, he needed these last two results like no other.

He got them.

- This all said, I still don’t believe the calls that we can push for the playoffs. Our [CENSORED COMMENT ABOUT DEFENCE] but also I don’t think the club itself is ready for yet another push upwards for a couple of years.

Think of how far away we were from being an FL club in the Conference South, or even in the first season of the Conference, and you get some idea of what we need to do. I know D&R and Stevenage did it, but look at Daggers now. And I wouldn’t fancy Stevenage to remain in L1 when the Westley effect goes. Older heads will tell you what happened when WFC went into Div 3 for the first time, and Wycombe and Chesterfield are currently proving that it’s not easy in the next division up…

Of course, the fact we’re even talking about the playoffs shows how far we’ve come, even in attitude. Two weeks really is a long time in football.

- I’m not mentioning much about the game as I still can’t fully take it in. Did we really score three times in the last twenty minutes to win? I suppose we must have done as I had one of those journeys coming back home. You know, that kind of glowing one you have when you know you’ve witnessed something good.

Was it as good as Eastlands, as some are hinting? The best result and drama since then, yes, but nothing will match the significance. I don’t think it was as good as the West Ham 4-3 or the Aston Villa 4-3 in the WFC era, as [CENSORED COMMENT ABOUT DEFENCE] and therefore it was a rarer event to go 3 goals down so readily.

But it was special.

Funny how people can react in different ways to results like this. Your editor got blasted in the comments of last night’s report for being “tepid” over it. I wasn’t, not intentionally anyway, but I was knackered when I wrote it and there were outstanding issues that haven’t been sorted. Great for yesterday’s entertainment, not great for our long term substainability.

(in the interest of balance, somebody else said I was “fair”. Guess you can’t try and please everyone, because if you do you just end up pleasing nobody).

Come to think of it, the reaction generally has been a little bit mixed. There are those who are now nursing massive hangovers and will have impending paternity suits in a couple of months time thanks to JM’s 90th minute goal. There are those who think all is OK now. And there are those who certainly enjoyed it but aren’t getting carried away by a result that could have easily gone wrong.

Who’s right? Or wrong? The truth is, nobody is. It’s a bit of a shame in a way that we do have a game Tuesday, as we don’t get to bask in this result in the way we had to endure a week of scab picking gloom after some recent defeats. Of course, a win at KM…

- How nice was it to see us take our allocation up? 1163 is a decent turnout, albeit one typical of games we’ve had in Kent and the south coast generally since 2002. And before that, if truth be told. It certainly looked good on the telly, anyway.

What that does prove is that even with a recent poor run of form, we know that a third of our home support will turn out for these sort of short trips – in time, that will go down but wasn’t WFC always a case of people picking and choosing?

We’ll never take 1000+ every game we go to, at times we’ll struggle to take 400 (we are a L1/L2 level side after all) but the novelty of League football has worn off and yet we still want to go. And after the years of abuse we took for our small support, isn’t it nice to read a table like this?

- Finally, hands up anyone who said “Can’t Kedwell take one for us?” when we got the penalty….

After taking the picture below at half time (under recommendation from an SW19 reader), I might be tempted to buy one of these houses. I just hope they’re one of those three down, four up ones…

Anyway, my first AFCW game since Barnet, and…….. Football, bloody hell. Seriously, bloody, bloody hell. Right now, I still can’t take it in when I look at SSN and see Gills 3 Lungs 4. Do games like that still happen? Do teams really come back from the dead and stun the opposition that much?

We did.

When Jack Midson netted in the 89th minute, those who have been trying their hardest to wind the Wimbledon clock back to 1986 got their wish for once. The very concept of Old Wimbledon is often overused (and wrongly used too, but that’s for another time) but there was something distinctly nostalgic at a venue that many of us visited over a decade ago.

Luck? Yeah, a bit. But it’s not like we had much of that recently. Our second goal was certainly down to that though, and I’d like to see the penalty again (how it was awarded, that is. Oh, and who else thought JM had skied it?) But if it’s a semi-reward for the outright pile of whale wank we had to endure between October and the beginning of this month, then it’s very gratefully received…

The churlish bit out of the way first though. Whatever is causing our defence to disappear quicker than a Franchise fan’s loyalty still hasn’t been identified and more importantly acted upon. At 3-1, I was writing in my mind about how TB was going to spin his way out of this one – new players in, but same old same old.

Even as you bask in this result, we still need to look in the ten remaining days of the transfer window into how to at least semi-plug the leaks from a defence that is still, to be blunt, shite. The other day, your editor was watching this and it’s a painful bit of deja vu all over again. And while TB will take every plaudit for today, it’s on his watch that it’s never been sorted.

If we do finish strongly this season, it will be because of the multitude of attackers and midfielders we seem to have now. I guess we can safely expect a few more 4-3 results, anyway. It may be easily forgotten that we went 3-1 down within two minutes of us pulling that goal back -that’s a legit weakness, and one that can’t make me give TB 100% credit right now…

But hey, we won.

I haven’t managed to see the goals again, yet, but if there’s one thing that is certainly different since Barnet, it’s our desire to at least try and claw back. Obviously the new (loan) signings have made a world of difference – how about a whip round to sign Billy Knott? – and it’s something that needed to happen and thankfully has.

Now, I could be smug and say that at 3-1 down, I knew we were going to come back. In truth, I was rolling my eyes at yet another likely defeat. Not to mention thinking what the reaction was going to be. At 3-2 though, I wasn’t too sure what to think. Could we come back? Or was it going to be yet another case of Gillingham going up a gear and getting it to 4-2?

The rest is history, of course. And I have to say here, I did have a funny feeling when it got to 3-3. Not in one of those “I know this will happen” but more of a “wouldn’t it be cool if this happened for once?” vibe. Needless to say, I didn’t entirely believe it when it did happen, but given that this result will be the first time a large percentage of our fans would have seen us win since, well, Gillingham at KM, it was a great way to do it.

I’m drained. But there’s more out of this game yet…

Plus points: We won. Dramatically. Never gave up. Billy Knott. All round desire to get a result. Better vibe around full stop. Newbies.

Minus points: Defence still dangerously shite.

The referee’s a…: Before the game, he was earmarked as a card happy individual, never more content to lay down the law by showing a little rectangular bit of cardboard. Did he even get it out once? And his cards…

Them: How does that song go again? Thank you very much for the six points, Gillingham. Thank you very much, thank you very very much….

At least it proves that we’re not the only ones who can’t keep a clean sheet. I did notice that their heads started to drop after our equaliser, and they were well and truly glued to the floor when we went 4-3 up.

Danny Kedwell didn’t get quite such a good reception, it was a bit lukewarm if truth be told. Some boos, too. I know he left with a slightly bitter taste in the mouth, but it was quite surprising to hear. That said, I remain convinced to this day that we dodged a bullet by selling him and we got somebody better in Jack Midson.

Seriously, did DK do anything? Good luck to him for playing for his boyhood club, but I wonder if he will think tonight that maybe the grass wasn’t as green as he thought…

As for the club itself, I’ve covered a few games at Priestfield and it’s one of the best press facilities in the lower divisions. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the scaffolding that passes as their away end. Isn’t there a rule about supplying covered seating for away fans? It’s almost like they built the stand and then forgot to submit permanent plans for it…

Mind you, it didn’t seem particularly well run, which for a club that has been at this level and above for more years than most is pretty poor. Christ, we get angry when we hear comments about what we do. Reports that they ran out of printed ticket stubs raises the eyebrows, not to mention some very irate people who were pissed off at a) having seat numbers but not enforced by the stewards, and b) people standing up. At least we have an excuse with the inadequacy that is KM. What’s Gillingham’s?

Oh, and how funny was it to see the pissed up pikeys in the executive areas giving it the massive one before the 89th minute? Still, I suppose they can do something more useful now, like trying to work out who their real fathers are.

Point to ponder: Assuming we get to keep them until the end of the season, how do we go about replacing the likes of Knott? I can’t imagine him staying at our level, somebody like Charlton will snap him up, and those sort of players are harder to buy and/or keep with the sort of budget we apparently have.

Actually, we might be seeing early plans for the summer going on already. C-Mac, Byron and now Brendan Kiernan have been put on 2.5 year deals, so they’ll obviously be here for the long term. I expect we’ll see the likes of Midson, Jolley, Sammy Moore and Seb Brown given similar deals. The key here will be who else gets one. If the likes of Ricky Wellard go on loan and we don’t hear about them getting offered improved terms, we can assume he’ll be at Cambridge next season.

Oh, and what do these results do for TB’s tenure? He’s certainly bought himself time, probably until the end of the season (bar one last horrific slump). I’m still not completely sure about what happens to him during the summer, but his ability to do (short term) remedial work to our defence remains key. He doesn’t seem to have the best approach/attitude towards it, and it could prove the difference between a comfortable back end of the season and a painfully limping one…

Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) That bloody horrible Gills-centric version of Swords of A Thousand Men over the PA before the game. (2) Finally (?) finding out what the More Beer Fatter Women is about – apparently, it’s nicked verbatim from Newcastle fans. No, I still don’t understand why it’s sung by us either. (3) “Back to your caravans” – us at the end. Which leads me onto…

Anything else? Remember when the word “Kent” meant going to godawful dumps like Ramsgutter? Or trips dahn to Margate, or Tonbridge Angels, or Bromley, or the occasional trip to Dover? Or even somewhere like Herne Bay? While you’re getting rat-arsed at what we did today, remember that this season at least we only make one trip to the Garden of England. And that the previous places I mentioned were regular league games under less than five years ago…

So, was it worth it? Eventually.

In a nutshell: 3-1 down and 4-3 up, doo dah, doo dah…

Do not adjust your computer monitor. It appears that AFCW has managed to win three points in a game, and away too. This remains unconfirmed though.

Your editor was unsurprisingly elsewhere, and therefore doesn’t believe it. However, Warton Womble was, and swears blind that not only did it happen but we played semi-decently too. He even went to the pains of writing me a match report – so if this is a hoax, it’s a pretty elaborate one…

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What to say about Port of the Potteries 1 Port of London 2? About time, I guess.

There was a buzz around the away end right from the off, and watching the warm up and seeing Jason Euell stroking in some fine shots sent many a fan back to the old days. But it was the announcement of the team news that got my heart thumping a bit: not the new signings, but the fact that Sammy Hatton was on the bench, and Jamie Stuart aka Captain Fantastic wasn’t even there. More on that later.

Watching the opening exchanges we started to see improvements straight away. A steeliness in the midfield and the much vaulted centre-back pairing of MMK and McNaughton certainly inspired more confidence. We started passing. To our own players. We won second balls. We even managed to play out of defence. As a unit, the away end felt we really could be witnessing the birth of League 2 AFC Wimbledon. Perhaps even an end to the Learning Curve™?

And then, slightly against the run of play, they scored. Fraser Franks (starting in place of Hatton) was easily beaten down the right, and looked out of his depth. Shaun Riggs crossed and Marc Richards headed in from about 4 yards.

But perhaps this was a good thing, because it showed how far we had come in two weeks. Previous Dons sides this season would have seen this as a hurdle too high, rolled over and conceded three more. Instead, we didn’t lose our heads. We kept our shape, and more importantly our composure, and continued to play well, without creating too many clear-cut chances.

Then Sammy Moore crossed low, and Jack Midson somehow managed to get a touch on it. And we held our breath as the ball slowly dribbled over the line. Their keeper tried to claw it out but the goal was given. Cue delirium in the away end. Luke Moore replaced Jason Euell, who picked up a slight knock on his calf. Overall, the Dons definitely edged the first half, with chances at a premium.

The second half started in the same way, and it became clear that Fraser Franks had been targeted by the Vale as being a weak link. For once, instead of grumbling on the touchline, TB noticed, and tried to do something about it, bringing on Sammy Hatton.

Again, chances were hard to come by, but there was certainly a positive mood in the Dons’ camp, with decent football being played, and more importantly, variety in our play – little one-twos mixed with balls over the top meant we were less predictable, and as the half progressed there was a confidence not felt for some time – we could go on to win this.

And win we did – some fine work on the right by Harrison, who squared to Luke Moore. He took a touch before careful bending it into the corner.

It felt like it was coming, a deserved winner. The only remaining question was whether we could hold on to the lead. But the MMK/McNaughton partnership held firm, and despite Sammy Hatton trying his best to lose his head, everyone else got on with the job in hand.

So an away win, and our first 3 points since Morecambe away in October. But much more importantly, we looked like a team who could play. And TB proved he wasn’t afraid of making big decisions, which might just be the saving of his position at this time.

The new additions? The not-very-new McNaughton was strong and didn’t do much wrong – I’d like to see that pairing with MMK become a regular one, as they seemed to work well together. Billy Knott played well, as did George Moncur, who started on the right, and they looked comfortable at this level. Knott showed a classy first touch. He also knew how to protect the ball rather than give away possession under a feeble challenge like a true Don, but I’m sure he’ll learn soon winking . Both linked well with Jason Euell and Sammy Moore.

I was surprised to see Euell starting to be honest, given he probably isn’t match fit. He lacked a little pace, and his first touch wasn’t quite perfect at times, but that’s just a bit of rust – as Paul Scholes and Terry Henry have proved, class is permanent:) happy . What hadn’t changed was the vision, with some lovely passes which split the defence which has been severely lacking.

Our record signing? A little quiet in the first half, but was encouraged to run in the second half with better service, and started to get into the game. He set up the winner too, and showed ability with couple of good first touches and turns.

But this was the first competitive game with them, playing in a diamond with Sammy Moore at the back, Moncur on the right, Knott on the left and Euell/Luke Moore just behind the strikers. Their understanding of each other’s game visibly improved over the course of the game, and once they fully gel you could imagine a very strong starting four in midfield. It’s just a shame Knott and Moncur are on loan…

Plus Points: A win and 3 points, but more importantly a performance to be proud of – especially considering we came back from behind. TB set the side up with the right intention, and we seemed to have more of a cutting edge. And we scored two from open play.

Minus Points: Right back – Fraser Franks isn’t good enough; neither is Sammy Hatton. The loanees simply highlight the fact. They both lack composure under pressure. And it’s a shame that we no longer walk in a Hatton Wonderland , but it’s time for TB to find someone to replace him.

The Referee’s a…: chap in black unsure of his parentage. Didn’t give a couple of decisions, including a fairly obvious red card when Griffith tried to cut Billy Knott in half, but, to be fair, missed a fairly blatant handball by McNaughton early on too, so best not complain too hard…

Them: Going through some tough times at the moment, which remind me of some Norwegian bastards. Can’t feel too sorry for them though, as they charged £20.50 for a ticket. Quite a nice modern stadium, although not quite sure why all the away fans were squashed into one block of seating, given the amount of space available. It’s certainly the kind of thing we should be building if when we get back to Merton. Their scorer looked strong, but he was the only one you thought you’d have. Will probably be mid-table if they aren’t into receivership.

Point to Ponder: If we’d signed the loanees on permanent deals I’d sleep like a baby tonight. As it is, I just can’t help wondering what will happen when Knott and Moncur go. Euell was replaced by Luke Moore, who seemed to relish decent service, and ditto Toks when he replaced Knott, but I can’t help feeling that month-long loans might not be enough. I hope I’m wrong, because it was such an improved performance. I’d love to have Knott sign tomorrow (Moncur I want to see more of) but if they don’t?

Three’s a crowd: Disappointing; although the announced number was 4326, it looked like fewer than that, and they weren’t half quiet. A shame as it’s hard to have banter with yourself without looking peculiar…

Anything else? An unusual substitution, when the 4th Official came on for the lino. The problem was that no-one knew how many additional minutes were given, and as we couldn’t see the scoreboard and clock, most Dons were down to their knuckles by the time the ref actually blew his whistle. There was even a “They think it’s all over moment” when the ref awarded a free kick and the away end started celebrating the win prematurely… at least it didn’t come to bite us on the arse.

But perhaps the most interesting talking point – where was Captain Fantastic? Some said injured, although I couldn’t find anything on the OS or anywhere else. The evidence today was clear – we are better without him than with. Their goal was due to a defensive lapse by Fraser Franks – everything else was mopped up with, dare I say it, ease? GG took the armband, and played the best I’ve seen him. There was no Jamie Stuart sized hole. Whilst he was great last season, I think this could be the final nail in his starting place. Time will tell.

In a nutshell: Bring on Gillingham!

---

No, I still don’t believe us winning a game is anything other than a cruel elaborate hoax. Very elaborate though, I have to admit – the OS is in on it, the national and local press are running with it too, and the players and fans are continuing with it on the various messageboards and social media sites.

This could almost match the crackpotted retarded conspiracy theorists truthseekers who believe that 9/11 was an inside job.

Anyway, assuming we did actually win a game, as WW said – about bloody time too. And pretty welcome as well – another defeat and the London Underground network would have had to deal with a few AFCW fans throwing themselves in front of their rolling stock.

But something was different yesterday, and I think it might have been summed up when we went 1-0 down. I was sitting in a cold press box at the Amex, and while I rolled my eyes when I found out the score, I had that sense that I hadn’t had for a while – it was a case of when, not if we’d pull a goal back. That we did a few minutes later made the half time cuppa a bit nicer tasting.

Of course, we scored and the rest is recent history…

So, what? Well, it’s a rather nice change not to have your Sunday ruined with yet another post mortem on inglorious failure. This warm glow of a victory is a weird feeling, isn’t it? Suddenly things feel nicer, birds are singing sweeter, the sky is bluer, even little things that usually annoy me on a Sunday (like getting up) aren’t quite so bad.

The mood is certainly different. It is however but one victory, and it’s very easy to get carried away. We could very easily return to bad old ways at Priestfield next week, and this now becomes just as an important seven days for everyone as last week. The shot in the arm the new signings have given us is all very well, but we need three or four wins, not just one.

It’s still a concern that the new players are mostly here for a month, with no obvious hints that they’ll remain past February. Especially when you read that other sides near us in the table are taking players on loan until the end of the season.

I would be disappointed – and not a little angry – to see that we haven’t planned for this and we’re back to square one should Euell, Moncur and Knott go back to their parent clubs. If you think the mood was bad after Swindon, just imagine what it will be like if we’re caught short this time next month…

Still, enough churlishness. We did win yesterday after all, or so the establishment tells us anyway What we have also gained is a bit of breathing space – if all goes well, having Saturday 7th January off might have kept AFC Wimbledon in the Football League. It gave us a week off from an absolute hellish run, forced us to dip into the transfer market and give us a mental health break that we so badly needed.

WW mentioned about getting off the Learning Curve™. Personally, I don’t think any club really fully does that, but we’ve had the hardest lessons since 2002 this season, and certainly the hardest lessons of all since the middle of October.

Yesterday proved the harshest of harsh realities that the club has now (finally?) learnt – you have to have decent players to do anything in this division. We might have taken an irreversable step this past week, insofar as when we have to replace the likes of Euell/Moncur/Knott we can’t do it with the likes of Max Porter.

It may have got missed, but Lee Minshull is now on loan (and presumably for longer than a month) at Newport County. The rumour mill suggests Porter will join him. Reece Jones is on loan at Carshalton, which seems a pretty big drop for a player in L2 – even somebody like him who seems to be a bag carrier for the first team squad. Even this summer, they were still the type of players we showed a keen interest in.

Step back for a moment and think of the players we’ve got in this past couple of weeks :

- A player from a L1 side who came through the ranks of a Prem side, was playing in the top flight less than two seasons ago and was still a Championship player last season (Euell).

- Two players from the West Ham setup, both of whom have made the team sheets of the first team (C-Mac and Moncur).

- A player from the Chelski youth setup who was considered good enough to be signed by a current Premiership side (Knott)

- A player who came into a L2 side last season and ended up their joint top scorer (Byron)

None of them are exactly part timers. All of them are proven talent at levels higher than anything we’ve experienced as AFCW.

The question is, how do you replace them? I might see us take Euell on in the summer, but the other loanees are too highly rated for us to keep hold of them. If anything, it just heightens the likelyhood of some serious moves to be made during the summer…

Moving onto more current matters, some are still concerned about our defence, a part of the pitch where TB has never quite shown 100% attention to, if his interviews over the past four years are anything to go by. The next time he does one, will he still go on about needing more in midfield? While C-Mac and MMK are getting a cautious thumbs up, poor FF and GG seemed to be the most quizzed about from yesterday.

Will the next couple of games force TB to look at the full back positions? Do we have any money spare to strengthen? Will we get a few extra sheckles from our sugar daddies benefactors to make it happen if not? If it’s not even on the radar, then it’s a pretty big opportunity missed. We’re still too close to the drop zone for comfort, and the likes of Plymouth are picking up points too.

Judging by the reports I’ve heard, I still don’t fancy this back line in a relegation battle to hold firm. In fact, I would suggest that it will be the reason why we will limp to safety rather than being comfortably mid table by March. It does sound pretty brittle, even by League Two standards, and we’re hoping that we play other teams who aren’t very potent up front…

Still, that’s for another day. We won a game, and by fuck we needed it. Finally we can start watching the Eastlands penalties without that horror of what went on since. While we need a lot more rebuilding, with luck that can wait until the summer.

One other thing – remember how in the Conf we always used to get three points off Mansfield? I think Port Vale might end up being the same kind of club that will always give us cheer. And if that is the case, if PV had taken anything off us we must have really been shit…

It’s typical of AFCW this week that as soon as you have to deal with more pressing matters elsewhere, you end up missing yet another signing…

Anyway, last night we got another youngster on loan, this time somebody called Billy Knott. As you know by now, he’s ex-Chelski and he’s on loan to us from Mackemville. He’s also a left winger or left back, has had a cruciate injury (therefore an ideal TB signing) and he had some problems with discipline.

And his surname is the basic for 1001 crap puns.

OK, it’s the usual on-loan-for-a-month deal, and like Euell you hope there’s some flexibility with his deal. His age suggests we might get him for the whole season, but Sunderland fans rate him and if Martin O’Neill feels the same as Chris Powell then we might have the worst case scenario on our hands come this time next month.

Still, if we even get a few decent games out of him, that’s going to help us in Operation Survival. Since SW19 last updated, we also added Byron Harrison permanently for a record fee. One presumes that’s the AFCW record fee (around £25k for Jon Main, and looking back wasn’t that an absolutely crazy price to pay for a RP/CS level player who couldn’t do it in the Conference?) and not the £7.5m tax fiddle that WFC paid for John Hartson…

One thing is certainly clear though – either the club itself or a benefactor (or both) have come up with the money just when we needed it. It has fulfilled its side of Operation Survival with allocating funds that presumably are typical of a mid-table L2 level side. While a ball hasn’t been kicked yet, already the mood is a thousand times more positive than it was after Swindon. Hell, it’s a lot better than it was on Monday afternoon.

And I think that whatever happens from now until the end of the season, AFCW has learnt something this past fortnight : you just can’t run a Football League club on the cheap. Certainly not when things go wrong and you don’t have the backup of a decent youth system. I don’t think I want to know how much we’ll be paying Euell per week, and I doubt if Knott will be playing for £10 expenses, a stale cheese roll and subsidised Dons Trust membership somehow.

Even paying a record fee for a player is a break from our approach to transfers in the last couple of years. Whatever happened to to the Live With Mum way of doing things? If it ever really existed, of course. That said, I expect that we do tend to buy more locally based players, or at least those within commutable distance in the South East. Which is sensible, and it’s not like there isn’t enough talent around here for the right price.

But this week, we finally joined the real world of the Football League. The days of offering 1 year plus one year extensions (on the club’s terms) are going if not gone altogether. C-Mac and Byron are both on 2.5 year deals, standard at this level but something AFCW has never had to – or wanted to – deal with before. This may explain why we’ve gone for more loan signings than permanent ones too…

One thing becomes clear. Assuming Operation Survival is successful, the club will have an interesting rebuilding job in the summer. And a pretty large one too. Even with these five new players in, three of them won’t be here and assuming they’re any good we will need to replace them effectively like-for-like.

That doesn’t include replacing most of the remaining Eastlands squad – can you really see Jamie Stuart and Chris Bush in an AFCW shirt next season? In fact, assuming they’re not sold I can see only Seb Brown, Christian Jolley, Sammy Moore and one of Wellard/Toks still remaining from that era.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the club is already planning with half an eye on the summer, especially now it knows what it has to do to prevent a repeat of the current slump. At least we won’t be as woefully naive and underprepared as we were last close season…

Still, that’s for the future. What of January 12 2012? Timing wise, we have at least done what we urgently needed to do with a good couple more weeks to play with. I doubt if our collective patience would have stood for a couple more weeks of inactivity (and likely losses) before TB went into the last week panic buying.

We have seven games with Euell alone, and if we can pick up a couple of wins and a couple of draws that will make looking at the League table a lot more pleasant than it is right now.

It’s still an “if” though, and amongst the collective boner stroking this week, we are still in a pretty poor run of form. Our League form guide right now is LLLLLLDDDLLLW, in case you’ve forgotten, and there’s no guarantee that we will gain points. It’s possible that TB may have actually bought badly, and until we play games and start getting points, our signings are just new faces.

If anything, TB’s position has become more insecure right now, because there’s no hiding place for him any more. He can’t say the club hasn’t backed him, he has made judgements on who to bring in, and it’s up to him to make sure they perform. If we keep losing, then there’s only going to be one outcome, and as this past fortnight shows, the club acts swiftly and decisively when it has to.

Will it come to that though? We’ll see, but in many ways it feels that the season is starting again. Oxford, Southend and Swindon were less than three weeks ago but with the new signings and current optimism they may well have been three seasons ago.

If all (or even most) of the new signings start at Vale Park, along with C-Mac, that’s effectively half a new team. There may or may not be any more coming in, and perhaps we could be waiting for a few other established players to fail before we bring in a couple of others “to give some competition in the squad”. One senses this may not be the end of the spending.

There was a comment on the Comment section of SW19′s last update (what? You never read them? For shame) wondering about what this would do with the relationship between these newbies and the “cheaper” members of the squad. To which my answer is – bollocks to them. As said earlier, there’s about 3/4 of the playoff squad who I would happily keep, and I’m fine with Midson sticking around too.

We would still be able to loan in (and out) players after January, so if there’s any further bolstering to be made we still have time. Of those the club would wish to keep, it wouldn’t be unlikely that those on 1+1 deals will have their contracts re-negotiated to the full 2/3 years (a la C-Mac and Byron), and with a bit more money to boot.

The rest? Don’t feel too sorry for those who get released, or pro footballers in general. They have a good life, even at our level, and the likes of AFC Coldseal and Chelmsford in the past prove that even being outside the top four (or five) divisions isn’t always a bad thing for the wallet. The vast majority of those who will leave or have already left have had six more months of Football League action that they wouldn’t have got with any other club.

Remember – while it may be run like a non-league division, the Conference has a large minority of full time clubs. Perhaps even a majority these days. And most of our “old” squad should get a club down there…

Still, it’s Saturday where it matters. And no, I have to earn money that day, so I get to miss the inevitable fuckup followed by the comedown of all comedowns revolution. Don’t worry about a match report, that’s sorted.

Optimism is back, and the coach became full the morning after Euell signed, so we’re bound to have a decent turnout. I just hope the debutants don’t score though, we all remember what happened to Nathan Elder and Drewe Broughton…

… Jason Euell.

I’ll wait until you pick your jaw off the floor before I continue. Don’t worry, the pain of it hitting will be worth it.

Well, if that doesn’t cheer people up, nothing will. Even the most deluded of happy clapper would have admitted that up until now, this month has been a pretty frustrating one. Rumours of signings, then when none actually happen you start looking down towards the foot of the table with a heavy heart and even heavier bowels, and you start picking holes in the use of phrases such as “hopefully” and “potentially”…

Suddenly, the mood has changed, hasn’t it? You can almost feel the elation coming from TB during his comments on the OS, although I hope that he didn’t crash his car whilst clearly beating himself off over it.

Of course, Euell can’t do it all by himself, and more on that a bit later, but the only doubt I have right now is the length of it – TB is saying it’s an initial five week loan but Charlton are saying he’ll be back with them after the Northampton game. I hope that TB hasn’t gotten too excited over the signing if Charlton are right, because it will be a little bit deflating if so.

Needless to say, even if we do only get him for five weeks, that’s a shot in the arm we so desperately need right now. You can bet that right now many a Womble is hitting various train websites to get up to Stoke (and if anyone is driving….), and for those with longer memories – remember when Vinny Jones returned to WFC and made his (re)debut at Ipswich? Apparently we made more noise than Liverpool did that season…

Most importantly of all, what can he offer? Apart from the psychological boost he obviously still knows where the net is. As the Mick Harford signing from the 90s proved, class really is permanent. And like Marcus Gayle joining us in the RP season, his experience and knowhow is bound to rub off on some of the more, ahem, naive members of the squad.

But as said above, Jason Euell won’t single handedly keep us up. We still need some fresh faces to, er, freshen things up. As even the Official Site acknowledges, we’ve got George Moncur on an initial (youth?) loan from WHU. He seems quite popular with the average Ammer, and apparently he’s not a physical lightweight either. Not to mention he apparently isn’t afraid to get stuck in.

Him and JE are but two players, and the rumour mill is spinning like it does at this time of year. Reports earlier today suggest that we’ve got another loanee, this time Byron Harrison, although that’s not been officially confirmed as of yet. His stats suggest he knows where the net is too, although how he would fit in with Euell (and I wouldn’t have thought I would be writing that an hour or two ago…) is anyone’s guess.

Oh, and apparently he’s a Wandsworth lad, still lives over this way and could be another GG/C-Mac type loanee-to-permanent deal. But we’ll wait and see, because he might be crap. And he might not even come…

So, what is the club’s thinking with these potential and actual signings? It’s good that they all appear to either have genuine Football League experience and/or grounding in a highly regarded academy (I include C-Mac in this). Although this being SW19, I am contractually obliged to be churlish and suggest this sort of thing should have been done in the summer.

Perhaps more importantly, it’s decent fresh blood. Moncur is likely to be better than the five we released (remember them?) put together – remember that to even get offered pro terms at a Championship (or ex-Prem) club proves you’ve got something about you. If you can ever find a copy of Football Icon, where some youngsters went through the Chelski youth, then you’ll see what these clubs look for.

Does it matter if they’re just loans? As long as they’re mostly until the end of the season, then no. We know what our priority is this season, and we can sort out the short-termism during the summer. Where to be honest I expect the club will take on board what has gone right and wrong this season and start to develop as a Football League club.

Yes, I would prefer a couple of permanent signings too, but right now I just want to win games again.

We’re not alone in this – after the Charlton game on the 2nd Jan, Uwe Rosler said that Brentford were only going to do loanees because of cost. I’m sure you can find other examples of this at other clubs, so what we’re doing isn’t exactly unusual.

But if you’re tempted to moan, lest we forget how utterly horse cock we have been in the last couple of months. Sentiment has gone, and patience has truly worn thin. If we just show a bit more, well, anything at Vale Park on Saturday, then we can finally start draw a line under the crap we’ve been served up. Even signs that we’re about to turn the corner will be better than anything we’ve endured.

Of course, we will need to follow that up with some points at Gillingham, not to mention finally turning Theme Park KM (the place where all visitors leave happy) into something resembling an advantage for us. But if you play well to any degree of consistency, the results are going to go your way sooner or later.

Yes, TB’s job is still under threat, but he made it a bit easier today. He can make it even easier still with the remaining 21 days of this month left, and it’s likely there’s more to come. But barring Dave Beasant coming out of retirement, nothing is going to quite match the player we got in for at least five weeks this afternoon.

I just hope nobody reads back to what SW19 was saying about him before he left WFC…

So then, what are we to make of the bombshell from the Official Site? For those who can’t read it, we’ve put Ryan Jackson, Charles Ademeno, James Mulley, Lee Minshull and Max Porter on the transfer list.

Not on short Wellard-to-Cambridge type deals either, actually properly out of the club. Despite rumours linking Brett Johnson to the “out” list, none of these actually surprise me somehow. As is usual on this site, here’s a breakdown of why they’ve been culled:

Ryan Jackson: Somebody who seemed to be a victim of the club’s rise to the Football League. Had we been in the Conference this season, he would have been brought on a lot more – his performances at Fleetwood this season suggests that’s where he might end up.

Charles Ademeno: When you’re signed on an initial lowly paid contract to prove your fitness, and you start as many games as your editor has been to in the last two months, you ain’t going to be around for too long. Showed a bit of promise when he came on against Brizzle Rovers, but then so have many players…

James Mulley: Little bit surprised, but then we don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. Seemed philosophical about his axing, although didn’t he uhm and ahh about joining us even after we got promoted?

Lee Minshull: I’ve always liked him. No, really. Like a few other players, somebody who was playing at a level above his ability, and one wonders if there’s a better version of him ready to sign on the dotted line? Right sort of player, wrong actual player…

Max Porter: Really didn’t work out for him, did it? Never really got going when he was brought in to play with Gregory, and failed to be the tough tackling midfielder. Given a choice between him and Sammy Moore, there was only ever going to be one winner.

So, what? First things first, it’s never nice to see players who helped get you promoted shunted out, but needs must. None of these really seemed at ease in the Football League, and it’s telling that people are talking about what Conference sides want them.

I suspect with a few replacements – and it looks like things may be happening on that score, finally – we’ll have forgotten most of them ever playing for us. They may have felt they haven’t been given a chance, but when they have had an opportunity they haven’t exactly set the place alight.

After the Wingate game, TB suggested that some of the fringe first teamers weren’t good enough. Here’s what SW19 wrote after the game:

Playing a team from the Ryman Premier – and Tuesday reaffirmed my gladness that we never have to do that again on a regular basis – is always difficult to judge. While our management were impressed with some they were clearly unimpressed by others.

Unfortunately, for those fringers, it’s one of the rare times they get to show what they’re worth, and if they don’t take it… Dare I suggest that some of the first team fringers on Tuesday aren’t going to be here next season? The line-up was Jack Turner, Ade Osifuwa, Fraser Franks, Mat Mitchel-King, Gareth Gwillim, Max Porter, Lee Minshull, James Mulley, Ryan Jackson, Brendan Kiernan and Louie Theopanous.

Spot a couple of names? When you read this, you become even less surprised at who’s been axed. Even though the whinging about how low our budget is gets on my tits, we can’t afford (in both senses) to carry passengers, and if we’ve got players who knock on the door asking for chances and they don’t take them, then the only people they’ve got to blame are themselves.

Some more questions pop up. Why no defenders? The rumour mill was suggesting Brett Johnston was amongst the cullees, but he’s still our player. Why is Jamie Stuart still with us? Or [insert player you don't like or rate here]? Does TB even care about the defence?

As tempting as it is, we can’t get rid of 11 players midway during the season. I do wonder why we kept Jamie Stuart, although he’s the captain and is maybe seen as “a leader”, and might get a bit more help if he had a better midfield. He might not be too bad as a benchwarmer.

There may be more changes on the way anyway, if this kind of thing starts to happen. A loanee or two in addition to the signings we look likely to make is going to make the likes of Sam Hatton uncomfortable. Whether you think somebody like Connor McLaren is too young and/or inexperienced isn’t so much the issue, it’s the message being sent out to some senior players.

You start to wonder if people like Hatton are now on notice from now until the end of the season. Assuming we stay up, there’s likely to be big changes anyway, and it’s easier to get rid of another five in the close season.

That we’re being linked with C-Mac joining us permanently may be a sign that the long term rebuilding is starting already (which is why the likes of FF and Chris Bush are still here). With regards McNaughton, he does seem to divide opinion – some think he’s a lumbering donkey, while others think he reads the game well and is pretty solid and reliable.

Me, I’m in the latter category with him, and I’d like to see him line up alongside MMK. At least, until MMK injures himself by picking up the remote control that is. That might be enough to at least stabilise us at the back for the rest of the season, which right now is all we want to happen.

Well, that and win a few games on occasion.

Anyway, we still have no signings but there is a great deal of confidence that something is being done – putting five on the transfer list isn’t done lightly, and it now seems a major surprise if something doesn’t happen by Port Vale.

One final thing – the mood seems lifted now, probably because things have actually happened. Just imagine what it would be like if we actually sign a player…

There’s only so many times you can write the same thing over the last eleven games or whatever it is. I was going to ignore the latest meek surrender by a non-league side trying to play in the Football League, but then I remembered this gem from a few years ago.

It’s from Neil Warnock, and while the whole thing is worth watching anyway, if you watch between 6:33 and 6:49 then this is exactly how I feel at the moment :

For those with shit internet connections, swear filters, impatience or for those who don’t speak Northern, here’s a (almost verbatim, apologies for any minor errors) transcript that could easily apply to AFC Wimbledon in 2012:

Warnock: That is the worst half of defending, that’s got to be the worst half of defending, so we’ve got to put them under pressure, haven’t we, and not let them get out. The first goal here, he’s got time…

Player: I know, I know, I know

Warnock: Oh jesus, how many times have we heard “I know I know, I fucking know”?  We don’t want you to know, we want to fucking stop it out here…

Read that transcripted bit again, and with it the bit you might have spotted as well. Poignant in both its simplicity and its relevance…

“We don’t want you to know”.

Right now, whenever I hear a TB interview, or a player speak, or indeed anything to do with AFCW, I have this burst of exasperation by Colin Wanker* in my head. Any interview, any talk of transfer signings, anything to suggest that we really are going to pull out of this shit, and I hear a South Yorkshire voice that has dealt with some thick cunt of a player once too often.

* – for those who have been living under a rock since Doomsday, Colin Wanker is an anagram of Neil Warnock. Yes, really.

Last night, TB said on the OS that he’s got to bring in some experienced players. Now, I don’t doubt his sincerity, and I don’t think he intentionally spins us a yarn most of the time (although I think he does big up transfer dealings to placate the supporters on occasions), but until he actually brings them in and we see their cheesy grin on the OS (er…) I find it hard to believe he’ll do it.

Don’t misunderstand me, I want to be proven wrong big time on this, but his transfer dealings in the summer – and his admittance before Swindon that he got turned down by a player within hours of the window opening – don’t inspire me right now. It’s fair to say that with the exception of Jack Midson (and possibly GG and MMK if they weren’t so permanently crocked), his signings didn’t improve the squad.

That was probably sheer naievity on his part though. I suspect a manager with more Football League experience (as in, somebody who has actually managed there before) wouldn’t have signed Max Porter, Ademeno, Chris Bush and possibly James Mulley too, and would have got rid of Jamie Stuart as well.

As Wanker may have put it, I don’t want TB to know he’s got to change the squad, I want him to go and do it.

The players got a little bit of stick on Twatter yesterday, and needless to say they didn’t particularly like it. Yes, because we really enjoy going however many games without a victory, don’t we? Sounds like a few egos got a bit dented somehow. In fact, Kieran D wrote the following:

If u don’t believe in me and my team-mates UNFOLLOW me!!

I’m sure he’ll be devastated to find out I’m not following him any more. Ditto all the other players…

See, Warnock’s quote applies to our current squad most of all. In fact, I can imagine a few of them being told a few home truths about their play by TB in a dressing room and them muttering “I know I know I know”. A cursory glance at our results suggests that they don’t.

While the jury is still out on TB being a Football League manager, we can safely reach a verdict on the squad. It’s not good enough. It didn’t seem to learn at all from the opening ten games about concentration and making individual mistakes. Once it lost the element of surprise in the division, and it had to rely on its collective talent, it went backwards.

This squad has collectively failed to make the step up to League football. Its high point was on a sunnyish day at Eastlands on the 21st May 2011, and it’s never been that high since. True, we lost DK and Gregory, and Mo, and it’s TB’s fault that he still hasn’t adequately replaced two of them (at time of writing), but its time has been and gone.

One could argue that getting promoted – and a few early season bits of luck – went to their head too. Perhaps part of the reason why we’re lacking in confidence is that having reached what they thought was footballing immortality, they’ve since been found out and are possibly thinking they’ll never reach that perfect equilibrium of May 2011 again?

Which to be honest, they won’t. Squads can and do reach a sell-by date, and ours got reached in the middle of October (I would say that the same would have happened in the Conference had Luton gone up instead of us, albeit taken a bit longer). It’s now obvious that this squad needs to be broken up, and fresh blood put in.

But I’ll go one step further – it deserves to be broken up. Many of these players have had one of the very few chances they’ll ever get to play in the Football League, and some simply haven’t taken it. As Roy Keane said in his autobiography, nobody is irreplacable, especially him.

I saw Aldershot v Plymouth on the day of us surrendering to Southend, and I can’t see a lot of our squad making even Argyle’s bench. Assuming we do get some players in, some will inevitably get shipped out, and I’d be very interested to see who signs them. Look at the ones we culled in the summer (as opposed to the ones we cashed in on) and where they ply their trade now. Can you even name where most of them ended up?

If we buy properly this month – and as said earlier, it’s a pretty big “if” – then all we will remember some of the current squad for is Eastlands. We’ll get some new heroes in, especially if they make an immediate impact, and we start getting excited about AFC Wimbledon : Football League version.

And yes, it is the end of an era now, and of course that’s always going to be bittersweet. I’m sure we all wanted the people who gave us that great day in May 2011 to give us more. But it’s not meant to be now, and it may have taken the last two months for the majority of fans to accept it, albeit reluctantly.

So we move on, and one senses that we’re in put-up-or-shut-up mode now. The vibe since we lost yesterday feels different, certainly different to other post-game vibes within the last few weeks, as though there really is the current QPR manager yelling in our ear.

Who should we sign? The rumour mill is speculating a right back from Chelski, which is probably wide of the mark. As if Terry Brown would ever sign a defender. But even just three or four (regularly starting) experienced players will likely have a positive effect on us.

Despite everything written about in the past two months, we do have some decent players in Jack Midson, Seb Brown and Sammy Moore, together with “put them in a decent side and they’ll be better” like MMK, Jolley and possibly Wellard.

If we can add another four (preferably six, but realistically that won’t happen at this time of year unless we get in loanees), that should stabilise us, get some much needed confidence under our belt and help dilute the very real problems we have currently. I believe we need to do a lot of rebuilding in the summer anyway, and that might mean looking at TB’s tenure, but our priority from now until May is staying in the Football League.

If the club reads this (and I know it does on occasions, usually to tell me that I’m talking bollocks), I suggest you stop TB saying anything about transfers until they’re signed. There’s a useful two-week cooling off period now, and it feels like the longer fans get promised something that never happens the more irritable the mood gets.

The next time I update this site, bar it being a new ground back home, I want it to be announcing the first of a decent signing that will make a difference. At the very least, somebody whose stats you can look at and think “OK, this guy has done it in League 1/2…”. Terry Brown can talk all he wants about getting experience in, but he’s yet to do it.

Just as importantly, if he does find somebody then the club must back him up. We got a reasonable enough transfer fee for both Kedwell and Gregory, and it sounds as though we held off spending more money in August simply to use it in January 2012. That time has come now, and we need things to happen. Not talked about, not dreamed about, actually done.

In other words, I don’t want to know that AFC Wimbledon has to change to stay in the Football League…

To  be honest, I’m in two minds whether to write something after JP’s critique of our latest loss. I wasn’t going to, but….

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Out with a whimper, not a bang… but better?

I went yesterday without expectations of a win. And so I guess I wasn’t disappointed. If your expectations are low you cannot be too let down. But in the end I was and for a variety of reasons. Not least because we got very little luck and it felt: What if 1 What was 4.

Having survived an atrocious penalty decision inside 3 mins, we contrived to hit back and get our noses in front due to a defensive error and decisive finish by Midson. Cue about 15 mins of really good play where we caused them more problems than we have against teams at home for quite a while. But then came a raft of disappointments and, some would say bad luck…

- We lost the lead after a strange decision went against Midson in a 50-50 tussle: the ref called Stuart up whilst he lectured Midson – did concentration get lost with Stuart summoned up field? Subsequently, they went down the other end and despite copious cover the cross – that normally would go out for a corner – ballooned up over the goal, wrong-footing Seb who could only palm it into the Southend player’s path. 1-1

- Losing momentum then, we then had Jolley – who had been struggling to get into the game – diving in two-footed. I thought red card. Others confirmed. Now we were going to struggle

- Starting the 2nd half in a defensive mindset you could see chances coming. The 2nd goal again involved no competition for the ball, from the half-way line to the edge of the box, our defenders so deep and on top of each other its not surprising again more missed tackles and a deflected shot leads to a second goal off Stuart. Again, the run of the ball against us.

- Southend now adopted the ‘pepper the box’ with crosses. With a player advantage, us happy to play on the edge of our box, cross after cross came in. 3-4 Southend players encamped as well so no surprise one free header leads to the third goal and surrender by body language.

- Their fourth? Sums it up really, when it can go wrong it will – clearing header hits another of our players and rebounds to set a Southend player free to lob Seb to take an undeserved 4-1.

So what now for TB? Well, this was not another Accrington or Oxford type game otherwise I’d have written – see previous! There were undoubtedly improvements, mainly in confidence when we went 1-0 up but the old problems still exist. The personnel may have changed but not the way we play.

One new observation yesterday for me though, was how when Southend attacked the midfield seemed to split – 2 went to support, 2 remained further back. With ours it always seemed to be 4 up or 4 back. And 4 back seemed to cause confusion as to who’s responsibility a ball might be.

The January window of transfer opportunity might be our salvation. It might not. Some players excel at one club, fail at another. Can TB find that golden nugget to gel things? Personally, I think our problems are just fundamental in terms of the formation we play and where on the pitch we play it.

I’ve never been a great tactician but I feel a simple 4-4-2 with players playing in positions they are comfortable in (left side players on the left for example) and playing the defensive line further up the pitch will make an immediate improvement. I have yet to see any forward player from a L2 side with absolute blistering pace unhinge our defence -or Jolley or Jackson, probably our fastest two – do likewise. If you are that fast and good you are not playing League 2!

So 23 games in, and 1 point ahead of that 50pt safety target. Will repeating that be enough I wonder? I hope so but I am not so sure. Here’s to a normal WFC surge in the second half of a season!!

Plus points: Seb Brown’s penalty save. Sammy Moore, MMK and Jack Midson. A bit of confidence and better when we went one up. A goal. A Midson goal too. Realistic substitutions this time.

Minus points: Jolley’s tackle. Defensive line too deep. Defensive mindset giving the momentum to the opposition at the start of the 2nd half. Apart from Midson and Mulley the air of resignation in the team at 3-1 down. Hatton’s form and demeanour. Is he injured or just being bloody lazy chasing back at the mo?

The referee’s a… : The slang for a female reproduction organ is too good for this guy. Apart from the red card for Jolley (which everyone near to the incident agreed was right) his decision-making was appalling from the first minute. The Hatton penalty never was and resulted from him being behind play. Did he consult his linesman who must have seen Hatton play the ball away before the Southend player fell over his extended foot? No. Obviously another ref full of his self-importance that believes linesmen are only there for offside and throw-ins. That operational arrangement being allowed, or encouraged is as much to the detriment to the game as the poor level of officiating in general. Refereeing really does have the air of dead man’s shoes – like teachers they rarely get sacked.

Them: Solid League 2 outfit again that, if you think they were 3rd and we were 17th at the start of play, were no great shakes. Indeed when 1-0 up they looked the inferior side and with 11 men we could have managed a draw at least, if not the win. However, their direct ‘get it into the box’ style certainly paid dividends when they imposed their 2nd half advantage. A lesson there for us I feel. More men in the box and get the crosses in. Not fanny about with it. Look what did happen when we got a ball into the box unexpectedly. Southend player, poor control, runs to Midson, volley bottom corner. Result.

Point to ponder: At half time, I wrote in my notes ‘Worthy of 1-1.’ I also wrote ‘Find out about the rest of our season?’ Well, it doesn’t look too promising does it?

But it does strike me, the more I watch and hear from others the more there seems to be a displacement in the personnel and positions they play. For me this is so perfectly illustrated with James Mulley. I am a fan: I’ve wondered why he’s always been on the edge of the team. Apart from possibly Sammy Moore, is there another true box-to-box midfielder at AFCW? So why play him at left wing (or left side when he is right-footed?).

Someone suggested right back for him as a challenger to Sam Hatton. I can see the logic. But are we again negating his talent to shore up a deficiency in another player? By doing we become a team of averages, not excellence. Midson’s talent is to score goals. Seb’s to save them. Sammy Moore to breakdown attacks and set us going. Wellard to find that through ball. Toks to run at teams. Each and every player you can categorise and put into a box. The boxes are in the wrong order in the pyramid that makes up the team at present I fear.

Three’s a crowd: 4529 which contained 724 of them. Pretty quiet from what I heard. However it has been reported that as the Tempest support streamed out in droves early, they were heard to chant something like ‘Didn’t know there was a fire drill.’ Point taken.

Anything else? It was always going to be the case that Ryan Hall of Southend was going to be targeted after his ‘ungentlemanly conduct’ in scoring ‘that goal’ when he played for Bromley, and subsequent imprisonment. Not surprisingly he was the player involved in the Hatton penalty and then got booked for celebrating too much. What did get missed (or probably ignored by the ref who gave SU all the 50-50 challenges) was the foot left in on Seb shortly after, and pushing over MMK after a fair challenge.

Now, there are two thoughts on barracking a player – you put him off, or you fire him up. Certainly Hall was wound up but it also made him play quite well. It was him there to pop in their first goal and it may have been him who shot for their second goal.

Personally, I am not a fan of barracking – it comes back to bite you. I always remember Peter Crouch –at QPR in Selhurst Days – being the perfect example of it going wrong – 25 mins of calling him ‘Freak’ followed by him scoring the opening goal and them winning. I know it’s for each person but I wish we didn’t do it. Why incur the wrath of revenge as well when things aren’t going you way?

Did Hatton go into midfield for the last 5 minutes of the game and we went 3 at the back or was it just a case he got lost? The guy seriously does look not to be with it at the moment.

What do people think about playing offside? Something we don’t do, primarily because we play so deep. Noticed the Southend players appealed everything. Don’t mind a call if you play to the whistle but a number of times when they broke it just needed the defender to hold his ground to allow their player to go way offside. But we didn’t and don’t. Just dropped back and played them back on

Jolley’s Dad was saying the tackle was a yellow. Good support there from your dad Christian, even if it was ‘rose-coloured.’

In a nutshell: Well we haven’t lost in 2012… yet (best positive spin I can find at the moment

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I’ve got to be honest, I can’t wait until 24 hours time when we can finally get the Swindon match over. Work calls for me again, but I wouldn’t blame anyone deciding to give tomorrow a miss. After all, £25 to no doubt see Jamie “Undroppable” Stuart and co devise new and cunning ways of managing to fuck up a game is a tad much to ask…

While I never want to lose a game, I’ve got to say that I won’t be too disheartened if we do go on and get stuffed in deepest Wiltshire. I’m not sure if it’s because of this opening paragraph, but I can’t help thinking that a win tomorrow will somehow soften up TB and what he has to do with this squad.

And now the excuses must end. While yesterday sounded more down to Christian Jolley’s immaturity and the usual defensive frailties, we must draw a line under the season just gone and start again. From now until May, we work to be in this division next season. Signings must reflect that – “ones for the future” are no good at this time, we have enough of them as it is. Ditto signings from Dover or Woking or just about any club in the Conference (unless they’re from the legit playoff contenders, and even then I have my doubts…).

Terry Brown has this month to prove he belongs in the Football League, and so does AFC Wimbledon. It’s no good hiding away from this challenge, trying to convince yourself we’re overachieving because we’ve supposedly got the fourth smallest budget in the division. I’m not sure how true that ever was anyway – our budget in the Conference was bigger than Grimsby in League Two (and they had to pay more to get in players because it’s in the arse end of the country), and I always link to Cheltenham having a smaller one than us whenever this comes up…

Think small, act small, you end up small and irrelevant. AFCW is at its best when it ignores this, so why are some people so keen to regress? We’re better than what we’re showing right now, both on the pitch and off it. Or at least should be.

So, who to get in? At around this time of year, the rumour mill starts up with its mixture of plausible and outlandish theories. Sometimes it’s both, like us signing Marcus Bent. Whoever we get in though, we need to start doing it as early in the month as possible. We know that TB is claiming that a striker could be on their way within a matter of days, although I won’t believe it until said player gets injured within the first week he’s here.

[EDIT: About 30 minutes after I wrote this, TB said the following on the OS:

"I had hoped to be announcing a new striker in time for tomorrow's game, but we've gone from being confident we were going to get a deal, to suddenly not getting our calls returned. That's a shame but we need to move on and so I regard that deal as gone."

Sounds like a bit of gazumping has gone on. I hope this doesn't become something we hear a lot of this month, although one suspects we will...]

While writing this, Scott Davis has been linked to us, although whether it’s a 2+2=5 situation is unclear. But those sort of players will do a job for us, and know what the Football League is about. If these sort of rumours are even remotely true then at least we’re looking at the right level of player and not Lee Minshull types.

There’s also Chinese whispers of loanees coming in from Championship and Premiership sides. Providing they’re good ones, I have absolutely no problem with us doing that for this season. Many clubs in our division do this, and we do it already with C-Mac. While signing your own is better, the loan market is a mutually beneficial one. Besides, it might mean a new signing in the summer or two who knows the squad? See Gareth Gwillim.

As for players on the out list…… To be honest, when one reads a few Twitter postings by our players, you get the impression there’s an element of being demob happy. Going on about decent training sessions and “bantz” (theory : the more a player goes on about dressing room banter the shittier they are) may make good reading on a Tweet but when you go eleven games without winning it does become a bit irritating to look at.

Some players may be in for a nasty shock this month, but it’s not like they haven’t been warned. Maybe that’s why this Xmas period has been even shittier than before? Perhaps the players deep down know they won’t be together much longer and as such it doesn’t really matter that much? Sure, there’s professional pride and the reality of finding a new club, but there’s currently a feel of the dying days of the first Conference season where everyone couldn’t wait for it to finish.

Tomorrow could be a swansong for some players in an AFCW shirt, and in some cases it should be one too. For those punishing themselves at Swindon, have a look at the end and see who stays out clapping the fans the longest – it might be telling…

One other thing I’ve noticed recently – it seems some don’t seem happy at others calling for TB’s head. The thing is, when you’re 11 games without a win, and playing piss poorly, you have to be pretty bloody naive or ignorant not to expect some calls for a sacking. Whether it would be the right course of action or not is irrelevant – IMO it isn’t – but we are not immune from being football supporters.

Our manager may use the transfer window to prove the doubters wrong, and because of that I think TB is getting a relatively easy ride right now. No guarantee it will last much longer, our fans have only so much patience, but I bet Paul Buckle wishes Bristol Rovers fans were as tolerant as our lot.

If we are to keep TB, I hope it’s for the right reasons. By that, I mean we have faith in him doing well in the transfer market, getting the best out of those who he gets in and demonstrates his past aptitude for (eventually) adapting to the division he’s in. He might not need to do anything he hasn’t done before with regards to culling squads.

If people want him to stay because he got us into the FL from the Ryman Prem, or because they remember a day last May in Manchester, then that’s wanting him to stay for the wrong reasons. It becomes Jon Main Syndrome, whereby you keep somebody on for sentimental reasons and not whether they can do the job any more.

Is TB out of his depth? He now has a month to prove he isn’t. He may succeed, he may also fail. But he has the chance to do so. And for those who feel it’s extremely unfair to be talking about his job in this manner, remember that WFC got rid of Allen Batsford in the first League campaign of 1977…