After dropping to ten points adrift of survival some fortunate away wins have dragged us back within six points of faltering Fulham and Rotherham. If only we could develop some home form we might have a chance of getting out the mire and living to fight another year in the Championship.
The visit of Watford on Tuesday saw the extension of our dismal home form as the last four home games have seen us fail to score and fail to win even a single point. Perhaps most stark during that period has been the standard of the football on display.
We spend the duration of the first forty-five minutes working hard to stay in the game with our back nine players chasing shadows to keep the score at 0-0. All the while we have Leon Clarke and Marc Antoine Fortune swanning around up top and looking woefully disinterested.
Once the away side find the back of the net our attacking play gets increasingly desperate with every passing minute and the frequency of the long balls increases. We quickly deteriorate into a non-league kick and run outfit playing in the vein hope that the ball may fortuitously drop for us in the opposing penalty area.
The games against Cardiff, Charlton, and Leeds have all followed the same pattern with varying degrees of desperation. When things get really distressed we put Harry Maguire up top and the whole debacle descends into a pantomime show.
Since his appointment back in November Malky Mackay has taken our club backwards. He has failed to motivate some high quality players and then shipped them out in January to be replaced by a motley crew of assorted loanees.
There is little by way of cohesion in his managerial decisions. Against Watford, the decision to substitute Ojo for Kvist was farcical and saw us end up with Bo-kyung stuck out wide having no influence on the game, whilst Kvist and Perch kept Maguire and Pearce company as we adopted a four-centre-back approach. All the while our best attacking player, Ojo, was back in the changing rooms finishing his homework.
How this was supposed to see us get back in the game one will never know. Rather it was damage limitation on the goal difference front.
Then there was the decision to play Clarke for the duration of the game despite the Wolves loanee failing to look interested from his first kick of the ball (if he managed to touch it). All the while we had two England under 20 internationals sat on the bench as the 30 year old journeyman frolicked around as if it were a Sunday afternoon in Mesnes Park.
Once Sinclair and Murphy made their way onto the pitch it was too late. Our comedic punt and hope approach had taken over andboth players looked bemused at events as Sinclair in particular, standing at 5 foot 8, was asked to challenge in the air against players standing half a foot taller than him. Even Lionel Messi couldn’t have saved the game for us with this approach.
Post game Mackay stuck his chest out and proudly pronounced his pride at the display of his team who after four home games without a goal and a point were doing everything possible. The man has lost the plot and is deluded. He is single-handedly dragging us down into the championship and needs to be replaced yesterday.
Who to replace him? Anyone!
Emmerson Boyce for manager until the summer. He will have the backing of the players and supporters, and hopefully adopt a style of play were we have a slight chance of finding the opposition net.
@wiganerdotnet