Ryan Greenaway, Fan Blogger, 27th January 2010
Oh dear.
After the joy of last week we seemed to have been left with one of those pounding headaches that only comes from one of your best nights out on the town.
Carlisle were pretty rank opposition last night, as was shown in the second half when we finally rolled our sleeves up and started playing. Their answer was a simple hoof up the field that our defence and goalkeeper dealt with easily.
If we had started the game with the sort of verve, tempo and tenacity that we built up through the second half we would never have been 2 down, and the game would most likely have been out of sight. Those first 45 minutes smacked of "Leeds hangover" to me, and if we don't get on the Nurofen (other Ibuprofen and Paracetemol products are available) soon, that hangover will drag us into a very nasty relegation fight.
As it stands we have our heads above water, whether that's the case when the games in hand start levelling out remains to be seen. The best thing that could happen to us, if Tisdale can't get them up and at the opposition from the off, is for us to slip into the relegation zone within the next couple of games, as that might give some of the players the kick up the backside that is needed to start going at it for 90 minutes.
We had a distinct lack of quality for the whole of last night, yet due to lots of huffing and puffing we still managed to haul ourselves back into the game, that just shows that even when we don't play as well as we can, we still have the right attitude, and enough ability to force a win in a match, IF we maintain that attitude for 90 minutes!
I'm not being all doom and gloom here, and I still believe we will find the answer in time, maybe replay the old motivational DVD from the start of the season, maybe show them a picture of a dump like Plainmoor to remind the players of what the opposition might look like if they don't get their act together.
Too many of them appear to have enjoyed the trips to the big stadiums, the packed crowds and being in the spotlight a bit too much and have forgotten what they need to do on a cold Tuesday night at the park, or at one of the less glamorous footballing venues in this league, like Huish Park. It's factors like this that lead to the sort of individual mistakes that we saw last night and cost three valuable points.
We can't assume individual mistakes will go away, and things will be fine, these must be eradicated, and for forty minutes or so last night we did just that when we had the right attitude.
Against some of the classier opposition in the league, having the right attitude may not cut it, and we will need to play better than we did, but you would hope, as we did against Leeds, we would up our game against that opposition, however against 50% of this league we are good enough to play with 100% determination, 100% positivity and 100% tempo, and win even if the overall quality of our play is only around 50%.
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